Pretended Synonyms

On Christmas Eve, my uncle, Adam Stewart, took a sip of the expensive wine I bought and pointed at me, laughing. "A child’s nature really shows early. When she was little, she wet the bed. Now that she's all grown up, she's working as a content creator in her parents' store. "She can't compare to my daughter, Erin Stewart, who has a secure job with guaranteed income. Because you're running a small business, your family will starve if you were to come across the smallest hurdle!" All the relatives at the dining table laughed. Erin pretended to play with her phone, but she was grinning. My parents just smiled politely, at a loss for what to do. I looked icily at Uncle Adam. There were still six hours before the ice apocalypse arrived and the global zombie crisis broke out. In my previous life, Uncle Adam, who always looked down on us, pushed my entire family into the zombie horde to seize my parents' supermarket. This time, I would not let him get away with it. I had just grabbed the plate, ready to smash it over Uncle Adam's head, when a crisp notification rang in my mind. "Ding! Rage Points System has been bound. The host can obtain resources by retaliating. The more shameless you are, the stronger you become!" Looking at Uncle Adam's smug face, I laughed. "Yeah, I don't know anything, but I just recalled something. Uncle Adam, you were arrested by the anti-prostitution squad when you went to Los Anglos on a business trip eight years ago, weren't you? Does Aunt Leanne know about this?"

When I opened my eyes once more, Flora was holding me tightly. I had secretly loved her for a decade. Her warm lips kissed my neck, telling me not to leave. This time, I pushed her away and told the butler to send her to her first love's home. Her first love was Sean Graham. In my last life, Flora drank so much that she was drunk during the celebration organized for me to celebrate me for getting an overseas college's offer letter. After the celebration, I didn't refuse her when she wanted me to stay, and that wild night came to pass. The next morning, when Sean saw me coming out of Flora's bedroom, he pretended to be amiable and said he would make our wish come true despite the darkness in his eyes. Then, he disappeared for about one month. In the end, we found a blood-stained necktie in the mountains and the skeletal remains that had been feasted on by wild animals. Flora didn't sleep for an entire night as she held Sean's necktie in her hand. After that, it was like the discovery hadn't affected her at all, as she still passionately planned for my birthday trip. But that very night during the trip, I was abducted. I begged the kidnappers to beg Flora to pay the ransom, but I heard her personally give the orders. "Don't let him die too easily. He's just some scum of the earth. Do whatever you want with him. When you're done, dump him in the Northern Barrens and clean things up. He owes Sean this much!" Flora, I'm done playing by your rules this time around.

At the New Year’s team-building event, the intern, Lilith Woods, did not obtain my approval and changed our suburban trip to a seven-day tour of Baline. “Mr. Lucian Stone, I hear a change of scenery can really spice things up. Don’t lock up tonight. I’ll come by for a deep dive into our collaboration.” She pretended to be drunk and fell into my arms while slipping the room key into my pocket in the process. To avoid suspicion, I did not return to the hotel. However, in the middle of the night, the police called me in for questioning—someone had reported a dine-and-dash. Only then did I realize that the reserved budget of $100,000 for the accommodation had long since been exceeded. Lilith had upgraded their room to a presidential suite, feasted on high-end seafood buffets, and even used company funds to buy luxury handbags! When I showed up at their private room, the interns were still casually taking king crabs and several unopened bottles of the Macallan Whisky with them. “Mr. Stone, you’re just in time. Could you please settle the bill?” Lilith looked utterly righteous as she said this with a grin. “Young people like us make mistakes, while adults help to pay the price. You’re not exactly short on cash, anyway. Just think of it as buying my happiness.” I stared at the $700,000 bill and paid it in silence. The next day, the payment invoices made their grand entrance in the group chat, accompanied by my pinned message. [Upon financial review, this team-building event does not meet reimbursement criteria. All expenses will be shared equally among the seven participants.] [Each person will need to pay $100,000, payable immediately. If payment needs to be deferred, please print the proof and submit it to the President’s Office.]

Perfection was the curse. I was born into wealth, beauty, influence, and a family empire that stretched across continents. People envied my life, not knowing it was nothing more than a gilded prison. The only thing that ever felt real was ballet, the passion my parents forbade because it brought them no power, no profit, no leverage. My parents; greedy, ambitious, unfillable, hid their cruelty beneath luxury. And on my eighteenth birthday, they revealed the ultimate betrayal. I was engaged to a powerful man twice. . . no, three times my age. A man feared across Europe. A man whose hands were stained with secrets the world pretended not to see. They sold me to strengthen an alliance. So I ran. Barefoot, shaking, heartbroken. I stole one of our visitor's chopper and fled to Sicily, thinking distance could save me. I thought I escaped the monsters who owned my life. But I only ran into a darker one. Because Sicily is his territory; Aldrick Moretti, the shadow king of the Italian underworld. Cold. Untouchable. Beautiful in the most devastating way. The man people whisper about as if speaking his name is a sin. A man with eyes that see through lies. . . including mine. And the moment he found me trespassing on his land, bleeding, terrified, and wearing the remnants of a runaway bride. . . He didn’t return me. He didn’t free me. He claimed me. Not as a business deal. Not as an alliance. But as something far more dangerous. He became my captor, my protector, my obsession, and the forbidden flame I should never have touched. Because in his world, love is not tender. It’s a weapon. And I am the sacrifice wrapped in a veil he refuses to let go.

There was a fire in my house. After I risked my life to save my parents, who were the richest people in the country, multiple media outlets wanted to interview me. Faced with the journalists' questions, my parents said that they would fulfill any of my wishes. Their adopted daughter, Lily Jackson, thought that I would use this chance to drive her away, and her eyes had begun to turn red. But I just looked at the camera and said coldly, "I want to sever all ties with the Jackson family, and I want all of you to be witnesses of my decision." The crowd went into an uproar. My parents were infuriated. The journalists wanted to ask some more questions, but I just started packing my luggage. Only I was aware that I was reborn. During my previous life, I took the chance of this interview to drive Lily out of the family. Not long after she was taken away by her biological parents, they sold her to a man, and she died a terrible death within her husband's house. My parents pretended like they didn't care and said to me that it was Lily's fate, but in truth, they secretly started poisoning my food. After the poison killed me, they placed my body in front of Lily's grave in a position as if I was on my knees and apologizing to her. They made me pay for Lily's death with my life. "If you hadn't driven Lily away, Lily wouldn't have met such a terrible fate! You should pay for what happened to her with your life!" That was the last thing I heard, and I became completely disappointed with them. But when I opened my eyes again, I realized I was reborn and went back to the day of the fire.

“Touch your toes for me, my sweet girl.” “You're supposed to be off-limits," I breathed. "And yet—" he tilted my chin up, "—you keep finding reasons to be alone with me.” One night. One stranger. One catastrophic secret. Madison Greymond has spent years being the good daughter, careful, loyal, invisible. So when she lets herself have one reckless night with a dangerously attractive stranger, she tells herself it means nothing. Until her mother slides a diamond ring onto her finger and introduces the man she's going to marry. Derek Salvador. The man whose hands Madison still dreams about. The man who looked at her like she was the only thing worth having and apparently decided her mother was the better bet. Now he's sitting at their dinner table. Sleeping down the hall. Watching Madison with dark eyes, while she's supposed to smile and forget. She knows it's wrong. She knows what's at stake. But desire doesn't care about right and wrong and Derek has never pretended to play by the rules. The closer he gets, the harder Madison fights. The harder she fights, the more she wants to surrender. Her mother's happiness. Her own sanity. A secret that grows more dangerous with every stolen glance, every accidental touch, every moment alone where the line between forbidden and inevitable gets harder to find. Someone always finds out. The only question is….how long can a secret survive when two people can barely resist each other?

At the age of 25, Manik lost his parents in a tragic accident and forced to move with his step uncle’s family who treated him like their son. He was okay with it, after all he was getting a family after his parents. But problems arise when his step sister started to grow feelings for him and didn’t forget to prove and confess it to him in every possible occasion. He wanted to stop her but he himself had fallen for her harder before her. At the mere age of 16, Nandini met her step brother Manik who moved with them after his parents’ death. At the beginning, she was bothered about a unknow guy moving in with them but when she met him, her thoughts changed and something attracted her towards him more even when he ignored as if she didn’t exist. Still, it couldn’t stop her from falling for her brother. He is unbelievably hot, but there are so many things made him fall for him. Maybe the depth in his eyes or the way he looked at her often. When Nandini confessed her feelings to Manik, he started treating her worst with the fear and respect he had for her parents. Nandini will forget him and move on, if he didn’t reciprocate, that’s what he thought but his plan backfired when Nandini planned to make him jealous and her plan worked. “I should have realized earlier, the way his chocolate brown eyes stared at me, the way he hugged me a little longer than usual though pretended to be unintentionally, the way his eyes spoke thousand words louder than his lips that my step brother too was in love with me.” “I should not let her feelings grow. It's forbidden. Illicit!”

Dark.SensitiveContent.D/s.MAFIA ROMANCE.CEO/Billiomaire Mila(Carmella) I ran away. I did it. Left everything I knew so I could just live my life without the future that promised hell on earth. Now all I have to do was hide so noone from back home finds me.But did I really left the hell behind? Because no, the new job I got comes with Boss that’s devil incarnate and he sure knows how to make my life hell. The problem with him was, as much as I wanted to kill him, I also wanted to look into those grey eyes and find all his secrets.To tell him how much of an arsehôle he is, and then maybe kiss him a little,forgetting the fact that he was dangerous. But I couldn’t help the attraction to his untouchable beauty, knowing I’d be the one getting hurt and killed. Jonathan Nothing in life comes easy and I learned that the hard way. But when my new secretary managed to stay more than two weeks I knew that something was not right. And for someone like me-a man leading a double life, if something is too good then it’s the worst thing waiting to happen. Proving me right, I received an email directly from the source. The little nerdy girl wasn’t as boring and submissive as she pretended to be. There’s a wide world of fantasies she’s hiding inside that head of hers which includes me. But this isn’t it. I've only uncovered half of what she’s hiding. There’s more lot to my little secretive secretary. And our worlds might not be as different as she thought .Because she came running right through the door she wanted to exit.

Clara Blake. That's me. The normal girl everyone barely noticed until my step dad Carl decided that I needed to be his personal punching bag. Everyone knew yet they never decided to do anything about it or help me out of my misery and get me away from this horrid man. Mum never knew or she pretended not to see anything. I mean she was in love with Carl and after dad I probably couldn't blame her. You see dad went away to serve his country and not long after we received a death letter ,as they call it, telling us that he had been lost to war. It wasn't long after the letter about dad had come before Carl had moved into mum's life and they got married. We were a normal happy family up until I had turned six. I remember it like it was yesterday. He came into my room after mum went to bed and he just started hitting me. Never where it would be too obvious seen. When we received the letter from dad that he was coming home after all I was ecstatic. He was going to come and save me from this hell hole that I was in. Unfortunately Carl also saw the letter and that night he had decided that he would end me as it would be my fault for everything as I sent the letter to make my mother sad and cry. My best friend telling me he loves me and dad coming back made my head spin. Joining the FBI as an agent was fun and all until being kidnapped and rescued by a very handsome prince charming. Follow along and join me on my story of my chaotic and drama filled life both in love and work.

She fell in love with a lie. Elena Cross has nothing. No money, no safety net, no parents left to call. She has a voice that stops rooms and a stubborn refusal to let the world win. When she meets Danny Miller, a quiet sound engineer with sad eyes and steady hands, she does the one thing she swore she wouldn't do: she trusts him. He falls for her too. For her fire. Her music. The way she fights for her little brother and refuses help from anyone. Danny Miller wanted someone to love him without knowing his last name. Because his last name is Ashford. As in Ashford Global Industries. As in billions. When the truth explodes in public, his family goes to war. Not against him. Against her. His mother smiles for the cameras while orchestrating Elena's destruction. His brother, who wants Daniel erased from the inheritance, uses Elena as the weapon. A famous ex-girlfriend pretends to help while twisting the knife. Elena loses her career, her home, her reputation, and the man she loved in the same week. She discovers she's pregnant in the wreckage. She runs. She rebuilds from silence. She turns her pain into songs that millions hear. Daniel walks away from everything to find her. No money. No name. No family. He becomes the nothing she always was, searching for the woman who loved him when he pretended to be nobody. But his brother has one final lie: he tells the world the baby is his. Now Elena and Daniel have to fight an empire, a public scandal, and every person who ever tried to keep them apart. Some love stories are fairy tales. This one is a war.