The Simpsons The Way We Was

This is a thrilling and suspenseful romance story of a young adult guy by name Joshua who falls in love with the nanny his mom hired to take care of his younger sister - keeping his affair with her a secret, away from the prying eyes of his parents until something happens that threatens to reveal him.

I know that I don't have much time left after getting poisoned by wolfsbane. I don't want to have any regrets, so I travel to the Sacred Crystal Lake, a place I have always wanted to visit. I don't tell anyone that I plan to end my life there. I didn't expect to run into my ex-mate there. We haven't seen each other in ten years. He has become the Alpha that he has always wanted to be, and he's wearing a ring that has another she-wolf's name engraved on it. As for me, I've already thrown away our token of love and erased him from my heart. We're exchanging pleasantries when he suddenly asks, "Do you still hate me, Giselle?" I shake my head. My life is about to end, after all. I don't need to hold on to anything anymore. In the last moments of my life, I just want to see the sea of irises that the Moon Goddess has blessed.

My superior loved tricking me into wearing tight-fitting pencil skirts to serve wine to sleazy clients while sticking close to them. Then, she would hint that I was single and a valid target while she excitedly waited for the clients to make a move on me. It was all in the name of checking the integrity of the clients and whether they were worthy business partners or not. The moment a client fell for it, she would rush over with righteous anger and throw wine in their faces. Then, she would lecture me with a voice heavy with anguish. “Do you lack money so much that you’d throw your dignity away just for better results?” She would trample all over my dignity to set up her image as a refined, noble woman. This time, she even prepared a gown with a super low neckline and pushed me to serve a client with a rich and powerful background. She threatened me by saying that if I did not go, she would deduct my bonus for three whole months of full attendance. But when I saw the familiar, cold man sitting in the seat of honor, it was my turn to laugh. If my brother saw me serving wine in this kind of dress, I did not doubt that by tomorrow, the company would be under my name.

I was born broken. My Alpha mother was the one who branded me. She said emotion was a sin. A weakness. Especially for a werewolf. Especially for an Alpha’s heir. The day we were born, she clamped emotion-suppressing collars around our necks. Mine and my twin sister's. The slightest flicker of emotion, and the collar flashed red. My mother would then push the button, injecting me with a diluted "silver solution" to suppress my feelings. But my sister Cassia's collar? Always a calm, steady blue. Even when she shattered Mom's precious moonstone, it just pulsed gently. And me? I’d just whisper, "Mom, the thunder scares me," and my collar would erupt in a violent red. Then came the sting of silver poison burning through my blood.. I used to argue. But Mom always said the same thing. "The data doesn't lie. Pain is a teacher. This is for your own good." After thousands of these injections, I started to believe it, too. That I was born out of control. The night of the alliance's Moon Goddess Festival, Mom was taking my sister to the rooftop party. Something scared me during the day. The collar flashed red, and my mother started the punishment. But this time, the collar malfunctioned. It shot a dose a thousand times stronger into my neck. I collapsed on the carpet, begging, "Mother, the collar... it hurts so much... help me." My collar was flashing a frantic red. My mother just looked down at me, drenched in a cold sweat, and pressed the button for the maximum dose. "You'd lose control like this just for attention? You're a lost cause." She turned, took my sister, and slammed the door. I couldn't help but think, Mom must be right. The collar is red. It doesn't really hurt. I'm just being dramatic, looking for pity again. I'm sorry, Mom. In my next life, I'll be the perfect daughter you always wanted.

Two years ago, as a graduate of Werewolf Medical School, I volunteered to go to the most remote and poorest pack, as it had always been my dream to help werewolf patients in need. I heard from my teacher that the werewolves in the Rogue Pack were the poorest and that their living conditions were the worst. Most of the werewolves there were old and weak, so I volunteered to go to that pack as soon as I graduated. After I arrived, I helped them build an infirmary and even set up a blood station. Every year, I led them in voluntary blood donations. But one time—right after I had taken a short break following a blood donation—they turned on me. They slandered me, calling me a selfish and heartless healer. Worse still, they accused me of faking illness, claiming I was lying comfortably in bed while patients were dying—refusing to lift a finger to save them. Not only that, they stormed into the infirmary, seized all my herbs and equipment, and completely trashed the place I had built for them with my own hands. Recalling the days I had spent day and night healing them—only to see my infirmary destroyed and my dream shattered—I let out a bitter smile. I picked up the phone and called the dean of my home pack. "I'm ready to return," I said. "I want to serve the patients in our own pack." Then, without a trace of regret, I left that place behind. However, after I gave up, the whole pack regretted it and begged me to return.

In order to protect my father, I was tortured for ten hours, but my father was busy celebrating his adopted daughter’s eighteenth birthday. With my dying breath, I called my father and said, “Dad, it’s my birthday today. Could you wish me a happy birthday?” “You crazy monster! You got your mother killed in order to celebrate your birthday! How could you still ask me to celebrate your birthday? You should just die!” With that said, he hung up. The next day, my corpse was placed in different flower pots and put in front of a police station. My father was in charge of inspecting my corpse, and he could immediately tell that the murderer did this for revenge. What they did to me was cruel and made a mockery of the police’s authority. But he did not manage to tell that the deceased was the daughter he hated.

There's an unwritten rule in the Chicago Outfit. The Don never keeps a mistress for more than a hundred days. When the hundred days are up, the women he’s finished with always take the money and leave quietly. Once, someone asked him, unwilling to accept it: “Why?” Santino Falcone smiled softly.“Because I love my wife.” Everyone knew that his wife of seven years was his weak spot. But this new mistress wouldn’t behave.Emboldened by his favor, she sent me a taunting text message. “Arabella, isn’t your husband cute when he’s asleep in my arms?I’ve got plenty more photos. I can send them to you if you want.” “I’m his one true love. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll step down and give me your place as his wife.” I didn’t argue with her.Instead, I generously gave her my wedding ring. Because what she didn't know was that I had gotten my memory back. I was never the orphan Santino saved. I am the long-lost princess of New York’s most powerful family, missing for seven years. In three days, my brother Matteo’s armored motorcade will arrive in Chicago to take me home.

I was the stand-in who looked most like my husband's first love. He put me through countless plastic surgeries, both major and minor ones, until I became her exact likeness. But then, she came back from the dead. All it took was her saying, "I don't like anyone looking like me," and he sent me right back to the operating table once more. I begged him, telling him that my body couldn't handle it anymore. Alas, he only looked at me with irritation. "Seeing that cheap imitation of her face just disgusts me," he sneered. "No matter how close you come, you'll never be her." In the end, I died on that operating table. Yet, he went mad, trying desperately to recall what I once looked like.

I'm the daughter of Don Falcone. After I got back from studying abroad, my family threw a welcome-home banquet, conveniently setting me up to meet the fiancé my father had handpicked for me—Santino Moretti. My father praised the guy to the skies in his letters: he was the heir to the Moretti family, elegant, ruthless, drop-dead gorgeous, and holding half the city’s underground operations in the palm of his hand. I arrived at the Elysium Hotel right on the dot. Just as I was about to take a seat, a hand shoved me hard. A woman's shrill voice pierced my ear. "Livia, what's a Sicilian peasant like you doing here? This is the Imperial Suite. Do you think you even deserve to breathe the air in a place like this?" I recognized the woman. It was Bella, a bitch who had always had it out for me back in college. She was clearly trying to humiliate me. Instead of getting mad, I smirked. "Whether I deserve to be here or not—is that for you to decide?" Bella sneered, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm Mr. Santino's personal assistant. Today, Mr. Santino is hosting the eldest daughter of the Falcone family here. This isn't an occasion for bottom-feeding trash like you." "Be smart and crawl back to your slum." I pulled out my phone and dialed my so-called fiancé. I wanted to ask him if it was a tradition in the Moretti family to let their dogs bark at the front door.

His gun-roughened hands burned against my waist, every breath laced with the cold, unyielding possession that had made him the most feared Cosa Nostra Don in all of Sicily. A shrill ring sliced through the haze. He answered in guttural Sicilian. It was the dialect I’d learned years ago to fit into his world, so I caught every word. His consigliere was screaming down the line at him for filing a valid, legally binding marriage license with Sofia Lombardi, the woman who’d abandoned him when a bomb left him mute for seven years. Luca’s order was cold as a trigger pull. “Secure the original license in the family vault. Draw up a forged, null-and-void marriage license for Isa to keep her compliant.” In the eyes of the law, of his entire crew, I was nothing but his mistress. After seven years of laying down my life for him, I’d been reduced to nothing but his mistress. Another call flashed. Luca turned to me, the lie already shaping his mouth. “Family matters. The guards will see you home.” Without a word, I stepped out into the Palermo night, my hands shaking as I dialed his mother, Anna Vitali. “I’ll take your fifty million euros. I’ll leave Luca. For good.” Anna once said Luca and I were worlds apart. I had to admit she was right. This time, I want to leave with dignity.