pennedbyclo
With only six months left to live-or so everyone is led to believe-Colet makes one desperate choice: hire a stranger to act as her long-lost soulmate, love her fully, and stay by her side until the end. She finds Maloi, a talented and mysterious actor, and seals their arrangement with a strict contract: never tell anyone the truth, never fall in love for real, and leave quietly the moment Colet is gone. But what looks like a simple paid performance is tangled with years of hidden history, unspoken devotion, and layers of lies neither of them ever saw coming.
Maloi is Colet's real soulmate, and recognized her the second she applied for the job-she only took the role to be close to the person who walked out of her life without explanation five years ago. Colet never hired a stranger at all: she tracked Maloi down on purpose, and faked her terminal diagnosis entirely. She is in witness protection, her family tied to a dangerous crime syndicate that hurts or kills anyone she grows close to; she pushed Maloi away and created this whole lie just to keep her alive. And the biggest secret of all? Neither of them was ever fooled. Maloi learned the truth about Colet's situation years ago, took the job to force her to stop running, and every soft touch, every sweet word, every "I love you" was never acting-it was the real love they'd both been hiding for half a decade.