Love Me Like a Lie
When the Fushiguros needed a nanny, Ria never imagined the offer would change her life. The pay was more than generous-too much for someone like her, struggling to keep her family afloat. So she said yes, stepping into a home that seemed ordinary from the outside but hid fractures too deep to see.
Ria was everything the children needed. To Tsumiki, she was gentle warmth; to Megumi, she was quiet stability in a world already too cruel. They clung to her, and she to them, until her heart began to mistake care for belonging. It wasn't long before Toji Fushiguro-their father, unpredictable and dangerously charming-began to blur the lines between employer and something else entirely.
He was magnetic in the way broken men often are: careless with affection, reckless with truth. Ria knew better than to fall, yet every stolen glance, every small kindness felt like proof that maybe, just maybe, he saw her as more than a replacement or a distraction. She told herself he was capable of love-that the way he lingered near her meant something. But Toji Fushiguro was a man who used affection like a weapon, a man who didn't know tenderness unless it served a purpose.
What began as a job became an illusion Ria couldn't escape. The line between duty and desire blurred until she no longer knew which parts of her life were real and which were dreams she'd built out of loneliness. Toji used her heart to make his wife burn with jealousy, and when the game was over, he left her with nothing but memories that still ached like fresh wounds.