'pretend as though' is correct and can be used in written English.
It is used when describing an action that is imaginary or to suggest the notion of pretending in order to simulate a particular situation. For example, "She pretended as though she didn't know what he was talking about, although she had heard it before."
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal were paraded into the White House press room to pretend as though their dispute about the efficacy of the surge, given Karzai's serious flaws as a partner, has been put to rest.
"I think the way that he is dealing with this is actually pretty radical," Levin von Trott, 48, said in Berlin, adding, "you can't just pretend as though this hasn't happened".
"For the country as a whole, I think this is a clarion call that we need to all see that the king is moving around naked and not pretend as though the emperor has his finest clothes on".
Maybe they are making the right call and maybe they aren't, but to pretend as though a call isn't being made lets the Fed off the hook and shunts aside a policy debate of enormous importance that we really ought to be having.
I didn't even pretend as though I were drinking like a civilized, normal person, because I knew I wasn't.
Their job was to pretend as though they enjoyed the intrusions their rabid (albeit small) fan bases provided.
I pretended as long as I could.
With the device levitating, the surgeons pretended as though they couldn't see it.
He manages to retreat — he pretends as though he's not retreating; and then he moves his troops into enemy lines in Princeton and captures it.
Burton claims Carrey's message was a "bogus text... in an effort to cover up his conduct and complicity in her death" by "pretending as though he had misplaced the drugs and insinuating White may have taken them from Carrey without his knowledge".
Ferguson insisted that he's "not good enough of a comedian" to do his show while pretending as though nothing happened, and told his audience that he could only be honest about the rage that he feels inside.
