Kayda knew it was wrong before she ever felt it.Before the stolen glances.Before the way her heartbeat changed when he entered a room.Before she started hating herself for noticing him at all.Mateo was her boyfriend’s father.A man she was never supposed to look at twice.But Kayda did.At first, it was nothing. Just respect. Just manners. Just the polite way she greeted him when she visited his house and told herself to keep her eyes steady and her voice normal.But Mateo didn’t feel like just “a father.”He had a quiet presence that filled spaces without trying. Calm. Controlled. Older in the way life hardens a person who has survived too much and says too little about it.And Kayda hated that her body reacted before her mind could stop it.The pause in her breathing when he walked past.The way her thoughts scattered when he spoke her name.The heat of embarrassment that followed every single moment she noticed him too long.She told herself it meant nothing.It had to mean nothing.Because Mateo was not hers to feel anything about.He was stability. He was authority. He was forbidden in every way that mattered.And still—She noticed the way he looked at her sometimes too.Not inappropriate.Not obvious.Just… aware.Like he could sense something unspoken in her silence.That possibility scared her more than anything else.Because Kayda wasn’t sure which terrified her more:That she might be imagining it…Or that she wasn’t.And every time she saw him across the room, calling her boyfriend’s name, smiling like nothing in the world was complicated—Kayda had to remind herself of one thing:This is wrong.But her body never seemed to listen.