DADDY'S FORBIDDEN PRIZE

I used to believe in forever. In late-night promises whispered under dim lights. In the way, he held my hand as if I was his entire world. In the stories we built together, weaving dreams of marriage, children, and a future too perfect to question. He was my boyfriend. My first love. My everything. But forever turned out to be shorter than I imagined. The cracks started small. Missed calls. Excuses that didn’t fit. A strange familiarity in the way he looked at her—his so-called cousin. She was always around, always smiling too sweetly, touching his arm a little too often, laughing at jokes that weren’t even funny. I told myself I was paranoid. That love demanded trust. That he would never betray me. Until the night, I found out the truth. They weren’t cousins. They were lovers. Partners. Plotters who had been using me all along—a pretty distraction, a convenient cover, the girl foolish enough to believe she was the centre of his heart when I was nothing but the ladder to their hidden affair. That betrayal shattered something inside me. But it didn’t destroy me. Because that’s when he entered my life. His father. Older. Fierce. Dangerous in ways his son could never dream to be. His presence alone commanded every room, his eyes sharp and knowing, as if he had been watching me from the shadows all along. And maybe he had. When I broke, he was there—not to comfort me, but to claim me. His voice was a promise, his touch a warning, his gaze a possession. “You’re mine now,” he whispered, the night my tears dried into anger. For the first time, I didn’t feel like a victim. I felt like a prize. His forbidden prize.