Betrayed on My Graduation Night.
ISLA’S POV ~
It’s the night of my graduation and it should have felt like victory, right?
It didn’t.
Instead, tonight felt like the worst betrayal of my life. As sharp as broken glass piercing through every shard of my heart that still remained.
I had gotten through four cruelsome years of the university and survived. Without daddy’s black card. Without using my last name as a golden pass instead or clawing myself out of every messy situation by playing the “I’m Richard Prescott’s daughter” card.
I’d waitressed double shifts, sketched designs until my fingers cramped, and laughed off my friends’ teasing when they called me stubborn. “Why suffer when you could just rely on your family fortune?” they’d say.
They wouldn’t understand.
I wanted to earn my own name.
I refused to be just another spoiled Prescott princess riding her daddy’s empire.
Tonight was supposed to prove I’d succeeded.
I scanned the crowded room, a glass of champagne in my hand, searching for the one person who was supposed to make all the lonely nights worth it.
Tyler.
My boyfriend of three years. The man who’d sworn he loved me for me, not because of my last name.
He wasn’t by the stage where I’d just accepted my diploma with honors in architecture. A tipsy classmate jerked her thumb toward the private stairwell leading to the VIP suites, a sloppy grin splitting her face. “He said he needed some air, Isla. Come on, you should go drag him back for a victory fuck.”
I laughed it off, heels clicking as I climbed the stairs. Laughter and bass throbbed from the main hall behind me. Up here, the air grew thicker, heavier with the unmistakable sounds of skin on skin and raw, shameless moans spilling from a half open door.
“Some people have zero class.” I muttered to myself.
I kept my eyes down, ready to slip past the open doorway without intruding on whoever was chasing their high.
Then her voice sent a dazzling jolt through my veins.
“Tyler! f**k— yes, right there, don’t stop!”
My stomach plummeted. Tyler?
No. Couldn’t be. My Tyler was downstairs waiting to celebrate with me. The man who held me through every doubt about my father, who promised I was enough exactly as I was.
But the rhythm of those hips snapping forward. Wet, frantic slaps echoing off the walls matched the lazy confidence I knew too well. I froze, heels dangling forgotten from my fingers.
There he was.
Tyler had some girl bent over the edge of the bed, her skirt rucked up around her waist, panties shoved aside. His trousers hung open, c**k driving into her with single-minded greed. Her ass jiggled with every thrust, and she moaned like she was getting paid for the performance.
“Tyler…” The name tore from my throat, small and broken.
He didn’t even have the decency to flinch. He slowed, pulled out with a slick sound that turned my stomach, and zipped up halfway before turning that lazy, satisfied smirk on me. The girl —Daisy, apparently—didn’t bother covering herself. She just giggled, arching her back so I could see everything, his release still glistening on her skin.
“You’ve always had terrible timing, Isla,” he drawled, not a flicker of guilt in his eyes.
Three years. Three years of constant “I love you”, promises that I was different and that I was his one true love, of what our future would look like. My voice came out broken and inaudible. “You said you loved me...why?!”
His laugh was cruel, cutting straight through the last fragile pieces of my heart. “Loved the Prescott name? Absolutely. The doors it opened? Even better. But you?” He gestured at Daisy, who was already bending over again, eager. “For heavens sake, Isla. You’re so f*****g dumb, I only stayed because my name looked good when associated with yours. Let’s be honest. No one’s ever really going to love you. You’re unlovable. Explains why even your own dad doesn’t want you around.”
The words landed like punches.
He wasn’t done. He smacked Daisy’s ass hard enough to make her moan loud and theatrical, then looked back at me with pure contempt. “Three years and you still refuse to use what you were born into. Born rich, yet you live like a pauper. Pathetic. You could never pleasure me the way she does. Not in a million years.”
Daisy licked her lips, sliding a finger through the mess between her thighs and sucking it clean. “Come on, a threesome wouldn’t be so bad, right? Join us, princess.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t slap the smirk off his face the way every cell in my body screamed to.
So I ran.
Heels abandoned, dress clinging to my legs, I bolted down the stairs and out into the pouring rain. My friends’ voices chased me.
“Isla! Wait!”
But I didn’t stop. Rain soaked through my gown, mascara burning tracks down my cheeks, chest heaving with sobs I couldn’t swallow.
Every slap of my bare feet on wet pavement dragged up memories I’d buried deep.
Eight years old, pink ballerina dress itching under my coat, waiting by the door for my father to show up to my recital. He never came. He just sent a text to my nanny: “Take her to get diamonds after the show”.
Fourteen, sobbing in my room after my first real crush ghosted me. Dad’s voice from the doorway, cold and distant: “Feelings make you weak, Isla. Prescott women don’t cry.”
Eighteen, high school graduation. His assistant handed me a black card and a printed note: Buy yourself something nice.
I’d spent my whole life proving I didn’t need him. Didn’t need anyone. And still, the one person I let in had carved the same truth into my soul: Unlovable. Unwanted.
By the time I shoved through the heavy gates of the family mansion, I was shivering violently, dress plastered to my skin, hair dripping. I burst into the grand foyer like a drowned rat, water pooling at my feet.
And there he stood.
Richard Prescott. My father.
“Welcome home, Princess.”
