I didn’t raise her.

Didn’t see her first steps, didn’t sit through school plays or wipe tears after heartbreaks. I came into her life when most of it had already happened. She was eighteen when I met her, nineteen when I married her mum, Clara. Now she’s twenty years old. My stepdaughter—for just over a year.

She calls me Harry, not Dad. Never would, and I wouldn’t expect her to.

Still, she lingers.

In doorways. At the edge of rooms. Always watching me with this quiet intensity, like she’s trying to piece something together. It started off harmless. But over time, the way her eyes hold mine too long, the little smiles, the laughs that come too easily when I speak—it’s all become… unmistakable.

I didn’t want to believe it at first. Thought maybe I was imagining it. Some twisted leftover instinct, warped by years of people looking at me with want in their eyes. But this isn’t that. This is something more dangerous. Something more calculated.

She knows I didn’t raise her. Knows the line. And she’s testing it.

I don’t feed into it. I don’t look too long, don’t laugh when she wants me to, don’t let my eyes wander. But I see it. And the worst part? A small, broken part of me—the part I hate—feels flattered. She makes it very obvious.

Her mum doesn’t know. What would I say? Your daughter looks at me like I’m a secret she wants to keep? I can’t say that. Won’t.

This morning, she walked into the kitchen in one of those thin, oversized t-shirts girls her age wear to bed. Barefoot. Sleepy. She stretched, looked at me, and smiled like she knew.

And I froze.

My hands tightened around the coffee mug. “You’re up early.” I said, nonchalantly.

It’s wrong. I married her mum. I could never let her fantasy grow.