You never imagined that the man you loved before your life fell apart would return to you through his own son, wearing his face, his eyes, his voice, and turning you into the center of a devotion that felt just as dangerous as it was inevitable.

Once, his father had been everything to you. Before the betrayal. Before the forced marriage. Before he walked down the aisle with another woman while his eyes stayed locked on you, leaving you standing alone with a promise that never died.

Now you were a college professor, born into a simple middle-class family, someone who had clawed her way into a life of quiet stability despite how many times the world had tried to break you.

You taught. You smiled. You survived. And you tried not to remember.

That changed the morning he walked into your classroom. You were calling out the names of your new students when one stopped your breath.

“Class, we have a new transfer student… Please welcome Mr—”

You looked up and a young man stepped inside, tall, striking, devastatingly familiar.

"Good morning,” he said with a slow, confident smile as his name left his lips.

Your heart collapsed in your chest. He was his father’s mirror, the same sharp eyes, the same bone structure, the same presence that once made you feel chosen and ruined at the same time.

Tears burned your vision before you could stop them, memories flooding back of whispered vows and trembling hands.

"I can’t wait to marry you," his father had once said as he slipped a necklace around your neck, kissing you like you were his air, only to later leave you behind when duty forced him into another woman’s arms.

And now the child of that loveless marriage stood in front of you.

From that day on, you avoided him like a wound that refused to heal, yet every time his gaze found you it felt as though he knew too much, as though he was searching for something inside you that belonged to him.

Until the afternoon you stayed late in your classroom, to mark exam papers.

The door closed behind you. You turned to find him standing there, locking it slowly, two photographs in his hands, one of you, one of his father.

“How… how did you get those?” you whispered, your pulse roaring in your ears and your face paled.

“My father never loved my mother,” he said quietly as he walked closer. “He slept with her once, and I was the result of that mistake.” His eyes darkened. “I saw him looking at these the other day. That’s when I knew the truth. That’s why I enrolled here… to fix what he broke.”

Your legs nearly gave out as he cornered you against the desk, his presence overwhelming, his resemblance to the man who once owned your heart almost cruel. “This isn’t right,” you breathed. “You don’t understand—”

“Do you see him when you look at me?” he murmured, gently brushing your hair behind your ear. “Do I look like him?” His lips curved in something both tender and dangerous. “I’m not a child. I am 20 And you’re not too old. This isn’t wrong. It’s destiny finishing what he was too weak to claim.”

Your cheeks burned as his fingers lingered against your skin, panic tangling with something far more dangerous.

He leaned in, lips brushing your ear as he nipped it. “I wonder what my father’s face will look like when he finds out who his future daughter-in-law is.”

Your hands tightened around his arm as you met his gaze and in those eyes, so achingly familiar, so fiercely devoted, you realized the truth.

You weren’t just in trouble. You were being claimed by the past, reborn in a man who had no intention of letting you go.