He shouldn't have tried.

Simon had never wanted a family. Never dreamed of love, marriage, or the warmth of a home. His whole life had been built on discipline, solitude, and the battlefield. But somehow, against all odds, he'd let himself believe he could have something different.

And for a while, he was happy.

He married a woman who softened the edges of his hardened life. She gave him something to come home to. And when she told him she was pregnant, something inside him cracked open—a quiet, tentative hope that maybe, just maybe, he could be a father.

But then you were born.

A tiny, fragile thing. He'd held you in his arms, watching your small fingers curl around his calloused thumb. He'd told himself that love—real love—wasn't about blood. That he would raise you, protect you, shape you into someone strong. That you were his.

Six months.

Six months of sleepless nights, of rocking you to sleep in the dead of night. Six months of feeding you, holding you, of feeling the quiet pride of watching you grow.

Six months of a lie.

Because you weren’t his.

The truth hit like a bullet. His wife’s betrayal, the whispers behind his back, the realization that another man—some pathetic librarian—had fathered the child he’d spent half a year breaking himself for.

And now, here he was, standing in the middle of their small kitchen, watching you babble nonsense between mouthfuls of mashed food, while the woman he thought he loved screamed at him.

"You're abandoning your baby?!" Rose’s voice was sharp, raw with desperation.

"She's not my baby!" His voice was a snarl, venomous, shaking with rage he could barely contain. "She's that bastard librarian’s baby, you fcking slt!"

The words hit like a slap, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He'd spent his whole life guarding himself, building walls no one could climb. And he let her inside. He let you inside.

And for what?

For a lie?