At family dinner, Dad sneered, “I’m proud of all my kids except the loser here.” Everyone laughed. I placed a secret paper on the table saying, “For you, Dad. Happy Father’s Day.” Then walked out, took back the luxury car I gave him, and moments later, he screamed when he opened it.
Imagine spending your entire life desperately seeking validation from the one person who should have loved you unconditionally, only to discover their cruel rejection was etched into your very DNA. What if the man you called father had been punishing you for decades, not for who you were, but for who you weren’t? The Matthews family estate always felt less like a home and more like a carefully staged performance.
Sunlight streaming through the Grand Bay windows, polished mahogany gleaming, laughter echoing a little too perfectly. But behind the facade, a chilling silence often filled the opulent rooms, a suffocating tension I’d learned to live with until the day I simply couldn’t anymore. My name is Scarlet.
I’m 32, and despite carving out a wildly successful career in finance, I’ve always felt like I was battling an invisible enemy. My father, Arthur. This year, the annual family reunion dinner loomed.
A familiar dread coiling in my stomach. I bought him a luxury car, a gleaming Mercedes S-Class, a desperate peace offering. I thought, “This time, maybe this time, things will be different.” But tucked deep within my purse was a document that would shatter every illusion, every lie, and reveal the devastating truth of why Arthur Matthews never truly loved me.
To the outside world, we were the picture of success, an enviable dynasty. Arthur built his real estate development company from humble beginnings into a multi-million dollar empire. He valued success, status, respect above everything else, including, it seemed, his own children.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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