My Guardian's Cruelest Love Game

For seven years, I loved my guardian, Kendrick Page. He was my protector, my family, my entire world.

The day I confessed, he called my love "unhealthy" and kicked me out.

Then he brought home his fiancée, Chrissy. She took my room and my memories before revealing their engagement was a "charade"-a cruel game Kendrick designed to prove I was a burden and drive me away for good.

His final act of cruelty was asking me to be his maid of honor.

The man who raised me hadn't just rejected me; he had orchestrated my complete humiliation just to be free of his responsibility.

Heartbroken, I escaped to Boston to start over. I met Adolfo Joyce, a brilliant, intense mentor who saw the pain I tried to hide. But just as I started to feel safe, he cornered me, his eyes holding a shocking secret.

"Amirah," he whispered, his voice low and urgent. "What is your mother's name?"

Chapter 1

Amirah Holland POV:

Seven years. That' s how long I'd loved Kendrick Page, the man who was supposed to be my guardian, my protector, the only family I had left in the world. He was my father' s best friend, and when Dad died, Kendrick stepped into the gaping void, not just as a legal guardian but as the anchor of my fragile existence. My love for him wasn't a slow burn; it was an explosion, an immediate, all-consuming fire that lit up my world. Every glance, every touch, every word from him was like oxygen, sustaining this desperate hope inside me. I was twenty-two now, a college student, but in his presence, I was still the scared little girl he'd taken in, yearning for his approval, his affection, his love. I built my entire world around him, every dream, every ambition, whispered his name. He was my sun, my moon, my entire universe.

But that universe imploded the day I finally confessed. Those three words, "I love you," felt like tearing open my chest and offering him my beating heart. His response wasn't anger, not even pity. It was worse. Cold indifference. A dismissal so absolute it felt like an amputation. He didn't just reject my love; he evicted me from our shared New York City home. Not with a shout, but with a quiet, hollow instruction to pack my bags, to find my own way.

His voice was flat, devoid of any warmth. "Amirah, you need to grow up. This isn't healthy." Healthy? My entire life had been defined by him, by us. What was unhealthy was the way he could stand there, looking at me, the girl he' d raised, and show no flicker of emotion as he tore my world apart.

I didn' t just leave. I tried everything to make him feel something, anything. For ninety-nine days, I played a dangerous game, hoping to provoke a reaction. Maxing out his credit cards, racking up trouble with the law, getting calls from angry landlords in cheap