“I mean, why don’t you call me like you did in the evening”

Huh? In the evening? What did I call you then?

“Daddy…” My face blushed. Oh My God. What did I do there?

I realized that I was doing something that I wouldn’t have even imagined normally.

“Oh, my… dear you must be joking, how could Abigail, call you daddy.” said Verionica, my step mother, though she was laughing as if she took it as a joke, I could see the anger bubbling in her eyes.

My father’s face hardened further, but there was coldness too this time as he turned to look at her, “why, she is my daughter, why can she not call me, daddy?” his words were full of authority.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, but she is going to have her debutante, and will join the academy too. She would feel embarrassed if she would call you daddy in front of other nobles, they would even make fun of her that a 15 year old girl is calling you daddy like a baby” she added, as if she was afraid, afraid that i would garner humiliation and people would take me as joke.

But i did learn one thing here, i was 15 right now, i remembered meeting Gerard at the age of 15 too. It meant the face off was not that far away.

“Oh, if that’s the matter, then let it go.” said father. His voice was colder than before bringing me out of my reverie.

If it had been past, I would have been convinced that he was indifferent but now that I knew, his colder voice only felt like a mask, to cover her disappointment.

“Daddy..” I called interfering in their conversation and they both looked at me surprised.

“I will call you daddy, since now.” i declared with a bright smile, we used to call father, pops too, daddy was not a big thing in comparison to that, was it?

“Are you not afraid that people will make fun of yours, Abi?” asked Isabella, mocking me. She knew my weakness well. Pride, my image was everything for me in my both lives. No matter how many times I had lived, I had always put my pride above everything.

But then what a big fool i would be if i repeat my mistakes in the third life too, “what is there to be afraid of, Bella, i am calling my daddy, daddy. If others think that it is a matter to be embarrassed about, they did not love their father enough.” i retorted and then i looked at the man who was looking back intently at me, and i gave him a sweet smile.

“I will always call you daddy.”

He looked down, and coughed several times. I could not believe that the first in command of knights, the whole empire was afraid of the man who did not even casted his eyes down when the emperor was looking down because I had called him Daddy.

Was he shy, or embarrassed, was that the reason he had never used endearing words for me in the past and I had taken it as a cold attitude. Suddenly I felt like I had found the biggest secret of this life.

“Yes, that is the way, call me like that in the future.” he said with a cold and hard voice and I giggled like a teenage girl.

I need my head hard, “alright, i will only call you that.”

“But..” Isabella opened her mouth but immediately closed it when her mother gave her a glare, then her sharp eyes turned towards me, and she smiled. But her smile looked only creepy to me.

“That was a wonderful decision taken by you honey, i am proud of your upbringing.” she said with a smile.

“Yes, Abi, you have become sweeter than before” said Nickolas, the single innocent person in this whole room, for him no one could ever be wrong.

I looked at his green eyes that were just like me, which reminded me of my mother, whom I had only seen when I was 4. Though i did not remember much but she had died saving me when the mercenaries attacked the carriage, everyone told me that she had hid me under her dress, when she saw that almost every knight was dead and there was not much time left when it would be their turn to die.

I was sleeping peacefully, so she just took me and covered me with her clothes and when the mercenaries attacked, she did not struggle but let them kill her, even when she was well versed in fencing. She must be afraid that her movements could let others know about me.

Since that day, my father never talked much with me. And in two years he married Veronica, for which I further blamed him. Though I was young, I was never able to accept that someone else would be called my mother now. But Nickolas accepted her with open arms, that brought my ire further, and I distanced myself from him too.

Since then they have been a happy family for me and i.. I was like a sore thumb in this picture perfect family.

So i tried to find my happiness in my image, my pride, my position, and started spending more and more time with higher nobles, further distancing myself from them, since then i was only called for meal as it was a ritual to have the meals together or for getting scolded as i was not as good as Isabella in study.

I was not as good as Nicholas in manners and etiquettes, soon I became the least favoured child and my incompetencies turned into my dislike towards them.

But now look at them, the look in their eyes, the love and affection i was dying to see as if the longing i had for love was far less than the longing they had for my love towards them.