Forbidden Love

My name is Nina Voss.

I was born into a family that had never known the meaning of deprivation.

The Voss family.

Our name was enough to open doors before we even knocked, and to make people smile at us before they even knew who we were.

My father, Adrian Voss, was a well-known man among the upper circles of society. I don't remember much about him. He left this world when I was ten, leaving behind a void that even the passing years could never fill.

After his death, my mother, Clara Voss, raised us.

My three sisters and me.

Thea.

Mia.

And me... Nina, the youngest.

Ever since I was a child, there was one thing people noticed about me before anything else.

My beauty.

They sometimes called it the beauty privilege.

I didn't understand what it meant at first. But as the years passed, I began to realize that people treated me differently.

Warmer smiles.

Quicker compliments.

Attention that wasn't given to others in quite the same way.

I had long blonde hair, golden beneath the sunlight, and blue eyes that I had inherited from my father.

As for my fair skin, my mother always said it made me impossible to overlook wherever I went.

I would smile whenever I heard those words.

But I never realized that the very thing that made others love looking at me was also the reason my sisters slowly began to distance themselves from me.

As time passed, I started noticing the space between us growing wider.

Cold looks.

Silence whenever I entered a room.

Whispers that suddenly stopped whenever I came near.

I never understood why they hated me.

Or perhaps...

I did understand.

I simply didn't have the courage to admit it to myself.

I lived a different life from theirs.

I attended a university where the children of wealthy families studied, majoring in languages and literature.

Fame, parties, and jewelry never interested me much.

I loved books.

I loved novels.

I loved those worlds built entirely from words, where a single person could live a thousand lives without ever leaving their seat.

I wrote poetry, too.

Perhaps because I was searching through words for something I had never found in my own life.

Love.

I had always wondered what it felt like to love someone that deeply.

What would it be like to find a person and, the moment you looked at them, feel as though you had finally arrived at the place where you belonged?

That was why I learned Arabic.

I wanted to read Arabic poetry in its original language. There was something enchanting about that world, where emotions seemed to hide between the words.

Among the poets I loved was Abu Tammam.

One verse had stayed with me for a long time:

"Take your heart wherever love may lead you;

love belongs only to the first beloved."

I never understood why those words moved me so deeply.

Perhaps because I was dreaming of a love I had yet to experience.

A love that would make the heart hold on to one person, even when time tried to pull them apart.

That night, I closed the book and smiled to myself.

Then I picked up my pen.

I placed a blank sheet of paper in front of me and wrote:

"I am waiting for you... my heart's companion.

Perhaps, after all this waiting,

I will find a great love—

a love that fears no distance,

a love that cannot be shaken by time,

a love my heart will hold on to...

as though it were created for him alone."

I stared at my words for a few moments.

Then I laughed shyly at myself.

It was strange, writing about a man I had never even met.

But I believed that everyone in this world had a love story waiting for them.

And perhaps...

Mine was simply waiting to begin.

I set my pen aside, closed my journal, and went to sleep.

I had no idea that the following morning would bring the first thread of that story.

---

The next morning, we all gathered around the breakfast table.

I sat in my usual place and quietly began eating.

Everything felt ordinary.

Until my mother broke the silence.

"Tomorrow, we have a guest coming for dinner."

I lifted my eyes from my plate.

There was something in her voice that made me listen more carefully.

She continued,

"I want all of you to dress appropriately. And I want the servants to prepare the best meal we have."

I looked at her curiously.

"Who is it?"

My mother gave me a mysterious smile.

"A friend of mine."

I didn't think much of it.

I returned to my breakfast.

A friend of my mother's.

So what?

After breakfast, I went upstairs to my room and closed the door behind me.

I sat by the window and pulled my journal from the drawer.

I didn't know that the man who would sit at my family's table the following evening...

would become the first person to change my entire life.