Chapter Two: The Girl Who Was Never Chosen

Poornima Singh Mewar.

A name that echoed royalty, legacy, and privilege. To the world, she was the princess who had everything—born into grandeur, raised among marble corridors and whispered respect, a life wrapped in silk and status. People looked at her and saw a silver spoon, a life untouched by struggle.

But the truth was far crueler.

Poornima was not born into love. She was born into rejection.

In the royal households of , where lineage was everything, she was a mistake no one wanted to acknowledge. The daughter of her father… and his mistress. A truth that clung to her like a stain no amount of dignity could erase.

Her father never held her the way a father should. Never looked at her with pride, never spoke her name with affection. To him, she was not his daughter—she was a consequence.

And he made sure she knew it.

“You should have never been born.”

The words had not been shouted. They didn’t need to be. They were spoken in a calm, detached tone—the kind that cuts deeper than anger ever could.

She had been too young to understand it fully back then… but old enough to feel it.

And she felt it every single day after that.

His first family never let her forget her place either. The stolen glances, the hushed insults that weren’t hushed enough, the deliberate exclusion from moments that should have been hers too. Festivals where she stood at the edge, watching a family she belonged to but was never part of. Meals where silence was louder than words.

She had yearned for love like a child lost in a crowd—desperate, hopeful, waiting.

But no one came.

So she stopped waiting.

The palace, with all its grandeur, never felt like home. It felt like a place she had to survive. And Poornima learned early—if love wasn’t given, she would build a life without needing it.

She chose a different path.

While others expected her to stay within the boundaries of royalty, Poornima stepped outside them. She studied in a normal school, away from the suffocating expectations of her name. There, she wasn’t “the illegitimate daughter.” She was just… Poornima.

It was the closest she had ever come to feeling normal.

Later, she moved to to study business. And for the first time, the world opened up to her. No whispers. No judgment tied to her birth. Just opportunities—and she grabbed them with both hands.

She didn’t return to India as a broken girl seeking acceptance.

She returned as a woman who didn’t need it.

Her restaurants became her identity. Each space she built carried a piece of her—warm yet distant, elegant yet grounded. They weren’t just businesses; they were her way of creating something that was truly hers. Something no one could take away.

People admired her. They called her strong, independent, admirable.

And she smiled.

Because strength was not something she was born with. It was something she built… from every tear she had to hide.

Yet, despite everything, Poornima believed in love.

Not the kind she had seen growing up—but the kind she had read about. The kind that felt safe. The kind that chose you, again and again.

Maybe that was her weakness.
Or maybe… it was her quiet rebellion against everything that tried to break her.

And in the silent corners of her life, there was another side to her.

A secret.

When the world slept, Poornima wrote. Words flowed out of her like emotions she could never express aloud. Stories of passion, longing, forbidden desires—worlds where love was intense, consuming, and unapologetically real.

Stories where the girl was chosen.

She published them under a name no one could trace back to her.

Mannat.

To her readers, Mannat was bold, fearless, and deeply romantic. Her stories were addictive, her words leaving hearts racing and minds wandering. No one knew that behind those pages was a woman who had never truly experienced the love she wrote about so effortlessly.

It was her escape.
Her control.
Her truth—hidden behind fiction.

That evening, as Poornima stood by the window of her Jaipur home, the city lights flickering beneath her, she held a book in her hand—her book.

Her name wasn’t on it.

But her soul was.

She traced the cover lightly, her lips curving into a faint, almost wistful smile.

To the world, she was Poornima Singh Mewar—strong, composed, untouchable.

But in the world she created…

She was someone who was loved.