Chapter: Chapter 62 — You Don't Decide ThatChapter 62 — You Don't Decide ThatDominic POVI saw Ryan ask her to leave.Not because I was standing beside them, but because I had been watching the corridor from across the room for the better part of ten minutes. The engagement party had been running smoothly on the surface. Guests were drinking, laughing, taking photographs, congratulating the happy couple. Everything looked exactly the way an engagement party was supposed to look. But appearances had become increasingly unreliable around this family, and I had long ago learned that what happened at the edges of a room usually mattered more than what happened in the center of it.I saw Ryan pull Zara aside. I saw Keisha follow shortly afterward. I saw the tension before I heard a single word. Then I saw Zara pick up her bag.That was what made me move.Not because she looked upset. She didn't. If anything, she looked irritatingly composed. Zara had a habit of accepting things she shouldn't accept, not because she lacked a backbo
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-06-07
Chapter: Chapter 61 — The PartyChapter 61 — The PartyZara POVThe engagement party was exactly what it was supposed to be.Beautiful, expensive, carefully arranged to tell a very specific story.Flowers framed the entrance in soft colors. String lights hung from the ceiling, casting a warm glow across the venue. Every table had been positioned to encourage conversation, every decorative detail chosen to create the impression of happiness, stability, and celebration. It was the kind of event that looked effortless to guests because dozens of people had spent weeks making sure it would.I knew because I was one of those people.The styling adjustments Keisha requested at the last minute had given me a legitimate reason to be there. Officially, I was working. Unofficially, it gave me access to every corner of the room, every conversation, every expression people thought nobody was noticing.I arrived early and spent the first hour making final adjustments alongside the venue team. By the time guests started arriving,
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Chapter 60: The Engagement party eve Chapter 60 — The Engagement Party Eve(Dominic POV)The evening before the engagement party settles into something unexpectedly quiet.Not empty, not strained—just steady in a way that has become familiar without either of us deliberately naming it. Zara is already in the kitchen when I come in, moving through the space with an ease that still feels new in a place like this. There is nothing performative about it. No attempt to turn the moment into something softer or more significant than it is. She is simply there, finishing dinner, as though this has always been part of her life.I take my jacket off and set it aside, watching her for a moment longer than necessary. She notices, of course.“You’re staring,” she says without looking up.“I’m observing,” I reply.“That’s worse.”There is no argument in it, just a quiet exchange that settles easily between us. We eat without interruption, no calls brea
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-06-01
Chapter: Chapter 59: Three days before Chapter 59 — Three Days Before(Zara POV)Three days before the engagement party, I have two photographs.The first one—the gala—is already familiar. I’ve looked at it enough times now that I don’t need to open it to remember the angle, the distance, the intention behind it. The second one arrives the next evening, from the same unknown number.This one is different.It’s taken outside the penthouse building.Not inside, not close enough to suggest access—but close enough to confirm something else entirely. The frame catches me stepping out of the car, Dominic just behind me, his hand briefly at my back again. The lighting is lower, evening shadows stretching across the pavement, but the quality is just as clean.Same eye.Same purpose.I don’t react when I see it.I save it.Then I document it properly—timestamp, source, sequence. I add it to the first one, building a file that is no
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-05-31
Chapter: Chapter 58; The Photograph Chapter 58 — The Photograph(Dominic POV)Zara sends the photograph without commentary.No message layered with reaction. No attempt to frame what I should see when I open it. Just the image itself, followed by a second message a minute later.Sent it to Marcus too.I look at it for longer than I should need.Not because I don’t understand what it is, but because I want to understand how it was taken. Angle, distance, timing. The moment itself is clear—I remember it without effort. Leaving the gala, the room still loud behind us, her attention half on the exit, half on the event she had just finished managing. My hand at her back, not for display, not for effect. Just there.But the photograph turns it into something else.Something composed.Someone was waiting for that moment.I don’t call her first.I call Marcus.He answers immediately.“I have it,” he says before
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-05-31
Chapter: Chapter 57: Eight daysChapter 57 — Eight Days(Zara POV)After my mother leaves the penthouse, I don’t stay.Not because I’m upset in a loud way, or because I can’t sit in that space anymore. It’s something quieter than that. I just know I need distance to think, and Dominic doesn’t try to stop me when I say I’m going to Jane’s. He looks like he wants to ask me to stay, but he doesn’t. He understands when something needs space.Jane opens the door before I knock properly, like she already knew I was coming.“You look like you’ve been thinking too much,” she says, stepping aside to let me in.“I have,” I reply, dropping my bag by the couch.We settle into the living room the way we always do, familiar without effort. I tell her everything. Not in one rush, but in pieces—the knock, my mother standing there, the way she walked in like she had a right to be in that space. What she said. What she didn’t say.Jane listens the way she always does. No interruptions, no rushing me through it.When I finish, she lea
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-05-30
WHERE SIN FEELS LIKE HOME
Dark RomanceSteamyContemporaryCEOPossessiveAge GapBetrayalForbidden Love
His hands were everywhere, and I let them be.
“You know this is wrong,” he murmured against my throat.
“I know.” I tilted my head back anyway.
He pulled back, eyes dark. “Tell me to stop, Zella.”
I looked at the silver in his hair, the jaw that could cut glass, my best friend’s father, twenty years too old and a thousand reasons too dangerous.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered.
Seven days before my Christmas wedding, I caught my fiancé with my cousin. By morning I had lost everything, my relationship, my job, my future. I walked into the London rain with nothing left.
A stranger stopped his car. Offered an umbrella. Gave me a drink instead of the mistake I begged for. Then disappeared before dawn.
I never expected to find him again in a darkened hotel room on New Year’s Eve… or to give him the one thing I’d never given anyone.
The next morning, when my best friend introduced me to her father, Evander Ashford looked me in the eye and said, “Nice to meet you,” as if he hadn’t already ruined me the night before.
He is forbidden.
He is twice my age.
He is the one man I was never supposed to want.
But he is the first person who ever made me feel worth keeping, and the only place this broken heart has ever felt safe.
Where Sin Feels Like Home — because sometimes the wrongest man is the only home you’ve ever known.
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Chapter: chapter 57 Chapter 57: Callum Won't StopI read the note five times.Ten times.The letters were cut from magazines—different fonts, different sizes, pasted onto cheap paper. It was methodical. Deliberate. Someone had taken the time to do this, which meant someone cared enough to make a point.*Careful who you're fucking. People notice.*It couldn't have been Sienna. She was too mature for anonymous threats, and besides, she'd already confronted me directly yesterday. This felt different. This felt like someone younger, angrier, or more afraid.I folded the note and put it back in the envelope, then shoved it into my pocket. All morning, I felt it there like a physical weight, a constant reminder that someone knew. Someone was watching. Someone was judging.I tried to work. I really did. But I couldn't focus on anything—the project files felt meaningless, the emails blurred together, everything felt hollow and dangerous.
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-07-25
Chapter: Chapter 56Chapter 56: Office Games"Wait, where are you?" Brynn asked, tilting her screen. "That looks like... is that Dad's sitting room? Those are his curtains."My stomach dropped.Evander moved immediately. He stood up from beside me and carried me off his lap, setting me down in the chair next to him before sitting back down himself, creating the illusion of professional distance. It was smooth, practiced almost, like he'd rehearsed this moment in his mind."We have unfinished projects from today," I said, my voice steady even though my heart was racing. "It might be an all-nighter situation.""At Dad's house?" Brynn's eyes narrowed slightly. "That's weird. Dad usually doesn't—""Give me the phone," Evander said, his tone shifting to something fatherly and firm.I watched as he took the phone from my hands, and Brynn's expression changed immediately to that specific look reserved for disappointing fathers."Dad! Why are you making her work like this?" she scolded. "That's not okay. She nee
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-07-25
Chapter: Chapter 55Chapter 55: The Dress That RemembersI walked out of the records room in a daze, my mind replaying Sienna's warning over and over.*People talk. Mr. Ashford doesn't usually look at staff like that.*I should tell Evander. I should warn him that someone knew, that we were becoming obvious. But then I remembered the way his jaw had tightened when I made that joke. The way his eyes had hardened. The casual way he'd said, "Then I'll fire them."He'd meant it.And I couldn't be responsible for Sienna losing her job. Not because she'd figured out what we were doing, but because I was too cowardly to keep our secret properly. So I went back to my desk and worked through the afternoon, acutely aware of every eye that passed my way, every whispered conversation that stopped when I approached.When the day finally ended and people filtered out, I was the last one to leave. I walked outside into the grey afternoon, and before I'd even made it to the edge of the property, Evander's car pulled up
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-07-24
Chapter: Chapter 54Chapter 54: Rumors and FingersThe moment the meeting ended and people started gathering their files, I stood up.I needed to get out of that room before Evander could ask me to wait. Before he could pull me into his office again. My body was already responding to him in ways that were becoming dangerous, and the way his eyes had hardened when he saw Callum's text on my phone meant we needed distance, at least for the next hour.I was the first one out the door.At my desk, I tried to focus on reviewing the meeting details, taking notes, doing the actual work I was supposed to be doing. But my phone kept buzzing. Callum, persistent and hopeful.**Callum:** "So Friday at 7? There's a great restaurant in the city center. I'll make a reservation."I stared at the message and didn't respond.That's when I heard them.My colleagues, gathered by the water cooler just out of sight of my desk, their voices low but not low enough."Don't you think she's kinda close with the boss recently?" one
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-07-23
Chapter: Chapter 53Chapter 53: First Day, First TestThe drive was quiet.Evander's hands were on the steering wheel, his focus on the road, and I thought maybe he'd decided to keep things professional after all. Maybe the moment in my apartment, the possessiveness, the certainty—maybe he'd realized it was too dangerous to bring into the workplace.Then his hand reached for mine.I resisted at first, pulling back slightly, aware of the windows and the daylight and the fact that we were about to arrive at a place where dozens of people worked for him. Where I worked for him. But his hand was patient, waiting, not forcing, and eventually I surrendered and let him hold it. His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand, slow and deliberate, a gesture so simple it shouldn't have meant anything.It meant everything.When we pulled up to the estate, he let go immediately. Like a switch had flipped. Like the man who'd been holding my hand had been replaced by someone else entirely—professional, distant, the e
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Chapter 52Chapter 52: Monday Morning~zella Pov~"Hey pretty," Callum's voice came through, warm and patient and completely uncomplicated. "I was thinking about making up for the other night. You know, the club thing didn't go the way I planned. Do you have time to go out this week? Dinner, drinks, whatever you want—just let me know."I listened to him talk about restaurants he'd been thinking about, little places off the beaten path that he thought I'd like based on things I'd mentioned in passing. He was paying attention. He was trying. And I felt nothing but guilt for stringing him along, for letting him believe there was a possibility when there wasn't."Callum, I..." I started, but he interrupted gently."I know you're not sure yet. That's fine. There's no pressure. Just think about it, yeah? When you're ready, I'll be here."The problem was that I was going somewhere, and it was away from him. Away from anyone who could offer me the simple, uncomplicated life I'd once thought I wanted."I
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 2026-06-30
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