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Chapter Forty-Four
publish date:
2026-10-23 15:32:54
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FORBIDDEN LOVE Chapter Sixty-Two
LILY'S POV The house felt different walking in that evening — same gravel drive, same too-tall hedges, but every lamp in the living room blazing like Richard had wanted no shadows left anywhere by the time we arrived.Mom was already there when Aiden and I came in together, sitting rigid on the edge of the couch, her eyes flicking to our joined hands and holding there a beat too long before she said nothing at all about it. Richard stood near the fireplace, a folder clutched in one hand, looking older than I'd ever seen him."Sit," he said, voice rough. "Please."We sat. Nobody spoke for a long moment, the four of us arranged like a jury waiting on a verdict nobody wanted to hear."Eleven years ago," Richard began, "I was approached by a man who offered to help me solve a cash flow problem at Prescott Holdings. Quietly. Off the books. I was younger, more desperate than I've ever admitted to anyone, and I said yes before I fully understood what I was agreeing to.""Who," Aiden said."
FORBIDDEN LOVE Chapter Sixty-One
LILY'S POV Noon came and went without a word from Richard.Aiden called twice, texted once, and got nothing back each time — not even the courtesy of *I need more time*, just silence stretching longer than either of us could sit with comfortably. By one, he'd made the decision to drive to the house himself, and by two, I'd made my own decision, one that had been sitting in my chest since the night before.I was going to ask my mother directly.---She was in the garden when I got there, kneeling in the dirt with gloves on, humming something under her breath the way she always did when she thought no one was listening. She looked up when my shadow fell across her work, surprised and pleased at once."This is a nice surprise," she said, sitting back on her heels. "You didn't mention coming by.""I need to ask you something, and I need you to actually answer me honestly, even if it's hard." I sat down on the garden bench across from her, my heart already pounding. "About Dad. About befo
FORBIDDEN LOVE Chapter Sixty
LILY'S POV He got there in under ninety minutes, which should have been impossible and somehow wasn't, and I met him at the lobby door still shaking slightly, more from the adrenaline crash than actual cold."I'm here," he said, pulling me into him the second the door opened, and I let myself hold on longer than I normally would have, needing the solid, certain weight of him after an hour of sitting alone with my own fear.We didn't talk about it properly until we were upstairs, door locked, Priya finally convinced to try sleeping in her own room now that Aiden was there. He sat across from me at the kitchen table, the same table where Rourke's call had landed like a verdict two days ago, and something in his face told me he'd been carrying more than he'd said on the phone."Tell me what happened with your father," I said. "All of it. No editing this time."So he told me — Richard's confession about Marcus Keene, the settlement, the fire that apparently hadn't been an accident at all
FORBIDDEN LOVE Chapter Fifty-Nine
**AIDEN'S POV**Richard was still awake when I got there, light on in his study, the particular late-night stillness of a man who didn't sleep well anymore either.He looked up when I came in without knocking, something already bracing in his expression, like he'd been waiting for this exact conversation for longer than tonight."Marcus Keene is dead," I said, no preamble. "Six months ago. Car accident, late at night, no witnesses, case closed without a real investigation. I want to know if you had anything to do with that."Richard went very still, the color draining slowly from his face. "Where did you hear that name.""Don't do that. Don't ask me questions instead of answering mine." My voice came out harder than I'd planned, something raw underneath it that had been building since the moment Rourke said *six months ago*. "Vanessa remembered overhearing her father arguing with you about him, years back. We found his old employment record. Senior financial officer, gone the same yea
FORBIDDEN LOVE Chapter Fifty-Eight — The Missing Employee
AIDEN'S POV None of us slept properly that night. I kept my phone in my hand until nearly four in the morning, running searches until the screen blurred, Lily beside me on the laptop doing the same thing, both of us too wired on adrenaline and fear to let exhaustion win. Priya dozed fitfully on the far end of the couch, refusing to go to her own room alone, and I didn't blame her. None of us wanted to be alone that night.By sunrise we had almost nothing — Marcus Keene's name existed in exactly one place online, a single archived employee directory, and nowhere else. No social media. No current address. No obituary, which I'd braced for and found somehow worse not finding."People don't just vanish," Lily said, rubbing her eyes, her voice stripped raw from hours of circling the same dead ends. "Not completely. Everyone leaves a trail somewhere.""Unless someone made sure they didn't." I set my phone down, something cold and certain settling into my chest. "I have an idea. I don't lov
FORBIDDEN LOVE Chapter Fifty-Seven
AIDEN'S POV The drive felt longer than two hours. It always did, lately, whenever something was waiting on the other end that neither of us wanted to find.We got to the apartment a little after midnight, and the street was empty — no dark sedan, no sign of anyone, just Priya waiting at the window with the porch light on and her arms wrapped around herself like she'd been standing there the whole time we'd been driving."It left about twenty minutes ago," she said, the second we got inside. "I watched it pull away. I'm sorry, I probably should've just called the second it happened instead of letting it sit.""You're okay. That's what matters." I pulled her into a hug, feeling her shake slightly, the adrenaline of the last few hours finally catching up to both of us at once. "Did you get a plate number? Anything?""It was too dark. I tried, I swear I tried, but all I could really tell you is dark sedan, tinted windows, parked close enough to see our window but not close enough that I
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