Forbidden Desire

Aisha’s POVI didn’t mean to overhear them.If the elevator had been slower…If I had knocked first…Maybe I wouldn’t have heard Aaliyah laughing.The sound stopped me in the hallway outside Brandon’s apartment.For a moment, I told myself I was imagining it. Aaliyah was my colleague at the firm. She was a good friend. She had been over for dinners before. Brandon knew her.Still, something twisted uncomfortably in my stomach.I stepped closer to the half-closed door.And then I heard Brandon’s voice.Low. Intimate.Too familiar.“You worry too much,” he said. “She’s flying home next week for her brother’s wedding anyway.”My heart skipped.Aaliyah laughed softly. “You’re terrible.”My fingers tightened around the strap of my purse.I should have walked away.Instead, I pushed the door open.The scene inside froze me in place.Brandon sat on the couch. Aaliyah straddled his lap, her hands tangled in his hair while his rested comfortably beneath her.Neither of them noticed me at first.

Aisha’s POVSunlight stabbed my eyes, and my head throbbed.“Damnit, Isha. No more alcohol,” I groaned.I scrambled for my phone. Gone. Where the hell did I put it?The door burst open. Fiona grinned. “Morning, girl.”“Fi… do you know what happened last night? My phone is missing.”She smirked. “Ethan said Kyle brought you home.”“What?!”She nodded. “By the time I got back from the restroom, you were gone. You were drunk and loud.”“Shit.” I slapped my forehead.Her eyes sparkled. “So… what did drunk Aisha do with the grumpy man?”“Nothing!” I groaned. “And my phone…”She pulled it from her bag. “Here. Your boyfriend’s been blowing up your phone.”I grimaced at Brandon’s texts. “He’s no longer my boyfriend.”She grinned, falling back on the bed. “Amazing news.”I frowned. She’d never liked him.“Okay, tell me everything,” she pressed.I threw my phone aside. “Fi… he cheated on me.”Her eyes widened. “With…?”“Aaliyah. My colleague. He’s been seeing her behind my back.”Fiona pressed h

Kyle’s POVI narrowed my eyes at Yvonne standing in my office. How many times had I warned her never to come here? It had been over a year since the breakup, and she still refused to let go.“What the fuck are you doing here?” she lashed out at Aisha.“I should be asking you that question,” I fired back.She stared angrily at me, then at Aisha. “You’ve been chasing him since you were a teenager. You didn’t have him then, and you won’t have him now.”Aisha was too flabbergasted to speak.“FYI, we are engaged and getting married soon. You better stay away from my fiancé,” she said, pointing at Aisha.It was my turn to be stunned into silence.She turned to me. “You better kill whatever you have going on with her before you come home to me.”With that, she walked out of the office, slamming the door shut.Aisha stood up and readjusted her blouse. “I should go.”“You resume first thing tomorrow morning,” I said as I walked toward my seat. “Serena will send in your appointment letter and f

Kyle’s POV“Where is he?” I asked Rio as I walked into the dimly lit room with Theo.“Right here, boss,” he said, stepping aside.The man looked barely alive. Bloodied. Beaten. Knees pressed against the cold concrete.“Has he confessed?”“He spat in my eye and refused to say a word,” Rio replied.I didn’t raise my voice. I never needed to.The man in front of me was already shaking. Fear clung to him like a second skin.“You are the Black King,” he trembled.Of course he knew.I never showed my face unless I needed to clean up an ugly mess or send a message. Even my buyers had never seen me. I ran a tight system.Blackcrest was impenetrable.And this fool thought he could infiltrate me.I stared at him. Blood stained the corner of his lips. Theo stood behind him, silent as ever, a gun resting casually in his hand.I adjusted my cufflinks slowly.“Who sent you?”The man hesitated. That was his first mistake.Theo’s fist connected with his jaw, snapping his head to the side. A strangled

Kyle’s POVWatching the videos Theo pulled up, Yvonne standing there calm and convincing, calling herself my fiancée and painting Aisha as some desperate seductress, set something dark off inside me.The headlines were worse. They were explosive and out of control.Yvonne wasn’t just attacking my personal life. She was threatening my company.And that I would not allow.Standing beside Aisha and claiming her as my girlfriend wasn’t impulsive. It was calculated. A necessary move to crush the cheating narrative before it spread any further.Nothing more.I felt the tension in her body the moment I wrapped my arm around her waist. She was stiff. Resistant.Good. She understood the weight of this.“But she’s a commoner!” A reporter shouted.I didn’t hesitate.“She is Aisha Manchester, from the Manchester family. The second dynasty that shaped Winchester into what it is today. Sister to Ethan, CEO of Manchester Group.”Silence.Then shock rippled through the room like a wave.Aisha had alwa