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Night Rounds
publish date:
2026-10-27 19:23:29
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Forbidden To Love You What I Admitted At 3am
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN WHAT I ADMITTED AT 3 A.M.ELENAAt three in the morning, I admitted something worse than guilt.I lay on my back in the great cold bed with my eyes open and the ceiling very white above me, and I said it out loud, in a whisper, to nobody.“I’m not sorry,” I whispered into the dark.The words sat in the dark like a stone dropped into a well. I waited for them to echo. They did not, they simply stayed there, true and heavy and impossible to take back.I had tried to be sorry, I had tried all evening.I had sat through dinner with Victor’s hand brushing mine as he passed the bread, and I had felt guilty.I had gone up the stairs past the library door and felt guilty about that too. I had brushed my teeth and looked at my own face in the mirror, and I had waited for the shame to come, the big, clean, righteous kind that would let me be punished and finished. It had not come.What came instead was a small, shameless warmth. It sat under my ribs like a coal.I turned o
Forbidden To Love You What Mrs Collins Remembers
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXWHAT MRS. COLLINS REMEMBERSELENA“The house wasn’t always this quiet, ma’am,” Mrs. Collins said, folding a towel she had already folded.It was four in the afternoon, the day after the gala and the rain Victor had promised in the night had finally arrived, and it ran down the kitchen windows in long silver threads.I sat at the scrubbed oak table with my shoes off and my feet tucked under me, holding a cup of tea I had not asked for.Mrs. Collins had put it in front of me earlier without a word, that was how she said most things.“It’s very quiet,” I agreed, glancing at the rain.“Mm,” she murmured, smoothing the towel flat.She folded it again and I waited patiently. I had learned, in a month, that Mrs. Collins gave you a story the way a hen gives you an egg.You could not hurry it even if you tried to, you could only sit still and look harmless. I had learned too that she noticed everything.She noticed when I skipped lunch, and when I took the back stairs to avo
Forbidden To Love You One Drink
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVEONE DRINKVICTORAt two in the morning I poured two whiskies and found my nephew already standing at the window.The study was dark except for the green lamp on my desk. Beyond the glass the gardens lay in blue shadow, and the last of the lanterns swung in the wind along the terrace.I had not expected company. I had come down, I told myself, just to check the locks.“Couldn’t sleep either?” I asked.“No,” Adrian said.He did not turn, he stood with one shoulder against the window frame, his tie gone, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, looking out at nothing.I crossed the carpet and held out a glass and he took it without a word.We stood side by side, two men with the same jaw and different eyes, and drank.“It went well,” I said at last.“It did,” he answered.“Better than I had hoped.” I exhaled. “Honestly, I thought I’d mess it up.”“You were very good,” Adrian said.“I was nervous.” I gave a small laugh. “My hands were shaking the whole time.”“It didn’t show.”
Forbidden To Love You The Gift From Mother
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTHE GIFT FROM MOTHERELENAThe package arrived at midnight, wrapped in silver, and everybody in the room stopped talking.The gala was finally over. The last guest had been seen to her car, the orchestra had packed away its violins and the ballroom stood hollow and glittering, a stage after the show.We had drifted, the five of us, into the small family sitting room at the back of the house.Victor had loosened his tie and looked relieved. Vivienne lay upside down on the sofa with her feet in the air, eating strawberries out of a bowl, while Clara sat very straight in the armchair by the fire, her hair coming down, her shoes kicked off.I sat on the rug, because my feet hurt too much to care what Mrs. Collins would think.Adrian leaned in the doorway with a glass in his hand.It was the first time I had seen all of us in one room without a fight.“Twenty pounds,” Vivienne said to the ceiling. “She did not cry before the soup.”“She did not cry before the pudding,” C
Forbidden To Love You What I Couldn't Say
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREEWHAT I COULDN’T SAYADRIANI stood in the corridor with the phone still buzzing in my hand, and I knew I was going to lie to someone before the night was over.I had already lied to Elena and it had been easy. At least, that was what I thought.That was the part that frightened me.I leaned my back against the cold wall of the east passage, out of sight of the ballroom doors, and let the phone ring itself out.After some seconds, the screen went dark, then it lit again.Sophie.I closed my eyes. “Answer it, you coward,” I muttered.I pressed the button. “Hello?”“Hi, you.” Her voice came through warm and slightly breathless, with a clatter of airport noise behind it. It went through me like a small, clean knife.“Sophie.” I closed my eyes.“I tried you three times! Are you at the party?”“I’m at the party.” I tried to keep my voice even.“Is it awful?” She sounded amused.“It’s long.” I forced a smile she couldn't see.She laughed. “Well, you can relax,” she said.
Forbidden To Love You The Balcony
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWOTHE BALCONYELENAThe balcony was the only place in that house where I could hear my own thoughts. I slipped out ten minutes after the waltz, while Victor was swallowed whole by a knot of bankers.“Five minutes,” I told myself. “Just air.”The terrace ran the whole length of the east wing, a long stone ledge hung with ivy and lit by small lanterns. Below it the gardens spread out in the dark, silver and silent.I leaned on the cool stone and breathed. The music from the ballroom came faint and golden through the glass.I closed my eyes. “You look like you’re hiding,” Adrian said.I did not turn, I didn't have to, I knew that voice anywhere. I had known it in the dark, in the rain, in a library, in a garden.“I am hiding,” I said.“From whom?” he asked.“From everyone.” I didn't look at him.“Even me?” His voice dropped.“Especially you,” I whispered.He came and stood beside me at the rail, it was not close.A careful arm's length, with the lantern light between us.
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