All Chapters of HIS FORBIDDEN TEMPTATION : Chapter 271 - Chapter 280

The silence in the house was unbearable. I’d been pacing for what felt like hours, the soles of my feet aching against the hardwood floors, but I couldn’t stop. My heart wouldn’t let me. Every time I told myself to sit down, to breathe, to trust that Lorenzo would walk through that door like he promised… another surge of panic pushed me up again, back and forth across the living room like a caged animal. He had left in such a hurry. No explanation, no detail that I could cling to in his absence. Just a kiss, his jaw tight, his eyes burning with something I couldn’t name, and those words—“I’ll be back. I’ll explain everything.” That was hours ago. And now the house felt haunted, every corner echoing with his absence. The clock on the wall ticked too loudly, mocking me with each second he didn’t return. Shadows stretched longer across the room as the night deepened, wrapping me in a suffocating cloak of dread. I tried to tell myself not to think the worst. That maybe traffic had d

The doctor’s lips moved, but for a moment, I couldn’t hear him. The sound of my pulse thundered too loudly in my ears, drowning out everything else. His mouth opened and closed, words spilling into the sterile air, but they were swallowed by the roaring storm in my head.It wasn’t until Carter’s hand brushed my elbow—a silent, grounding reminder—that I managed to drag my focus back to the man in front of me.His eyes were heavy. Tired. The kind of tired that only came from hours of fighting death for someone else.“Miss Ross,” he said carefully, his voice low, deliberate. “Mr De Vito sustained a serious head injury in the crash. There was swelling—bleeding. We had to perform emergency surgery to relieve the pressure.”Surgery. The word speared through me, sharp and merciless.I clutched the edge of the chair beside me, my knuckles whitening, my breath locked in my chest.“Is he…” My throat closed on the rest. I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t form the words that might shatter my world.The

The sound of her voice split the air like shattered glass.“Lorenzo! Enzo! Where is my Enzo?!”It was shrill, frantic, desperate—but beneath it, I heard the venom. I would know that voice anywhere. My blood went cold, then boiled hot all in the same breath.Amanda.For one impossible second, I thought my heart had stopped. My body forgot how to move, how to breathe, how to exist. Then the rage struck, fast and violent, ripping me out of my chair like a puppet cut free from its strings.The ER doors slammed against the wall as she burst inside, her eyes wild, hair messy like she’d dragged her hands through it a hundred times, her lips pulled tight with fear—but I didn’t see fear. I saw intrusion. Before I knew what I was doing, my voice ripped out of me, raw and furious.“What the fuck are you doing here, you bitch?!”Heads turned. A nurse froze mid-step. But I didn’t care. The words came out like fire, like claws. My chest heaved, my nails dug into my palms, and every shred of grief

Two weeks.That was how long I had been living in this suspended world—caught between hope and despair, light and shadow, holding my breath every second as if the air itself might decide whether Lorenzo lived or not.Two weeks of watching the rise and fall of his chest, memorizing every small shift in the steady rhythm of the machines, clinging to the sound of his heart monitor as if it were my only lifeline. Two weeks of pretending I was stronger than I was, of telling myself over and over that love was enough to anchor him here.But sometimes… sometimes, I broke.I’d promised him I would be strong. I whispered that vow against his skin the night I first saw him in this bed, fragile in ways I never thought he could be. I told myself—and him—that I wouldn’t cry, that I wouldn’t let despair touch me.But I was only human.And I missed him. God, I missed him so much it ached in my bones. I missed the flash of his blue eyes when he teased me, the curve of his lips when he smirked at me l

The basin of warm water trembled faintly in my hands as I set it down on the small bedside table. The steam curled upward in soft, ghostlike tendrils, carrying with it the faint scent of antiseptic soap. I dipped the cloth into it slowly, watching as the pale fabric darkened, soaked through, dripping back into the bowl in tiny ripples.My movements were careful, deliberate, as if every stroke, every touch, had to be perfect. It was the least I could do for him.Lorenzo lay there, still and silent, the machines keeping their steady rhythm around him, the only evidence that he was still tethered to this world. His chest rose and fell faintly under the blanket, each breath slow, each second stretching long enough to carve valleys in my heart.I wrung out the cloth and brushed it gently across his forehead, tracing the line of his brow, sweeping back strands of hair that had fallen forward. My fingers lingered for a moment, combing through his dark locks, the intimacy of the touch making