All Chapters of Forbidden Affairs : Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

The parish green never looked like this. Colored bulbs strung from tree to tree threw soft halos over the food stalls and raffle tables, and the old bandstand had been swept clean and dressed with flowers. Laughter rose and fell with the music, the kind of cheerful noise that makes strangers feel like neighbors. The scent of frying dough and grilled corn mingled with salt blown in from the harbor. It should have felt wholesome, like a postcard. It did not feel wholesome to me.I had promised myself I would behave. Take tickets at the bake sale. Smile at the ladies who still called me dear as if I were seven. Drop a few bills into the donation jar and leave before the slow songs started. It was a plan that survived exactly until I saw him.Father Mateo stepped onto the edge of the green with a stack of flyers in one hand. The collar at his throat was a clean white bar against black. He had rolled his sleeves to his forearms because the summer air ran warm even after dusk, and the cords

Rain started as a whisper. By the time I reached my apartment, it had deepened into a steady rhythm against the roof, the kind that makes you linger by the window and watch the streets empty. I changed into a loose shirt, poured a glass of wine, and told myself the night was over.It wasn’t.Every sip tasted faintly of the way he had said please. Every shadow seemed to lean toward the memory of his hands at my back. The music from the festival still hummed somewhere in my mind, but now it was slower, heavier, darker.I tried reading. I tried music. I even tried lying down, but the rain kept whispering his name in my ear. Finally, I gave up.The rectory was only a ten-minute walk, if you didn’t mind getting wet. I minded. I still put on my coat and stepped into the night.⸻The parish green looked different without its strings of lights and crowds of people. The bandstand was dark, the lawn scattered with paper cups and the faint glitter of confetti. Rain slicked the stone path, and th

Toby was already sweating when he walked into the garage. Not because of the heat, though the place was stifling. No fans. No breeze. Just the scent of engine oil, motor grease, and raw masculinity.The kind of place where secrets happened.He wiped his palms on his jeans and stepped in deeper. His girlfriend’s dad was crouched beside the motorcycle, bare-chested, shoulders thick and sun-kissed, tattoos curling over his biceps. His sweatpants hung low on his hips, waistband curling slightly. Every movement made the muscles in his back ripple.Toby cleared his throat. “She said she’d be twenty minutes late. Got held up at work.”The man didn’t look up right away. He kept working, wrench in hand, adjusting something on the bike. Finally, he spoke.“Figured.” His voice was low. Rough. A little too casual.Toby glanced around. There was only one chair in the garage, and it was piled with rags. He leaned against the counter near the tool rack.“She said you’d probably be out here. Thought

She wasn’t supposed to touch it.It stood on its own pedestal in the gallery room, carved from jet-black stone and polished to a gleam. A woman on her knees, spine arched, mouth parted in silent surrender. The piece had no title plate, no artist signature. It was raw. Obscene. Beautiful.Her fingers hovered over the sculpture, trembling.She looked over her shoulder once.No one.The apartment was still. Quiet.The kind of quiet that made your own breath sound too loud.She reached out and touched it.Stone, but not cold.It felt alive.She ran a fingertip along the woman’s parted lips. Her thighs pressed together without her permission.“You’re not paid to touch the art.”The voice cut through the air like a blade.She jerked her hand back.He was standing in the doorway.Tall. Suited. Shirt unbuttoned at the collar. No tie. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of something amber. He didn’t look surprised. Or angry.He just looked like he’d been watching her for a while.

The champagne was warm. The music too loud. Everyone looked too rich, too fake, too happy. I stood by the bar, tugging at the collar of my black suit, already regretting showing up.The only reason I came was to see the woman who used to be my stepmom.Clarissa.She hadn’t raised me exactly, but she’d lived in my father’s house for three years. I was seventeen when he married her. She was twenty-nine then. Too young to be called mom, too beautiful to be ignored. She moved like something out of a forbidden fantasy—always barefoot on cold marble, always dripping water from her morning showers, always sighing through half-open doors.She was my obsession before I even knew what that word meant.Now I was twenty-six. And today… she was getting married again.To someone else.And I wanted to see her. I wanted to see what kind of man could hold her down after everything she’d taught me to ache for in silence.Then the music shifted.Heads turned.And she walked in.I froze mid-sip. The flut