All Chapters of Forbidden By Her Sister's Husband : Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

The silence in the Hale estate wasn’t peaceful. It was heavy, like water filling a room, rising slowly until it pressed against your chest and made it hard to breathe.Aria Hale woke up to that silence, just as she did every morning.She lay still for a moment, her eyes tracing the familiar crack in the ceiling of her bedroom. The room was small, tucked away in the north wing of the house, far from the master suite and far from Cassandra’s sprawling quarters. It was perpetually cold here, the kind of chill that settled into the floorboards and seeped through the thin rug she had bought with her own pocket money three years ago.The light filtering through the sheer curtains was gray and weak, signaling another overcast morning.Aria pushed the duvet back. The air bit at her bare skin, raising goosebumps along her arms. She didn't shiver. She had learned a long time ago that reacting to the cold didn't make it warmer; it just made you more aware of your own discomfort.She moved throug

The morning after the dinner, the Hale estate felt different.Usually, the house was a tomb of silence, but today it vibrated with a manic, electric energy. It was the frequency of ambition. The merger had gone well. The handshake had happened. And, as Aria learned before she had even brushed her teeth, the wedding date had been set. "Six months," Cassandra announced.She was sitting at the vanity in her bedroom, staring at her own reflection with the intensity of an artist admiring a masterpiece. Aria stood by the door, holding a basket of fresh linens she had been collecting from the hallway."Father says we can't wait longer," Cassandra continued, applying a layer of peach gloss to her lips. "The fiscal year ends in December. We need the stocks to merge before then. So, I have six months to plan the wedding of the century." She turned to look at Aria, her eyes bright with triumph. "Can you imagine it? Mrs. Cassandra Cross. It sounds expensive, doesn’t it?" Aria gripped the wicke

The days following the engagement party did not bring peace. They brought an invasion.The Hale estate, once a mausoleum of cold silence, had been turned into a command center for the "Wedding of the Century." That was what the magazines were calling it. The Union of Empires. The Billion-Dollar Vow.For Aria, it meant her sanctuary was gone.There were florists in the hallway arguing about the shade of hydrangeas. There were caterers in the kitchen testing tartlets. There were dress designers, lighting technicians, and event coordinators swarming every room like an infestation of well-dressed locusts.Aria tried to stay out of the way. She spent her mornings in the library (when it wasn't occupied by her father’s lawyers) and her afternoons in the greenhouse. But she couldn't escape entirely. Cassandra wouldn't let her."Aria, hold this," Cassandra commanded, thrusting a heavy binder of fabric swatches into Aria’s arms.They were in the main drawing room on a Tuesday afternoon. Outsid