Todos os capítulos de Forbidden By Her Sister's Husband : Capítulo 11 - Capítulo 20

"Get. Up."Aria stood up, terrified. Damian pointed to the door. "Go to the kitchen. Put a bandage on that hand. And drink water. You look like a corpse, and it is distracting me.""Distracting you?""I cannot think of you hovering there, looking like you are about to faint," he snapped. "Go."Aria didn’t argue. She ran to the kitchen, her heart pounding. She found a Band-Aid and wrapped her finger. She drank a glass of water, her hands shaking so hard the liquid spilled down her chin.She waited five minutes, terrified to go back, but more terrified of what he would do if she didn’t finish the job. She crept back to the morning room.She stopped in the doorway.Damian was sitting in her chair. He had taken off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. He had rolled up his sleeves, revealing thick, muscular forearms.He was working.He wasn't struggling. He was a machine. His hands moved with terrifying speed and precision. Fold. Stuff. Seal. Stamp. He didn’t hesitate.

"I need a dress," Damian said, cutting through the pleasantries.He gestured to Aria, who was standing awkwardly behind him, dripping rainwater onto the plush carpet.The manager looked at Aria. He looked at her cheap sweater. He looked at her wet hair. His nose wrinkled slightly."For... the young lady?""For the wedding," Damian said."Bridesmaid. Silver. Silk. Floor length.""Of course," the manager nodded. "And the style?""Modest," Damian said sharply. "High neck. Long sleeves. She is not to look like she is for sale."Aria felt a flush of heat crawl up her neck. Like she is for sale. Was that how he saw Cassandra? Or was that just how he saw women in general?"Right this way," the manager said.For the next hour, Aria was a doll.She was poked, prodded, and measured. Dresses were brought out.First, a strapless silver gown.Damian, sitting in a velvet armchair with a glass of scotch he hadn't touched, shook his head. "No. Too much skin."Next, a backless number."No," Damian said

The day Damian Cross married Cassandra Hale, the city felt less like a celebration and more like a surrender.The sky was a sheet of blinding, oppressive white.There was no sun, only a flat glare that stripped the color from the trees and turned the stone of St. Patrick’s Cathedral into a fortress of gray ice.Aria stood in the bridal suite, her hands shaking as she held the steamer.The room smelled of hairspray, nervous sweat, and cloying lilies.It was a chaotic hive of bridesmaids, makeup artists, and photographers, all orbiting around the sun that was Cassandra.“My veil!” Cassandra screamed at the mirror.“It’s crooked! If I walk down that aisle looking lopsided, I will sue everyone in this room!”“It’s perfect, Cassandra,” Aria whispered, smoothing the delicate lace.She was wearing the silver dress Damian had forced her to buy.It fit her like a second skin, high-necked, long-sleeved, severe.It made her look like a statue.A beautiful, silent statue.“It better be,” Cassandra

Aria stood at the end of the long, winding driveway, her breath puffing out in white clouds that were instantly snatched away by the gale.She was waiting for the bus.Her Honda Civic—the car her father had bought her five years ago as an afterthought was dead. It sat in the garage under a tarp, a rusted, lifeless hulk of metal that had finally surrendered to the sub-zero temperatures three days ago. The battery was dead, the alternator was shot, and the transmission leaked a dark, oily fluid onto the pristine concrete floor.Cassandra had laughed when she saw it. “It looks like it’s bleeding out,” she had said, stepping over the puddle in her Louboutins.Desmond had shrugged. “Fix it yourself. Builds character.”So Aria walked.She walked a mile to the main road, trudging through the dirty slush that the plows pushed to the side. She waited twenty minutes for the bus that smelled of wet wool and diesel. Since her father had forced her into online classes, she took the train to the cit

The winter nights in New York didn't just arrive; they settled over the city like a heavy, frozen shroud. The sleet was relentless, washing the grime off the city streets and leaving behind a slick, black polish that mirrored the suffocating mood of the Hale estate.It had been only a handful of days since the wedding. Days of silence. Days of Sunday dinners where the air was so thick with tension it felt hard to swallow the food.Tonight was the Cross Foundation Winter Gala. It was the crown jewel of the social calendar, held in the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a night for billionaires to congratulate themselves for being rich.Aria stood in the center of her bedroom, staring at the dress hanging on the door. It wasn’t the mauve disaster. It wasn’t the silver silk from the wedding. It was a navy blue gown she had bought online with her own money. It was high-necked, long-sleeved, and shapeless enough to hide everything.She put it on. It made her look lik