Todos los capítulos de Forbidden By Her Sister's Husband : Capítulo 41 - Capítulo 50

The air in the B3 sub-basement didn’t move.It sat heavy and stagnant, smelling of silverfish, rotting adhesive, and the dry, alkaline sting of paper that hadn’t been touched in three decades. The August heat had a way of seeping through the concrete, even fifty feet underground, turning the stagnant air into a thick, airless soup. Aria sat at her desk, the back of her light cotton blouse clinging to her skin. The single desk fan she’d found in a storage closet was doing nothing but pushing the warm, dusty air in a slow, rhythmic circle.She reached up to wipe a bead of sweat from her temple, her fingers leaving a gray smudge of dust on her forehead. The 1982 audit reports for the Cross-Vance merger were finally organized, a mountain of yellowed paper that smelled of old glue and decay. Every time she turned a page, the dry paper rasped against her fingertips, a sound that seemed to echo in the cavernous silence of the archives.She felt a tremor in her hands. It wasn’t just the fatigu

Aria woke before the sun reached the windows of Unit 40B. The apartment was silent, the kind of heavy, pressurized quiet that made the sound of her own breathing feel too loud. She didn’t move for a long time, lying flat on her back with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her body felt heavy, anchored to the mattress by a dull, persistent ache that she couldn’t attribute to physical labor alone.It was a phantom weight, the lingering sensation of the day before the heat of Damian’s lap, the pressure of his hands on her ribs, and the brutal, unfinished intimacy in the study. She turned onto her side, pulling the duvet tighter around her shoulders, but the friction of the fabric against her skin only made the restlessness worse. Her skin felt sensitized, as if he had peeled away a layer of her armor and left her exposed to the air.She hated the way her mind replayed it. She hated the way her pulse jumped when she remembered the sound of his voice on the phone while he touched her, calm and

Aria sat at her metal desk in the sub-basement, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. The air in the archives was stagnant, despite the industrial fans humming in the corners. It was August 21st. The humid, heavy heat of a New York summer didn’t reach this far underground, but she could feel the weight of it in the silence. It was her twenty-fourth birthday. She waited for the internal line to ring, or for a text to vibrate against the desk. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. The only sound was the rhythmic clicking of the server rack. She pulled a stack of shipping invoices from 2018 toward her, her movements mechanical. She didn’t expect a cake or a card. In the Hale household, milestones were reserved for those who added value to the family name. Aria was merely a survivor of a tragedy her father had never forgiven. The phone finally rang at 11:00 AM. Aria’s pulse spiked, a small, treacherous part of her hoping for a single word of recognition. “Aria Hale,” she said. “Aria, get

The Monday morning air in the sub-basement felt heavier than usual, the scent of dust and old paper clinging to the back of Aria’s throat. She sat at her desk, staring at a stack of invoices that had been sitting there for an hour, but the numbers wouldn’t settle into focus. Her mind kept drifting back to the Saturday night party—the way the club had smelled of expensive gin and sea salt, the way Alex had laughed when she stumbled over a word, and the way he had looked at her as if she were a person instead of an object to be managed.It had been four hours of normalcy, and it had ruined her.The internal phone buzzed, vibrating against the metal surface of the desk. Aria jumped, her hand flying to her chest. She took a breath before answering.“Aria Hale,” she said.“Sarah,” the voice on the other end clipped. “Mr. Cross is in his office. He wants the final quarterly logs for the textile plants. Bring the physical ledger. Now.”“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Aria replied.She gathe

The penthouse was silent, the kind of heavy, pressurized quiet that only exists in places where everything is for sale. Inside, the climate control kept the air crisp and sterile, smelling faintly of the expensive white lilies Cassandra insisted on having replaced every forty-eight hours.Aria stood at the marble kitchen island, her fingers trembling as she tried to steady the silver spoon against the rim of her coffee cup. Every muscle in her body felt like a frayed wire. The high collar of her charcoal-gray dress was a cage, the fabric rubbing against the dark, tender bruise on her throat that no amount of concealer could truly hide from her own mind.“Honestly, Aria, do you have to be so loud?” Cassandra’s voice sliced through the morning quiet like a glass shard.Cassandra was lounging on the velvet sofa, her silk robe draped perfectly over her legs. She was scrolling through her phone, her face twisted in a habitual pout.“I’m sorry, Cassandra,” Aria whispered, her voice sounding