All Chapters of Forbidden By Her Sister's Husband : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Aria decided she couldn’t sit in the silence anymore. The walls of Unit 40B felt like they were leaning in, the gray marble reflecting her own isolation back at her. She needed to move. She needed to feel like she had some control over her own body, even if it was just walking to the communal gym on the 30th floor to use the water fountain.She didn’t change her clothes. She didn’t want to see her body in the mirror. She just grabbed her key card and walked out of the apartment.She headed for the lifts.The hallway was empty, the lighting soft and amber. She pressed the button and waited.The lift arrived with a soft chime. The doors slid open to reveal a mirrored interior, the brass fittings polished to a high shine. Aria stepped inside and pressed the button for the 30th floor.The lift began its descent.It was a smooth, silent motion, the kind of engineering that made you forget you were suspended by cables in a shaft of steel. Aria watched her reflection in the mirrors. She looke

“Don’t fidget,” he said.Aria sat rigid, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She could feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric of her trousers. She could feel the hard muscle of his thighs beneath her. Damian reached for his phone. He held it to his ear. “Transfer the call,” he said.He was continuing his work.Aria stared at the desk, her mind fracturing. He wasn’t going to acknowledge her. He had simply placed her here on his lap, in his space and now he was going to pretend she was furniture.She heard a muffled voice on the other end. Damian responded with clipped, efficient answers. His free hand rested on her hip, his thumb moving in slow, absent circles against the fabric of her trousers. It was maddening.Aria tried to ignore the way his hand felt. But then his hand moved. He slid it higher, up the curve of her waist. His fingers splayed across her ribs, just beneath her breast. He was simply holding her while he spoke about acquisition strategies to someone on the o

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

The air in sub-basement Level B4 was always five degrees cooler than the rest of the building, a stagnant, artificial chill that seemed to seep directly into Aria’s bones. She sat at her small metal desk, her hands moving with a repetitive, mindless rhythm as she sorted through a crate of uncatalogued legal correspondences from the mid-nineties. The dust was thick, a gray film that coated her skin and the high collar of her knit top, but it was the only thing that felt real.The silence of the archives was no longer a sanctuary. After the dinner at the Hale estate the night before, the quiet felt like a trap. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the sharp, predatory look in Cassandra’s eyes when she’d commented on Aria being "flushed." She could still feel the weight of Damian’s gaze from the other end of the mahogany table—a silent, heavy pressure that told her he was watching her hide in plain sight.Aria looked at the clock on the wall. 10:15 AM.She had been in the basement for

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 to t