All Chapters of Her forbidden desire-bella : Chapter 11 - Chapter 17

Devon's idea of compromise was forcing everyone into the same room and calling it "family bonding.""It's just a movie," he said for the third time, his tone suggesting he was losing patience with the resistance. "Two hours. We all sit down, we watch something, we act like normal people for once.""We're not normal people," Marcus said from his wheelchair, not looking up from his phone. "We're a disaster waiting to happen.""All the more reason to try." Devon crossed his arms. "Liam picked the movie. Ethan's making popcorn. I got the drinks. All you have to do is show up.""What if I don't want to?" Marcus's voice was flat."Then you can sit in here alone while the rest of us have a good time." Devon's expression softened slightly. "Come on, brother. When's the last time we just hung out? No therapy, no tension, no walking on eggshells. Just the guys watching a stupid action movie.""And Bella," Marcus said quietly."And Bella," Devon agreed. "Your wife. Who might actually enjoy seein

Bella had always done yoga alone.That was the point of it. Forty minutes before the house woke up, before anyone needed anything from her, before she had to be someone's wife or someone's caretaker or someone's temptation. Just her and the mat and the specific silence of early morning light.She should have locked the door.Six-fourteen AM.She was halfway through her second sun salutation when she heard the back door open.Devon stood on the deck in running shorts and a compression shirt, earbuds around his neck, sweat already on his hairline. He'd clearly been out running. He clearly hadn't expected her to be there.They looked at each other."I'll go around," he said."It's fine." The words were automatic. Reflex. She was starting to hate her own reflexes. "I'm almost done."He nodded and moved toward the far end of the deck to stretch, keeping his distance, respecting the invisible line they'd been drawing and redrawing for weeks.She went back to her flow.Warrior One. Warrior T

Nobody talked about the phone call.Bella hadn't told anyone. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The voice on the other end had been careful and deliberate and gone before she could ask a single question that mattered, and she'd spent the rest of the storm-dark night turning it over like a stone she wasn't sure she wanted to look under.Someone close to you has been paying for information about you.She knew what it meant.She just didn't know what to do with knowing.Two days after the storm, the upstairs bathroom was still broken.The cabinet under the sink had taken water damage from a pipe that had been slowly losing a fight with age, and the storm had finished it off. The door wouldn't close. The shelf inside had warped and collapsed. It was a small, specific disaster in a house full of larger ones, which somehow made it more irritating than everything else.Bella was on her knees in front of it at nine in the morning, tools she only half knew how to use spread across the tile, when Ethan

Ethan left at six-twelve in the morning.Bella was there. She'd been awake since five, which he probably knew, which was probably why he'd asked her to walk him out in the first place. He understood her rhythms better than most people she'd known for years.The car idled at the curb. His bag was already in the trunk.He looked at her for a moment in the early gray light and then he said, quietly and without drama, "Devon got a call from Harold Chen."She went very still."Harold Chen," she repeated."Ask Devon what was on that call." Ethan picked up his carry-on. "Don't let him redirect you. Ask him directly." He paused. "And Bella — whatever Marcus thinks he knows about you, Chen told Devon it isn't what Marcus believes."Before she could form a single question, he stepped forward and pressed a brief kiss to her temple. Warm. Gone in a second."Take care of yourself," he said. "Not everyone else. Yourself."He got in the car.She stood on the curb until it turned the corner.Then she