All Chapters of Forbidden Never Felt This Good: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

0052~Aria~The word landed and sat there between us.I looked at him. He looked back at me, steady, waiting, his hands still on my face from the last kiss, thumbs light against my jaw. The conference room was very quiet. Be his.I knew what I felt. I had known for a while now, if I was being honest with myself, and I had been working toward honesty with myself since the conversation with Josie and the decision to stop running from things. I loved Luca. That was the plain truth of it. Not the complicated, weighted version where I examined it from every angle before allowing it. Just the simple, direct version. I loved him.And he was standing in front of me asking me to be his.So why did something in my chest hesitate?I took a slow breath. He noticed it, he notices everything, and his expression stayed open, waiting, not pushing."I want that," I said. "I want to be clear about that first. I want that."Something moved through his face. Relief, maybe. The specific kind that comes

0054~Joan~The coffee had gone cold but I didn't care.I was parked on Rue Descartes with a clear sightline to the Santoro building entrance and that was all that mattered right now. I had found this spot four days ago after trying three others that didn't work, too much foot traffic on one, a delivery bay that blocked the view on another. This one was perfect. Quiet enough, close enough, and nobody paid attention to a woman sitting in a car with sunglasses on.My phone buzzed.Where are you? Céline. My only friend who still picked up when I called, and only because she didn't know enough to stop.Running errands. I texted back. Call you later.I put the phone face down and picked up the binoculars.Eight forty-seven. The black car pulled up exactly on schedule. Marco driving, which meant Luca was inside, which meant she was inside. I had learned their schedule. Consistency was the enemy of security and nobody had told them that apparently.The back door opened.Aria got out first.W

0056~Aria~Hi, beautiful CEO. This is Pierre. Hi, Pierre. I responded.Pierre: There she is. I was beginning to think the CEO had gone to bed without acknowledging her new contact.Aria: It's nine o'clock. Mr. CEO.Pierre: I was waiting for your response. And that was how it started.We talked for two hours. Not about business, not once, not even a reference to the vineyard or the contracts or anything that had happened in that conference room. He asked me how long I had been back in France and I told him a few weeks and he asked how the adjustment had been and I told him honestly that it had been more than I expected and less terrible than I feared, and he laughed at that and said that was the most precise non-answer he had ever received.Pierre: You're very specific about being vagueAria: It's a skill. What about you? You run the company alone?Pierre: With Landon and a team, yes. My father built it, I took it over six years ago when he retired. He retired very loudly and with

0058~Luca~Marco was cleaning the car when I found him in the garage.He looked up when I came in. He knew I was going to talk. He just waited."I don't like him," I said."I know.""The smiling." I leaned against the wall. "He smiles too much. Everything she says, he's smiling. Like she's the most fascinating thing he's encountered in years."Marco said nothing."And the way he looked at her in that conference room. Like the contracts were secondary. Like he came for the contracts and stayed for her.""Luca.""What?"Marco straightened up and looked at me properly. "You just described a man who is interested in a woman. That's all that happened. She gavekee"I know she handled it excellently. That's not what I'm talking about.""I know what you're talking about." He moved around to the other side. "You're talking about the fact that a perfectly legitimate, perfectly decent man walked into her office and found her interesting and you don't know what to do with that.""I know exactly

0060~Aria~"Tell me what you saw," I said."Get dressed first.""Luca.” I said sharply. "Aria. Please."The please stopped me. I put my coffee down and went upstairs.I dressed faster than usual, which was saying something because I was not a slow dresser. My mind was running the whole time, the beach, the tree line, that specific feeling of eyes that I had tried to talk myself out of on the drive home. I had almost convinced myself it was paranoia. Clearly it was not paranoia.I came back downstairs in ten minutes.Luca was in the corridor, phone in hand, already composed in the way that meant he had been doing things while I was upstairs. Calls, probably. Sending people somewhere. The machinery of his world moving quietly in the background while everyone else was still drinking their morning coffee."My father isn't even out of bed yet," I said."He'll want to know.""Can you at least tell me what's on the footage before we walk in there?"He looked at me. Brief consideration. "So