Library

Search

Home / Mafia / Forbidden Never Felt This Good / Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

All Chapters of Forbidden Never Felt This Good: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

83 Chapters

0071

0071~Aria~Pierre set the water glass down slowly.He looked at me across the table with that expression of his, an expression of calmness and patience. He had been like that from the supermarket. That particular quality of patience that doesn't do too much."I'm listening," he said.I had thought about how to say this on and off all day. During the vineyard survey, during lunch, during the drive to the restaurant. I had constructed several versions of it and discarded all of them because none of them were direct enough, and Pierre deserved direct."I think you're wonderful," I said. "I mean that without any of the softening that usually comes before something difficult. You are genuinely one of the easiest, warmest people I have spent time with since I came back to France and I don't want to lose that."He was still listening. Still patient."But I have feelings for someone else," I said. "And they're significant. They're not the kind I can talk myself out of or put alongside someth

0072

0072~Aria~I turned around to face him."You were staring at him," I said. "All evening. Like you were actively planning something."Luca leaned against the car and looked at me. "I was doing my job.""Your job doesn't require you to look at a man like you want to remove him from the continent.""That's a very specific description.""Pierre made the exact same observation."Something moved across his face. "Pierre said that.""Pierre said that." I crossed my arms. "He also correctly identified who I have feelings for, which he arrived at primarily based on the way you were watching our table for three hours like it had personally offended you."Luca was quiet for a moment."So," I said. "Do you want to say something or are we going to stand in this driveway pretending the evening was normal?"He pushed off the car.Came toward me.Stopped close, that distance he favors, the one that is technically conversation distance and practically something else entirely."I hated every minute of

0073

0073~Luca~My heart did something embarrassing.That was the honest truth of it. Standing in that cottage with the candles doing their work and Aria looking at me with that expression, the one I couldn't fully read, the one that was processing something significant, my heart did something I would not be describing to anyone ever."I don't know what to say," she said.The silence lasted approximately four seconds.They were the longest four seconds I had experienced in recent memory, including several that had involved actual danger, which said something about the specific vulnerability of this particular moment.Then she said, "Yes."Just that. Yes.I exhaled. She saw it and something warm moved across her face."Your heart skipped," she said."It did not.""Luca. I watched it.""You watched nothing."She stepped closer. "You were nervous.""I was….." I stopped. She was looking at me with that expression, the one she deploys when she knows she's right and is waiting for me to catch

0074

0074~Luca~Getting back before midnight had been the right call.I had known it even as we drove, even with Aria beside me in the car still warm from the cottage and the evening, even with every part of me wanting to stay in that small stone house by the river indefinitely. Vittorio's estate had rules that existed whether anyone acknowledged them or not, and one of those rules was that his daughter came home at a reasonable hour when she was in his care.Even if his daughter was now technically my girlfriend.That word sat strangely and completely correctly at the same time.We had come in quietly and she had gone to her room and I had gone to mine and we had exchanged a look in the corridor that contained the entirety of the evening compressed into three seconds, and then we had both gone to bed like adults, which was the appropriate thing to do.Vittorio had been in his study when we arrived. I had seen the light under the door.He hadn't come out.---The next morning he had been

0075

0075~Aria~My phone rang at eight thirty.I was somewhere between asleep and awake, the comfortable middle ground that weekend mornings offer when nothing is scheduled before ten, and I reached for it with my eyes still mostly closed.Josie.I frowned at the screen. Josie did not call before noon on weekends unless something had happened. I sat up and answered."What's wrong?" I said."Nothing's wrong." Her voice was bright in the specific way it gets when she is containing something. "Good morning, Aria.""It's eight thirty.""I know what time it is.""Then why are you calling me?”"I need you to do something for me," she said. "I need you to come outside."I looked at my room around me. Curtains, morning light at the edges, the familiar quiet of the estate. "Outside where?""Outside your room." A pause. "Come on."I stared at the phone. "Josie, what….”"Aria. Get up and come outside your room."I put two and two together somewhere between standing up and reaching the door, the spec

0076

0076~Aria~A little girl.She was small, maybe six or seven, with dark hair that had come loose from whatever it had started the day in and enormous dark eyes looking up at me with the particular directness that some children have before the world teaches them that staring is impolite. She was wearing a yellow jacket with a small embroidered flower on the pocket and she was holding a red-haired doll against her chest with her free hand while the other was still loosely holding my sleeve.She looked at me. I looked at her."Hello," I said."Hi." She released my sleeve. Matter of fact. Like she had required my attention, gotten it, and we could now proceed. "You have nice hair.""Thank you." I crouched down to her level. "You have nice hair too."She considered this assessment of her somewhat disordered situation. "Mine got messy," she said."Mine does that too," I said. "Where's your…”I looked up, scanning the immediate area for a parent, a carer, someone who belonged to this child. T

0077

0077~Aria~"Familiar how?" I said.Josie was still looking at Isabella across the park, the expression on her face doing that thing it does when she's processing something. "I don't know exactly. She just reminds me of someone.""She's six," I said. "She reminds you of every child you've ever found endearing.""Maybe." She didn't sound convinced. "It's the eyes."Isabella came running back before either of us could follow the thought further, full of news about the ride and a request for the doll back and a declaration that Sofia had missed her. I handed Sofia over and the reunion was treated with appropriate gravity.Adele started gathering their things with the practiced efficiency of someone who had been signaling departure for twenty minutes and was finally making it happen.Isabella looked at me."Are you going?" she said."We should head back soon," I said. "But it was really lovely meeting you, Isabella."She considered something for a moment. "Will I see you again?"I looked

0078

0078~Luca~Isabella was at the window when I pulled up.Small face against the glass, Sofia propped beside her. The moment she spotted the car she disappeared and the front door was already opening by the time I reached it."You came," she said."I said I would.""I know." She stepped back to let me in. "I always feel better when you actually do."That landed somewhere it wasn't supposed to and I filed it carefully, the way I file the things Isabella says that I don't have an immediate answer for.Adele was in the kitchen. She looked up and gave me the look she sometimes gives me, warm on the surface, something sitting underneath it. Something held."She's better," she said before I asked. "Much better today. She's been bright all morning." A pause. "She has things to tell you. She's been saving them.""Things," I said. "Plural.""She'll tell you in order." Adele turned back to the counter. "She has an order."Isabella had already taken my hand.We sat in the small sitting room, her

0079

0079~Luca~I looked at my daughter.She was watching me with those eyes, waiting, curious, the natural follow-up question sitting right there on her face because that's how Isabella works. She asks something and then she waits for the actual answer rather than filling the space herself.Fear gripped me."Aria," I said."Mm. With nice hair. She laughed a lot." She paused. "Do you know her?"I kept my expression easy. "It's not an uncommon name, princess.""No but…” "There are probably quite a few Arias in Paris." I kept my voice light. "Did she say where she was from?"Isabella thought about it. "No. We talked about the maze mostly. And Sofia." She looked at the doll. "And her friend was funny.""Sounds like a good afternoon."She studied me for one more second with that particular look she gets when she suspects she's not getting the complete picture but doesn't have enough evidence to press the point. Then she accepted it and moved on in the way that children do when they've made

0080

0080~Aria~“You,” I said.He stared at me with the same expression I knew was on my face. That blank, suspended kind of shock that comes from running into someone who belongs to a completely different chapter of your life, in a place where that chapter should not exist.Then he smiled.That smile. I would have recognized it anywhere. Slow, slightly crooked, like he found the universe quietly amusing and had decided to enjoy it instead of questioning it.“Aria Santoro,” he said. “In Paris.”“Théo Marchand,” I replied. “Of course.”Josie appeared beside me, her eyes moving between us. “Do you know this person?”“Unfortunately,” I said.Théo placed a hand over his chest. “Unfortunately. After everything.”“After everything is exactly why.”He laughed. He had always laughed easily. That was one of the defining things about Théo Marchand. He laughed at things that deserved it and things that didn’t, and he never seemed particularly concerned about the difference.“Josie,” I said, “this is

PREV

...

NEXT

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP

DMCA.com Protection Status