All Chapters of HOUSE OF FORBIDDEN DESIRE : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Camilla’s POVThe house felt wrong tonight. Not the usual wrong, like the low whispers of secrets I already owned. It wasn't the quiet satisfaction of knowing exactly where every cock in this family had been and who it belonged to. This was different.A silence that tasted like someone had started keeping things from me. A stillness that wasn't peaceful. A subtle shift in the way Richard acted, no longer active and lively.I noticed it first at dinner. Isabella wouldn't maintain eye contact. Not even when I asked her to pass the jam. Her fingers trembled slightly when she handed me the jam, almost invisible, but I saw. She always looked at me when I spoke. Always, like she was daring me. Even when she hated me, she looked. Tonight she stared at her plate like it held the answer to salvation.Richard was too quiet, like it was planned. He usually watched Isabella with that soft, guilty fatherly gaze he thought no one noticed. Tonight, he barely looked at her. His jaw was tight, h

Isabella's POVClaire had been emotional down for days ever since the dress fitting where Uncle Daniel had cornered us both in the boutique. She barely spoke at meals when she visited. Her texts were short, full of ellipses. When she asked me to come to her apartment after what went down at the family dinner at Daniel’s estate, her voice on the phone sounded like someone who’d been crying for hours.“I need you here,” she said. “Tonight, my fiancé is out of town.”I stepped out of the house, outside felt like freedom. She opened the door in sweatpants and an oversized hoodie, eyes red, mascara smeared all over.She hugged me so tight I felt her ribs. “Come in,” she whispered.We sat on the couch. She poured us both wine with shaking hands.“I can’t do this anymore,” she said. “Daniel keeps texting, saying he’ll come to the wedding if I don’t… see him one more time. He’s threatening to tell my fiancé everything. To ruin the wedding. To ruin me.”I took her hand, wiped a tear rolling

Isabella's POVI left Claire’s around 9:30. Her tears were still wet on my top, and her whole confession about Lucas was sitting heavy in my chest like I’d swallowed something sharp. I tried not to think about the video, about how she looked when she said she loved him… not like a brother, but more. My head was a mess, but tonight wasn’t about her drama. It was about Dad. About whatever was eating at him when he slipped me that hotel card earlier.The hotel was one of those fancy ones downtown screaming luxury, with shiny floors, soft lights, and the kind of place that smells expensive. He texted me the room number from the card. Suite 1408, and took the elevator up. My heart was beating fast, louder than the quiet music in the background.He was waiting right outside when the elevator doors opened. He wasn't looking the billionaire he was, shirt roughly tucked, sleeves rolled up but not neatly, tie loose, looking tired and smaller than usual. He gave me a quick hug, like he really

Richard’s POVI never wanted Isabella to see this side of me.Not the boardroom version, the cold, calculated, willing to ruin lives for a single percentage point.But the real one.The one that still wakes up at 3 a.m., remembering the day my first wife walked away from my life, the day I married Camilla to keep the family name clean, the day I realized I traded my sons’ childhoods for silence.I knew Isabella had delivered the recognition agreement to Camilla.I knew because I watched the hallway camera feed from my study. It was a secret camera only I had access to. I watched the grainy black-and-white image of my youngest daughter walking barefoot, blindfolded, wearing a robe, clutching the envelope like it was a bomb. I watched the door open, and in 10 mins, she was out, just standing in the hallway helpless.I got her text, but I didn’t move. I didn’t storm in. Because I had already made my decision three days earlier, the moment Alex showed me the recording of Camilla confes

Marcus’s POVI remember Isabella's confession, almost whispered in the front seat of the Bentley the last time I took her on a drive, her voice shaking as she told me about Maria. Not just the housekeeper who’d raised her since she was small, not as the woman who folded sheets and cooked breakfast. But the woman who fucked her father for years, the woman whose mouth had been on Isabella's skin more than once.I didn’t judge Isabella. I have seen too much in this house to judge anyone. But I needed to know how deep the rot went. And Maria was the root.I waited until it was past midnight, around past 2 a.m., when even the security lights dimmed to a soft glow, and I was sure everyone was fully asleep. Then I took the service stairs down to the caretaker’s cottage, the narrow corridor behind the kitchen where the staff rooms were tucked away like an afterthought.Maria’s door was closed, but a thin line of warm light showed under it. She never slept early, she was either reading, foldin