Forbidden: Claimed by My Ex's Father and Brother のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 351 - チャプター 360

Joella’s POVTonight was Dante’s exhibition, and I was standing with Lia near one of the large paintings, a glass of champagne cold in my hand. The gallery was full of expensive clothes and low voices. Soft music played under the talk. Lights hung warm over the art. I had been doing fine until I wasn’t.Then I saw him.Cavern walked in like the room already belonged to him. He was wearing a tuxedo that looked expensive in the quiet way money looks when it does not need to shout. Dark jacket. White shirt. Tie straight. Hair combed back. He moved the way he always moved. Calm. Controlled. A little cold. He just scanned the room, and my stomach dropped.Since that day at the restaurant, when he had stepped between me and Roman, things between us had been a little less professional than I wanted. At work he still called me Miss Smith. I still called him sir. But the air had changed. In the elevator. In his office doorway. In the way his eyes found mine a second too long before he looked a

Joella’s POVMy heart sped up so fast I felt it in my throat. Why me, Lord. Of all the curbs in this city, of all the nights I could have stood outside waiting for a cab with my phone dark and my best friend not answering, it had to be this one, and it had to be him.He stopped in front of me, close enough that I had to tip my chin to keep his eyes. His cologne reached me first, clean and warm, and my body answered before my pride could stop it. His eyes moved over me slowly, over my face, my mouth, the line of my dress, and my bare arms, which were still cold from the balcony and the curb. I felt hot under his gaze, as if he had put his hands on me without touching me at all.“Good evening, Joella.”His voice was low and rough at the edges, nothing like the boardroom voice that called me Miss Smith and asked for the revised figures.I held my clutch tighter against my stomach. “Oh. It’s Joella now. What happened to Miss Smith?”His eyes wrinkled with humor, and a small smirk pulled a

Joella’s POV“You are.”My face burned. “You are unbelievable.”“And you’re restless.” He did not look away from the road, but his voice was rough. “Cross your legs tighter if you want. It won’t help.”I made a sound that was half a laugh and half a curse. “If you keep talking like that, I’m getting out at the next light.”“No, you won’t.”“Try me.”“I’d pull over,” he said, calm and low, “and you’d still be in my car. You like being told what to do. You liked it when I told you to get in. You’re sitting there angry and warm because I buckled your belt and called you beautiful, and you don’t know what to do with it.”I turned fully toward him. The streetlights cut across his profile, the sharp line of his jaw, the loosened tie, the open collar where his skin showed warm against the white shirt. He looked too good to be saying those things in that voice, too calm for a man who had just told me I was restless and failing at hiding it.“You don’t get to talk to me like that and then go b

Joella’s POVMy tummy did a backflip. I want you. He had said it about a file. My body did not care what he had meant it about. Heat moved low and slow, and I had to close my eyes for a second so I would not say something I could not take back.“Cavern,” I said, then caught myself. “Sir. It’s late.”“I know what time it is.” I could hear the smile in his voice, the same one he had worn in the car when I told him not to let his ego get bigger than his head. “The door is locked,” he said. “The code is four-seven-one-nine. Don’t write it down.”I repeated it once in my head and felt foolish for how carefully I held it, as if the numbers were something private he had put in my hand. “Four-seven-one-nine.”“Good.” His voice dropped again, warm and sure through the phone. “Top drawer on the left. Black folder. My name on the tab. Don’t open it. Bring it to the address I’m sending you.”“And if I say no?”“You won’t.”The certainty should have annoyed me. It did not. It made my skin feel too

Joella’s POVThe elevator slowed, and my pulse did not slow with it. I set my face the way I set it in meetings, the way I set it when I did not want anyone to read me, and I waited for the doors to open with the folder pressed tight against my chest. The mirrored wall gave me back a woman who looked composed if you did not look too long. I told myself to hand him the file, say good night, and leave before the night could become anything else.The doors opened into the most luxurious apartment I had ever been in.Warm light fell over dark floors. A wall of glass held the city at a distance, all those small lights quiet under a wide dark sky. There was a low couch, a long table, a kitchen beyond it where something was cooking, and the air smelled like him and like butter and herbs. And standing right in the middle of it was Cavern.He was wearing a shirt and slacks, but he still looked as powerful as if he were in his business suit. The shirt was a soft, deep color, folded at the slee