Lahat ng Kabanata ng My Husband’s Forbidden Brother (Dirty Secret Series 1): Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 8

“Claire,” Andrei breathed against my lips.His hand tightened on my waist as our kiss deepened, pulling me close enough to feel the hard evidence of how badly he wanted me.I should have stepped back.Instead, I melted into him like I had never been touched before.The first Blackwell man who touched me was not my husband.It was his brother.Three months before my wedding, Adrian Blackwell was just a stranger in a hotel bar, just a flicker of warmth in a world drowning in cold, hard reality.I didn’t know his last name then. All I knew was that he looked at me as if I were whole, not broken; as if I were a woman with choices, not a daughter being sold to save her father’s company.I had gone to that hotel bar to breathe.My father had spent the afternoon begging me to understand: our family business was collapsing. Investors had pulled out. Loans were overdue.The world was waiting for us to fail.Then the Blackwells arrived with an offer, a merger. A marriage. Me.I still remembered

“One year to produce a Blackwell heir.” Victor Blackwell’s voice sliced through the air, casual, as if he were discussing the weather rather than the terms of my existence.A child. My body. My marriage, all reduced to a deadline.I felt the walls of the expansive hallway closing in on me, bright lights glaring down. It was as if the space itself was choking on the weight of men who had orchestrated my fate before I even had a say.I glanced at Adrian. He stood beside me, an unexpected stillness in his gaze, as if he too was grappling with the gravity of those words.Nathaniel, however, was a statue of tension, fury radiating from him as he stared down his father.“This is not the time,” he said, voice low and clipped.Victor smiled, an unsettling thing that didn’t reach his eyes. “It became the time when your wife followed your brother out of breakfast on her first morning in this house.”Heat flooded my cheeks. “Don’t treat me like I’m not here,” I shot back, my voice trembling.Vic

Celeste.Her name flashed on Nathaniel’s phone, and now, it had a face.A face I hated for being so impossibly beautiful.Not the kind of beauty that clamored for attention. No, she was the quiet, expensive kind. Soft waves of dark hair framed her delicate features, pale skin glowing under the mansion’s opulent lights. Her red lips curled into a smile that seemed to belong to this world more than I ever would in my faded dress.When she looked at me, it felt as if I had wandered into a space she had long claimed as her own.“The woman he promised not to replace,” she said, her voice a smooth whisper that echoed in the now silent hallway.Behind me, Nathaniel remained motionless, a statue of cold indifference.That hurt more than it should have.He offered no explanation, no denial, just a stoic presence, as if my humiliation was merely another family matter he would resolve later.Adrian moved first, stepping beside me. The warmth of his shoulder brushed against mine, a quiet promise

Nathaniel held the folded document between us.Adrian stood beside me, still too close. My mouth still felt warm from his kiss, and Nathaniel's eyes knew it. They kept dropping there, like guilt had left a mark he could read.I thought of my mother. How she'd stayed with my father through every failure, every humiliation. She'd called it loyalty. I'd watched it kill her-slowly, quietly, the way water wears down stone.I was already becoming her."What clause?" I asked."If my wife is publicly involved with my brother during the first year of our marriage," Nathaniel said, "your father loses the protection attached to the merger."My stomach sank.He handed me the document.Should the debtor's daughter fail to preserve marital fidelity during the first twelve months, all outstanding obligations shall become immediately due and payable in full, with interest compounded daily. Collateral shall be forfeit.My father's signature at the bottom."You own my father's debt," I whispered, "and m