Semua Bab Forbidden Desires Daddy's Favorite Sin : Bab 11 - Bab 20

SCARLETT Mom hummed in the kitchen the next morning, arranging stuff like nothing had happened. Rain still drilled from the waves outside, the power was back and everything looked normal.I sat at the dining, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee I hadn't sipped, across from me Simon watched the financial section of the news.Mom glanced up, smiling brightly. “You two are quiet today. Long night with the storm?”Simon didn't look up. “Generator issues, it took time to reset.”“Well then, you're lucky it didn't last longer,” Mom said then she turned, her eyes landing on me. “Honey, you look tired, did you sleep okay?”I forced a smile. “Fine, just the thunder.”“Mm,” she said, but her gaze lingered a second too long. “Simon said you were in the hallway during the blackout. That must've been scary, being alone in the dark.”My grip tightened on the mug. “I wasn't alone, Simon found me.”Simon finally looked up from his paper, his expression gave nothing away. “She was standing by the st

SCARLETTEthan texted again on Saturday.*There's an art exhibition downtown. You seem like someone who'd have strong opinions about art. Come with me.*I read it twice. Then a third time. It was a good text, confident without being pushy, which was apparently his reset after the library incident. I appreciated the effort.I typed back: *What kind of art?**The pretentious kind. Overpriced paintings with names like "Void No. 7." Very dramatic.*I laughed out loud, actually laughed, the sound surprising me in the quiet of my room.*Fine. When?**Sunday. 2PM. I'll pick you up.*I stared at the last line. He'd pick me up. From the mansion. Where Simon lived.I typed back: *I'll meet you there.*Sunday arrived grey and mild. I wore a rust colored wrap dress and gold earrings and told myself three times that this was normal. People went to exhibitions. People went on what were possibly dates with appropriate men who didn't belong to their mothers.I came downstairs to find Simon at the kit

SIMON I didn't sleep again. I sat in the study after she left, documents still scattered across the floor, and stared at the wall for a long time. The room smelled like her perfume and terrible decisions. I was fifty-two years old. I had built an empire from nothing through discipline and precision and the ability to make cold clear decisions under pressure. I had negotiated with governments. I had dismantled competitors without blinking. I had just bent my stepdaughter over my desk while her mother was two hours away at a charity retreat. I poured whiskey and didn't drink it. The truth was simple and damning. I had known since the first night she walked into my house with fire in her eyes and bare feet and absolutely no intention of making my life easy. I had known and I had told myself no, repeatedly, clearly, with full understanding of every reason it was wrong. It hadn't mattered. She hadn't mattered less because of the reasons. She had mattered more, which was the proble

SCARLETTThree weeks sounds long until you're living inside them.The arrangement settled into the house like a new piece of furniture, strange at first then suddenly just there. Ethan came by twice a week, sometimes three times. He brought coffee on Tuesday mornings and sat at the kitchen counter charming my mother effortlessly while I watched and felt simultaneously grateful and guilty.Mom bloomed under it. The sharp watchful look she'd been wearing at dinner tables disappeared almost entirely. She stopped counting how many times Simon and I were in the same room. She stopped noticing the silences.Instead she asked Ethan about his thesis and planned Monaco and hummed in the kitchen and became, quite simply, happy.It should've felt like success.It felt like a slow leak somewhere I couldn't locate.Ethan and I had settled into something honest, which was the strange byproduct of an arrangement built on dishonesty. He knew the broad shape of things, not Simon specifically, but enou

SCARLETTThe gala was everything Monaco promised and more.The hotel ballroom had been transformed into something from a fever dream, all white flowers and candlelight and the kind of wealth that didn't announce itself because it didn't need to. Women dripped in jewelry that cost more than most people's houses. Men moved through the room with the particular confidence of people who had never been told no about anything important.I stood at the edge of it in the purple dress and felt simultaneously overdressed and underdressed and completely out of my depth.Ethan appeared at my shoulder with two glasses of champagne. "You look like you're calculating an exit strategy.""I'm always calculating an exit strategy," I said, taking a glass.He smiled. "You look incredible by the way. I don't think I said that properly earlier.""You said wow.""Eloquent," he agreed.I laughed and he clinked his glass against mine and for one moment everything felt manageable. Then Simon walked into the bal