All Chapters of A Lesson In Forbidden Love: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Dahlia's POV I couldn't sleep that night. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling restless. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Vincent's face.Every time I breathed I felt the sting of chlorine in my lungs.Every time I thought about Ethan my heart leapt painfully in my chest.I didn't know what I was feeling, but one thing was certain.I could not continue to stay here.I needed to return to the Carrington Estate and I needed to finally confront Vincent. I needed to figure everything out. The sketchbook. The blackmail. The anonymous phone call. I needed to figure out what to do about my mother and Robert. Everything.But I dreaded the confrontation.I couldn't stay here much longer. I finally fell asleep when the first hints of dawn filtered through the windows.The next morning, I made my decision. I found Ethan in the kitchen when I went to check on him, his dark eyes studying me carefully as he made coffee."Hey," he said. "You look like hell.""Thanks," I replied dryly. "Th

Vincent's POVI drove around for twenty minutes without a clue where I was headed. The streets were a blur. Houses, trees, stoplights. Nothing was registering. My hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly that my knuckles were white. My jaw was aching from clenching it hard.Ethan's voice kept echoing in my head. “You're a piece of work." He said that over and over. “Underneath it all you're a bully."I slammed my palm against the steering wheel. The car swerved a little. I did not care.I told myself I did not care what Ethan said. I told myself he did not matter. I told myself Dahlia did not matter.. I could not stop seeing it. The way Ethan carried her out of that pool. The way he held her against his chest like she was something. The way he looked at her like she was the person in the world.I hated it. I hated him. I hated her for letting him touch her like that.I pulled over and sat there breathing hard. What was wrong with me?The hockey house was loud when I walked in.

Dahlia's POVThe kitchen felt really big and empty after Vincent Carrington left.I stood there for a long time, my back against the cold refrigerator, my chest moving up and down like I had just run a marathon. My lips felt swollen and sore. My skin felt weird like it did not belong to me. I had spent the three years telling myself that Vincent Carrington was a person I should stay away from.I put my fingers on my mouth like that would change what had just happened.I did not know what to call what the both of us had just done. I did not know what to call the way my body had reacted before my mind caught up. The way some part of me had leaned into him instead of away from him. I hated that. I hated that my hands had touched his skin like they had been waiting for permission. I hated that some small part of me had felt more alive in those two minutes than I had in the week before them.I turned off the kitchen light and went back upstairs in the dark. My legs felt unsteady in a way.

Dahlia's POVDean Prescott's office smelled like the lavender air freshener she kept on her filing cabinet, the same smell I remembered from the day I'd stood outside her door with a crumpled scholarship letter in my fist. The same sort of smell I caught a whiff of that day I caught her and Vincent having sex in her office. It felt like a lifetime ago. It had been a few weeks. She didn't ask me to sit."Tell me what happened," she said, settling behind her desk, her fingers laced together like she already had an answer and was only waiting for me to catch up to it."Priya had a seizure. I got to her first. I made sure her head was safe and that nothing was blocking her airway, and I told everyone to give her space until the nurse got there." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "That's all that happened.""That's not what I'm hearing.""Then whoever you're hearing it from is lying."Dean Prescott's mouth thinned. She reached for a folder on her desk, and my stomach dropped when I

Dahlia's POVI didn't have anyone to drive me back. And Vincent had disappeared since that time, he hadn't shown up. Ethan was busy with something he couldn't get out of. So I walked the same way that I always walked whenever there wasn't anyone else, my shoes making noise on the wet sidewalks where the first drops of rain began.It was late; the neighborhoods near the estate were silent, with all these rich people's houses built well back off the road, protected by the hedges, no pedestrian traffic, streetlights too far apart to give off any real light in-between them. I had walked this path more than a dozen times before, never giving it a thought.I didn't hear the van until it was right next to me.A steel door opened up with a metallic screech and before I had even seen who it was or realized what was going on, a hand went over my mouth and an arm went around my waist, lifting me up for a second before I hit something hardI fought. God, I fought. I twisted, I bit the nearest pa