My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 08

My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 08

I turned around.

A man, early thirties, with gentle features. He wore a dark gray cashmere coat and held two glasses of red wine, the warm gallery light glinting through the clear glass.

He smiled and offered me one.

“It’s cold. Drink something warm.”

I hesitated for a few seconds, then took it.

His name was Arthur Sterling, French-American. He worked in art trading, splitting his time between Paris

and Crestmere.

We talked for a long time that day at the gallery. His eyes were quiet. When he listened, he really looked at you-didn’t interrupt, didn’t rush to offer his own opinion.

Later, he invited me to a private collection exhibition. I hesitated, then said yes.

The show was wonderful. Afterward, he took me to a restaurant tucked down a narrow alley for duck confit. We walked along the river afterward.

The third time he asked me out, it was to the opera.

I stood outside my apartment building, pulled my coat tight, and smiled at him.

“Arthur, I appreciate it.”

“But right now… I don’t really trust anyone.”

I said it calmly, like I was stating a fact that had nothing to do with me.

The streetlight fell across his shoulders. He looked down at me for a few seconds, didn’t press, didn’t ask.

He just nodded.

“That’s okay. I can wait.”

He turned and walked into the night, his dark gray coat growing longer in the glow of the lamps.

I stood at my door, hands in my pockets.

The afternoon I received my official acceptance letter from the school, Paris was drizzling a fine, misty rain.

Back in my apartment, my phone buzzed. A message from Arthur.

[Congratulations.]

Then the sky changed.

No warning.

The first sound I heard was low-a dull rumble, like thunder rising from the center of the earth. Then the whole mountain shuddered beneath me. Snow trickled down the slope. Someone ahead shouted something,

but the wind carried half of it away

I looked up and saw the entire face of the slope coming down.

A white flood.

A wall maybe forty feet high, racing toward us faster than my eyes could track.

Everything went eerily silent. The white swallowed every sound. All I could hear was the blood rushing through my veins.

Someone shoved me. I flew backward, the back of my skull cracking against a rock. My vision swam.

Then all I could see was white.