The Forbidden Throb Chapter 158

Nicholas's POV:

The words hung in the air between us—*"You've known me your entire life."*

I stood there, frozen, my thoughts a chaotic mess of denial and dawning horror. Every muscle in my body had locked up, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and throat.

*No. This can't be—*

But Daniel wasn't done. He turned back toward me, his hand still intertwined with Emma's, and his expression shifted into something almost pleasant. Almost *kind*.

It made my skin crawl.

"After all, you're my brother, Nicholas," he said, his voice taking on that warm, measured tone he used when delivering good news to anxious patients. "I don't mind sharing some good news and let you enjoy the happy."

He paused, and in that brief silence, I watched his thumb trace a slow, possessive circle against the back of Emma's hand.

"Emma and I are married."

Each word landed with perfect clarity, crisp and deliberate. *Mar-ried.* Two syllables that rewrote my entire reality.

The hallway seemed to tilt beneath my feet.

Daniel's gaze held mine, steady and unwavering. "You're a grown man now. I trust you understand how to treat your sister-in-law appropriately."

*Sister-in-law.*

The words detonated in my brain like a flashbang grenade.

*Sister-in-law. Sister-in-law. Sister-in-law.*

They echoed through my skull, each repetition driving the reality deeper. Emma—the girl I'd dated for two years, the girl I'd been desperately trying to figure out how to win back, the girl who'd occupied every waking thought for the past months—was now legally, irrevocably, *permanently* my brother's wife.

My *sister-in-law*.

I stared at him, my shoulders sagging under the weight of comprehension I couldn't fully process. My mind had gone completely blank, all the angry words I'd been ready to hurl at Emma's mysterious benefactor evaporating like smoke.

*How long?* I wanted to scream. *How long has this been going on?*

But my throat had closed up. I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Could barely breathe.

The silence stretched. Nearly a full minute of me standing there like an idiot, my brain desperately trying to reject what my ears had just heard.

Finally, I managed to lift my gaze to meet Daniel's. My eyes felt hot, gritty, like I hadn't slept in days.

"Why, Daniel?"

My voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. The words scraped against my throat like broken glass.

"Why do you always take what's mine?"

The question hung between us, raw and desperate and pathetic.

Daniel's eyes narrowed slightly, the only crack in his composed facade.

"She was never your possession, Nicholas," he said quietly.

He took a step toward me, releasing Emma's hand but keeping himself positioned between us—protective, territorial.

"Emma is a grown woman, an independent individual with her own agency. She has every right to choose her own path, her own life, her own partner."

His voice dropped lower, taking on an edge I rarely heard from him.

"The fact that you still think of her as something that can be 'taken' or 'stolen' shows exactly how little you respected her autonomy in the first place."

He paused, and something shifted in his expression.

"And you had your chance, Nicholas. You had every opportunity to appreciate what you had, to treat her the way she deserved to be treated."

His thumb continued its slow, deliberate circle against Emma's hand.

"But you didn't. You took her for granted, assumed she'd always be there waiting, no matter how you behaved or who you chose to spend your time with."

The words were delivered calmly, almost gently, but they cut deeper than any shout could have.

"No one waits forever, Nicholas. "

The words were like a slap across the face.

My vision blurred at the edges. I was vaguely aware that my hands had clenched into fists at my sides, that my breathing had gone shallow and rapid.

My gaze dropped to Daniel's left hand.

The platinum ring caught the light from the window, its subtle dark diamonds glinting with understated elegance. It was simple, masculine, clearly expensive.

"I thought..." The words tumbled out before I could stop them. "I always thought you looked down on her. That you wanted her away from our family because she wasn't good enough."

Daniel's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

"But it was all a cover, wasn't it?" I continued, my voice gaining volume as the pieces clicked into place. "All those years of cold politeness, keeping your distance—it was just so no one would suspect. So you could wait for the perfect moment to take her from me."

Emma made a small sound but I couldn't look at her. Couldn't bear to see whatever expression was on her face.

"You had every advantage, Nicholas," Daniel said, his tone turning cold in a way that made my spine stiffen. "Every opportunity that was never offered to me."

He stepped closer, and I instinctively backed up until my shoulders hit the wall.

I reached out and grabbed his arm, my fingers digging into the expensive fabric of his coat.

"What about the Andersons?" The words burst out of me, sharp and accusatory. "Mother was going to leave everything to me. But you took that too, didn't you? Just a few weeks ago."

My voice rose, the bitterness I'd been swallowing for months finally spilling over.

"You just accepted all of that without a second thought, didn't you?"

Daniel's expression didn't change, but I saw something flicker in his eyes.

He let out a slow breath, something that might have been a sigh.

"Mother held out the entire Anderson alliance with both hands, Nicholas. She wanted to give you everything—their connections, their influence, their place."

His voice was quiet, measured.

"But can you handle it?"

The question hung in the air between us. My grip on his arm loosened slightly.

My hands clenched into fists at my sides—half fury, half something darker and more complicated that I couldn't even name.

For the first time in my life, I was directly challenging my brother. Really challenging him, not just sulking or making passive-aggressive comments at family dinners.

And Emma was watching. I could feel her gaze on us, could sense her presence even though I refused to look at her.

I couldn't back down. Not now. Not in front of her.

I stood there, jaw clenched, chest heaving, searching desperately for something—anything—that would land as hard as his words had.

Nearly half a minute passed before I found it.

"But you never cared about Mother anyway, did you?" My voice came out rough, almost cruel. "All those expensive gifts you send but you can't even be bothered to actually *see* her."

I took a step forward, emboldened by the flash of something in Daniel's eyes.

"When's the last time you visited her in London? Three years? Four? And even when she comes here for the holidays, you sit as far away from her as possible at dinner. You won't even have a conversation with her."

Daniel stood perfectly still, his expression unreadable. But his hand—the one I'd grabbed—slowly, deliberately, turned to grip mine in return.

His fingers were steady, firm, as he looked directly into my eyes.

"Do you really think," he said quietly, each word carefully chosen, "that's why she hate me?"