The Forbidden Throb (Emma and Daniel) novel Chapter 40

Emma’s POV:

I stared at Daniel, my mind racing to decode what he meant.

His gray eyes held mine with an intensity that made my breath catch.

Then it clicked.

Music.

He was talking about music. Rock music.

That’s why he listened to this kind of music. Not classical. Not refined. But something with edge. With rebellion in it.

My chest tightened with an emotion I couldn’t quite name.

“You really are…” I paused, searching for the right words as we sat in the parking lot overlooking the Atlantic. The afternoon sun cast long shadows i his face “You’re extraordinary, Daniel.”

I turned to face him fully, meeting his surprised gaze. “Truly. If I’d had that kind of childhood. I never would have become… this.

“Still, I insisted. “To achieve what you have, to become who you are–it’s remarkable.”

He studied me for a long moment, and I fought the urge to look away. There was something in his gaze that made my pulse quicken, made me hyperan of the small space between us in the car.

“You give me too much credit,” he said finally. “I simply learned to find meaning within constraints.

“That’s exactly what makes it remarkable.”

I tried to lighten the mood before we both drowned in the heaviness of his past.

If you hadn’t become a doctor,” I said, attempting lightness, you definitely could have been a great screenwilter

A

Datuei a lipe curved into a genuine smile Hed caught my teasing tone mmediately

Art states life, he said simply, then pushed open his door before I could process that styphic response

The beach stretched before us grey send mesting gray blue water beneath an overcast sky

November in Portland meant the tourist as bat bing ved just a few als walking the dogs at the distains wagulls swoting wish!

I pulled Daniels jacket fighter around my shoulders Hed moisted i west it against the van best and I hadn’t argues!

We walked in comfortable silence our footsteps leaving perallel track in the damp sand small waves hipped at the shore theat

והגין :

Chapter 40

Then it hit me–a strange sense of déjà vu.

This scene. This beach. The comfortable quiet between us.

Have I been here before? Like this?

I glanced sideways at Daniel’s profile, his gaze fixed on the horizon, and suddenly his story from earlier rushed back with startling clarity.

A birthday on the beach. A girl with a smashed cupcake. Off–key singing.

And that comment in the car just now–art imitates life.

My heart rate picked up.

Was it real?

The question formed before I could stop it, taking root in my mind with unsettling persistence.

I tried to recall the past, summers spent here with Grandma, but they blurred together in a haze of salt air and seagull cries.

The romantic notion sent a flutter through my chest–but then reality crashed back like a cold wave.

I thought of the first time Nicholas brought me home as his girlfriend.

Daniel had been there–standing in the Prescott family’s elegant living room, polite and composed as always.

Nicholas had been so excited. “Dan, help us take some photos, will you? I want to commemorate this.”

And Daniel had agreed without hesitation, taking Nicholas’s phone with those steady hands.

I remembered standing there awkwardly while Nicholas posed us–his arm around my waist, then both of us on the leather sofa, then by the fireplace with

its ornate mantelpiece.

Daniel had taken shot after shot, adjusting angles with clinical precision.

He’d been perfectly pleasant Professional, even.

If I’d really been that girl from his story, surely there would have been something

A moment of hesitation & lingering glance Some crack in that composed exterior

But there had been nothing lust polite efficiency

And the photos themselves Nicholas had complained later that they were all slightly off Angles wrong, lighting harsh, our expressions somehow stiff

Apparently, Daniels talents didn’t extend to photography

My stomach twisted with an uncomfortable realization

I’m being ridiculous.

5:56 pm

ter 40

PPP

of embarrassment washed over me, heat creeping up my neck.

had a rate ci afted that story for Grandma—a romantic narrative to convince her we were a real couple. And here ! no activity wondering if it’s true.

how presumptions of me.

er thus this man who’d solved my impossible situation, offered me a practical arrangement that benefited both decir families, asted for nothing but I was

us eunanticizing his kindness into something it wasn’t.

You’re quiet. Daniel observed, his voice gentle.

forced myself to smile. Just thinking about how surreal this day has been.”

le walked a few more minutes in silence. The sun was beginning to sink lower, painting the sky in shadedes of pearl and slate. It would be dark soon.

hen Daniel’s phone rang.

e pulled it from his pocket, frowned at the screen. “Excuse me a moment.

this expression shift as he answered–that professional mask sliding into place,chishpopostare straightening almost imperceptibly.

he said crisply. Then: “Tomorrow? I thought that was scheduled for Wednesdaddy.”

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