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Chapter 16: The Discovery

ผู้เขียน: Evve
last update วันที่เผยแพร่: 2025-12-22 16:37:50

Two weeks.

Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours.

Time had become a thick, gray, viscous thing, like the cold Montauk fog that pressed against the windows of the beach house.

Aurora had not left. The house was her fortress and her cell.

She existed in a state of suspended animation. She slept on a faded floral sofa, wrapped in her father’s old fishing sweater. She ate stale crackers and canned soup she’d found in the back of her mother’s pantry.

She was a ghost, haunting the cold, s
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  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 425: THE DANCE

    The reception tent was a canopy of white silk and Edison bulbs, glowing against the deepening indigo of the Hamptons twilight.It smelled of salt air, roasted figs, and the heavy, sweet scent of the peonies Aurora had fought for.Aurora stood at the edge of the dance floor, a crystal glass in her hand. The wine was a vintage Rosé, pale pink and crying with condensation. She ran her thumb over the stem.She hadn't had a drink in eight months. Between the IVF cycles, the two-week waits, and the brief, bright flares of hope that had eventually flickered out, her body had been a temple. A laboratory. A waiting room.Tonight, it was just a body.She took a sip. The wine was cool, tart, and grounding. It tasted like permission."You're hiding," a voice rumbled in her ear.Liam.He stepped up beside her, sliding his arm around her waist. He had shed his tuxedo jacket, his white shirt glowing in the ambient light, cuffs rolled up to reveal his forearms. He smelled of sea breeze and the expens

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 424: THE WEDDING

    The Hamptons light was different from the city light. It wasn't sharp or demanding. It was soft, diffused by the salt air of the Atlantic, turning everything it touched into a watercolor painting.Marcus Cross stood under the pergola in the back garden of the estate. He was wearing a tuxedo. It fit perfectly. He didn't feel like a penguin today. He felt like a man who had finally found his footing.He looked out at the guests.Fifty chairs. White wood. Arranged in a semicircle on the grass.In the front row, Mrs. Higgins was dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Dr. Chen sat next to Dr. Evans—the medical team that had kept the family alive.And standing beside him, solid as a retaining wall, was Liam."You okay?" Liam whispered.Marcus looked at his brother. Liam looked tired—he always looked tired—but his eyes were bright blue and clear."I'm good," Marcus said. "I'm really good.""Ring?""Ethan has it."Marcus looked at his nephew. Ethan was thirteen now. He stood a few feet aw

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 423: THE SURPRISE

    The test sat on the marble vanity of the loft bathroom. It was a sleek, plastic wand, aggressively modern, incongruous with the vintage perfume bottles and the stack of French fashion magazines.Sophia Laurent stared at it.Two lines.She blinked. She picked it up. She held it to the light coming from the frosted window.Still two lines. Pink. Unapologetic."Impossible," she whispered in French. "C'est impossible."She was thirty-eight years old. She had spent the last decade building a career, surviving a divorce, and convincing herself that her legacy would be built in stone and silk, not flesh and blood. She had made peace with the idea of being the cool aunt. The godmother. The designer.She wasn't supposed to be the mother.She touched her stomach. It felt exactly the same as it had yesterday—flat, firm from Pilates. But inside...A tiny architect was already at work.The front door of the loft opened. Heavy boots on the concrete floor."Sophia?" Marcus called out. "I brought din

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 422: PLANNING LIGHT

    The café on Mercer Street was quickly becoming Sophia’s favorite place in New York. It wasn't just the espresso—which was excellent, dark and rich like the soil in the vineyards of Bordeaux—it was the light.The afternoon sun streamed through the front window, catching the dust motes and turning them into floating gold. It was a good place to build a new life.Sophia sat at the marble table, her notebook open. It was filled with sketches, not for a building, but for a wedding.Venue: The Brownstone (back garden). Flowers: Peonies (white, heavy). Music: Cello (live).She tapped her pen against the paper. It was simple. Elegant. And terrifying.The door chimed.Aurora walked in.She was wearing a trench coat over jeans and a sweater. Her hair was pulled back, revealing the sharp angles of her face. She looked tired. There were shadows under her eyes that no amount of concealer could hide—the shadows of a woman who had just realized her entire life was a script written by someone else.B

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 421: PROPOSAL

    The power outage in TriBeCa was localized, inconvenient, and—Marcus Cross decided—the best thing that had happened all week.He stood in the kitchen of Sophia’s loft. The industrial space was usually bright, flooded with city light and the glow of her design screens. Tonight, it was a cave of soft, flickering shadows.Candles were everywhere. Beeswax pillars on the island. Tea lights on the windowsill. A candelabra on the dining table that looked like it belonged in a French château (it probably did)."It is not burned," Sophia said from the stove. "It is charred. It is a technique."She was holding a skillet. The smell of something that used to be chicken but was now carbon filled the air.Marcus smiled. He leaned against the counter, watching her.They had been together for three years. Three years of "cohabitating," of sharing keys, of him fixing her shelves and her fixing his wardrobe. They were a team. The General and the Contractor.But they weren't... this.He touched the pocke

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 420: WHAT WAS REAL

    The butcher paper made a harsh crinkling sound as Aurora smoothed it out on the duvet cover.It was 2:00 AM. The master bedroom was lit only by the bedside lamp on Liam’s side, casting a warm, yellow pool of light that felt too small to hold the darkness of the revelation spread out between them.Liam sat on the edge of the bed. He was wearing his pajama bottoms, his chest bare. He leaned over the paper, reading the timeline Aurora had drawn in the study.1980. 2004. 2019.His eyes tracked the black lines. The red lines. The arrows connecting Isabella to Evelyn to Aurora to him.He didn't speak. He read it once. Then he read it again.Aurora sat on the other side of the paper, her legs tucked under her. She was wearing the silk pajamas that she had worn for days, but she didn't feel numb anymore. She felt flayed. Exposed.She watched his face. She looked for anger. She looked for disgust.Instead, she saw a profound, devastating sadness."She wrote the script," Liam whispered.He trac

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 26: The First Design

    The silence of the hospital room was a new kind of prison.The storm of labor was over. The adrenaline of Ethan's arrival had faded. The profound, anchoring love of his first smile had settled, replaced by the mundane, terrifying, 2 AM reality.She was alone in a foreign country, in a room paid for

    last updateปรับปรุงล่าสุด : 2026-03-18
  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 8: A Bride's Intuition

    The words on the screen were stark and black against the white light.Don't do it. Check the groom's suite. Third floor. Room 305.Aurora’s blood, which had been moving sluggishly, turned to ice water and then, instantly, to fire.Her phone. The one she'd left on the penthouse terrace.She hadn't f

    last updateปรับปรุงล่าสุด : 2026-03-17
  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 6: Shattered Glass

    The drive back was a silent scream.Aurora’s car sliced through the pre-dawn gloom, the gray, misty light of 3 AM turning the world to ash. The city was behind her, a glittering, indifferent monster.The earring was in the pocket of her coat. It felt less like a piece of jewelry and more like a hot

    last updateปรับปรุงล่าสุด : 2026-03-17
  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 12: Excuse

    The door slammed shut, the sound echoing the crack of her palm against his face.For a full, stunned second, the room was absolutely silent.Liam did not move. He stood, frozen, his head still turned slightly from the force of the slap. He tasted blood. She had split his lip.He touched his cheek.

    last updateปรับปรุงล่าสุด : 2026-03-17
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