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Chapter 165: The Debate
Date de publication:
2026-02-03 04:14:22
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Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride CHAPTER 389: THE WIN
The notification sound on Hope’s laptop was usually set to a generic chime. Today, she had changed it to a trumpet blast.Aurora sat on the sofa in the living room, pretending to read a brief on the Mumbai waterfront project. Across the room, Hope was sitting on the floor, her laptop open on the coffee table. She was twelve years old, wearing leggings covered in paint smears and a hoodie that belonged to Ethan. She was vibrating."It's 9:00 AM in Venice," Hope said. She chewed on her thumbnail. "The jury has reconvened.""They have a lot of submissions to review, baby," Liam said. He was standing by the window, drinking coffee. He looked calm, but Aurora noticed he hadn't taken a sip in ten minutes."They had my submission for two weeks," Hope said. "What if they hated the iron? What if they thought the gold chain was derivative?""It wasn't derivative," River said from the piano bench. He wasn't playing, just resting his hands on the keys. "It was structural.""It was messy," Hope gr
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride CHAPTER 388: THE SUBMISSION
The studio didn't smell like a home anymore. It smelled like turpentine, soldering iron smoke, and the metallic tang of oxidized iron.Hope Vale-Cross stood in the center of the room, staring at the canvas.It wasn't a canvas. It was a slab of reclaimed wood, heavy and scarred, that Uncle Marcus had dragged up from a demolition site in Brooklyn three weeks ago. It was four feet tall and rough to the touch.It was perfect.Hope held a jar of iron filings in her hand. They were black, glittering dust—the shavings from a metal shop that her father had sourced for her without asking why."It needs weight," she whispered to herself.She was twelve years old, but in this room, she felt ancient. She felt like she had been here before, painting this same line, fighting this same battle between what her eye saw and what her hand could do.She dipped a brush into a pot of resin. She painted a thick, sticky line down the center of the wood. It looked like a scar.Then, she sprinkled the filings.
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride CHAPTER 387: THE YEARS UNFOLD
Time was a thief, Aurora decided. But it was a generous one. It stole the babies and left behind people.She sat in the living room of the penthouse, which had evolved from a showroom to a fortress to a home. The timeline of the last decade wasn't marked by fiscal quarters or board meetings. It was marked by height charts on the doorframe and the changing gallery on the refrigerator door.She closed her eyes, letting the years wash over her like a tide coming in.Four Years Old.Hope stood on a stage at the community center. It was a local children's art competition, a chaotic affair of glitter glue and macaroni.Hope wasn't wearing glitter. She was wearing her favorite overalls, covered in paint stains she refused to let Mrs. Higgins wash out. She held a ribbon. First Place: Junior Category.The painting behind her was titled The Wind.It didn't look like wind. It looked like violence. Deep, slashing strokes of gray and silver, tearing across the paper."She's scary," a mother whispe
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride CHAPTER 386: THE COLLECTOR
The "Little Leonardos" spring exhibition was held in the gymnasium of the community center. It smelled of floor wax, cheap white wine in plastic cups, and the collective anxiety of fifty parents hoping their child was a genius.Aurora stood by the refreshment table, holding a cup of lukewarm Chardonnay. She wore a simple silk blouse and trousers, trying to blend in with the other mothers who were currently dissecting the curriculum."Liam is on parking duty," Aurora said to Marcus, who was standing next to her, looking uncomfortable in a blazer. "Apparently, the stroller congestion is worse than the FDR.""I'd rather park strollers than look at another macaroni collage," Marcus muttered. He gestured to the wall behind them. "That one looks like a car crash.""It's abstract expressionism," Aurora teased. "Be kind.""It's glue and desperation."Aurora laughed. She looked around the room. It was chaos. Toddlers running in circles. Parents taking photos with iPads. Teachers trying to keep
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride CHAPTER 385: THE PROGRAM
The smell of tempera paint was usually the scent of chaos. Today, in the high-ceilinged studio of "Little Leonardos" on the Upper West Side, it smelled like money.Aurora stood by the observation window. The glass was one-way, a feature designed for anxious parents who needed to hover without disrupting the creative process.Inside the room, twelve three-year-olds were engaged in various states of artistic expression. Most were eating the paste. One boy was systematically painting his own hair green.But in the center of the room, standing at a low easel, was Hope.She wore a smock over her dress. She held a brush in one hand and a palette in the other. She wasn't smiling. She wasn't looking around. She was frowning at the canvas with a ferocity that made Aurora’s chest ache.Focus, Aurora thought. The curse of the Vale women."Mrs. Cross?"Aurora turned. Ms. Elena, the program director, stood beside her. She was a woman in her sixties with paint under her fingernails and eyes that mi
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride CHAPTER 384: EIGHT MONTHS LATER
The ghost of Isabella Voss still haunted the city, but she didn't haunt the penthouse.Aurora sat in the corner of what used to be the sunroom. It had been repurposed. The white couches were gone, replaced by low tables, easels, and a floor covered in a drop cloth that was splattered with every color in the spectrum.It was Hope’s studio.At nearly three years old, Hope was a creature of kinetic energy and surprising, sudden stillness.Aurora adjusted the blanket over the bassinet next to her chair. Grace—four weeks old, the fourth miracle, the tie-breaker—was asleep. She was a quiet baby, content to exist in the hum of her siblings' orbit.But Aurora’s eyes were on Hope.The morning light of May poured through the windows, illuminating the dust motes. It was spring in New York. The trees in the park were lush and green, burying the memory of the gray winter when Ethan had walked into a warehouse.Isabella was still out there. The FBI updates came weekly—sightings in Zurich, a wire tr
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.
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-17Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 16: The Discovery
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
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-17Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 9: Forbidden Door
The door to Room 305 was a solid wall of mahogany. An ending. A beginning.Aurora stood before it, a statue in white lace, her hand, still clutching the ruby earring, raised to knock.But her knuckles never made contact.She couldn't move.The silence of the third-floor hallway was absolute, a thic
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-17Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 17: A Choice
The vow hung in the cold, salt-damp air, a new and terrible covenant.He will never know you. I will die before I let him touch you.Aurora was still on the bathroom floor, but the hysterical, broken woman who had laughed and sobbed was gone. In her place was a new creature, forged in the ice of th
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-17
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