Mag-log inShare
Chapter 4: Vanessa's Smile
Huling Na-update:
2025-12-22 11:26:36Aurora stood at the window, unmoving, for how long, she didn't know. The sound of the string quartet had finally faded, replaced by the polite, muffled roar of departing cars. The rehearsal dinner was over. The lie was over.
Except it wasn't. The real lie was just beginning.
She was still in her silver silk dress. It felt like a costume.
She could still feel the cold spot on her cheek where Liam had kissed her. I'll see you tomorrow.
She could still see the ghost of the red dress.
But most of all, she saw the smile.
Vanessa's smile.
It was burned onto her memory, a triumphant, crimson slash in the middle of her perfect, curated life. It was a smile that said everything Liam's words had tried to deny.
It said: He's mine.
It said: You are a fool. It said: I'm not even hiding.Aurora turned from the window, her body moving with a stiff, robotic grace. She had to get this dress off. She had to wash her face. She had to pretend to sleep.
She had to prepare for her wedding day.
The thought sent a wave of nausea so profound she had to grip the back of a velvet armchair.
How?
The question was a raw, silent scream in her mind. How do I walk down the aisle tomorrow? How do I stand there, in front of God and my father and two hundred guests, and marry a man who is actively betraying me?
He's lying. He's lying. He's lying.
The frantic pulse from the party returned, louder now in the silence.
But a colder, more insidious voice—the one that sounded like her father, like a Vale—answered back.
Prove it.
She had no proof. Not really.
She had whispers from servants. A scrap of lace in a car. And a smile.
What was a smile? What was a lipstick color?
It was circumstantial. It was emotional. It was, as Liam himself had so expertly pointed out, the kind of thing a "hysterical" bride would fixate on.
He had built a fortress of denial, and all she had to throw against it were her own broken feelings.
She walked into the white marble bathroom, the light reflecting off every surface, blinding her. She turned on the tap, the sound of rushing water a small mercy.
She had to get control.
She was Aurora Vale. She did not fall apart. She strategized.
She would sleep. In the morning, with a clear head, she would assess. This was a business problem. A variable she had not accounted for.
Vanessa Leigh.
Aurora stared at her own reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were huge, dark with a fear she didn't recognize. Her skin was pale, translucent. She looked like a ghost. She looked like the "poor Miss Vale" the caterers had pitied.
Rage, cold and sharp, cut through the panic.
How dared they? How dared he stand there, in her family's home, and lie to her face? How dared she smile at her, a victor claiming her prize before the battle was even announced?
Vanessa's smile hadn't just been a taunt. It had been a calculation.
Vanessa knew Liam. She knew his cold ambition. She knew he would never risk the Vale-Cross merger, the single biggest deal of his career. He wouldn't risk it for love, and he certainly wouldn't risk it for lust.
Unless...
The water from the tap was running cold over her hands, making her fingers numb.
Unless Vanessa wasn't the risk.
Unless Aurora was.
Unless the affair, the "3 AM meetings," the red dress... unless that was the real relationship. And this wedding, this white lace monstrosity, this was the inconvenience.
He's lying to me. He's lying to my father. He's marrying me to secure the merger, and he's going to keep her.
The "broken glass" in her stomach wasn't just a feeling. It was the truth, and it was shredding her from the inside out.
She looked at her own face in the mirror. She saw the perfect bride, the perfect daughter, the perfect asset.
And she saw Vanessa's smile, painted over her own reflection, mocking her.
"No," she whispered, her voice rough.
She would not be the fool. She would not be "poor Miss Vale."
She couldn't sleep. Not now. Not when the lie was this big, this suffocating.
She had to know.
She couldn't wait for the wedding. She couldn't wait for the music to start, to see Liam at the end of the aisle, his eyes cold and assessing, his vows another "merger" clause.
The doubt was worse than the truth. If she was wrong, if it was all a hideous misunderstanding, she needed to know.
And if she was right... she needed to know that, too.
She turned off the water. The silence of the suite was absolute.
Liam wasn't here. He was at his penthouse. He'd claimed he needed a night alone to "get his head straight" before the wedding.
To get his head straight. Or to have one last night with his mistress.
Aurora’s hands fisted by her sides.
She knew the code to his penthouse. He'd given it to her months ago, a gesture of "total trust."
She looked at the clock on the bedside table. 1:17 AM.
The night before her wedding.
She unzipped the silver dress. It fell to the floor in a shimmering, empty pool.
She didn't put on her pajamas. She pulled on a pair of black trousers, a silk camisole, and a dark cashmere coat. She slid her bare feet into loafers.
She wiped her face, leaving her skin pale and scrubbed. She took the pearls from her neck and placed them on the vanity. She pulled the Vale diamond from her finger. It felt like a shackle. She let it fall beside the pearls.
She was no longer the bride.
She was the woman who needed to see the truth, no matter how much it broke her.
She grabbed her car keys.
She didn't take the grand staircase. She took the service stairs, the same ones the gossiping caterers had used, and slipped out of her own home, a thief in the night, stealing away to find out if her entire life was a lie.
Pinakabagong kabanata
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 33: The Runway
The air backstage was a toxic, electric fog. It was a potent, gagging mixture of burnt hair, atomized French hairspray, body heat, and a collective, animalistic fear that was so strong it left a metallic tang on Aurora’s tongue. This was not a debut. It was an execution. Aurora, now the ghost of "Ariane Rousseau," was hidden. She had pressed herself into the darkest, coldest corner of the narrow, white-walled corridor, a shadow among the rolling racks of her own life's work. The hôtel particulier Elias had secured was a masterpiece of crumbling, Gilded Age elegance, but backstage, it was a suffocating, clinical madhouse. Models, who looked like beautiful, angry, half-starved birds, stalked past, their faces painted in severe, architectural makeup. Dressers, all in black, sprinted, their mouths full of pins, their hands shaking. "Où est la blanche?" a voice shrieked from the chaos. Where is the white one? "Merde, she’s smoking, stop her!" "Cinq minutes!" It was the machine. It
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 32: The Collection
The invitation was a declaration of war. And the atelier was her armory. The decision, once made, had been a conflagration. The ice of her fear had not melted; it had flash-frozen, becoming a new, harder, sharper substance. Ambition. The two years of hiding were over. The next three months were a blur of focused, feverish, 18-hour days. The Maison AVA, the dusty, echoing storefront, was transformed. The front windows were blacked out with heavy paper, turning the sunlit room into a secret, nocturnal cavern, lit only by the harsh, brilliant, white-blue glare of design lamps. Elias was her shield. He was the public face, the "President," a role he played with a new, invigorated theatricality. He handled the logistics of the Fédération. He booked the venue, a small, atmospheric hôtel particulier that would cost a fortune. He hired the models, the lighting, the press, all under his own legendary, resurrected name. He handled the world, so that she, the ghost, could handle the work.
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 31: Paris Fashion Week Invitation
The Maison AVA was no longer a secret. It was a pilgrimage. The small, dusty storefront on the quiet, stone-paved street in the Marais was now the most exclusive, impossible-to-enter atelier in Paris. Two years had passed since Aurora had signed the lease, the iron keys placed in her son's tiny, sleeping fist. Two years of relentless, agonizing, triumphant work. The "Phoenix Rising" collection had sold, piece by piece, for astronomical sums to women who, as Elias had predicted, valued secrecy and exclusivity above all. Celine D'Albret had become their high priestess, wearing AVA to every major event, refusing to name the designer, and driving the fashion elite into a frenzy. The myth of "Ariane Rousseau" was complete. She was the ghost of Paris, a designer who existed only in the flawless, architectural seams of her work. And Aurora... Aurora was a ghost in her own machine. Her life was a rhythm, a monastic, disciplined existence. Wake. Ethan. Design. Ethan. Sew. Ethan.
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 30: Ethan's First Steps
The Maison AVA, the one Elias had leased on the quiet, stone-paved street, was no longer an empty, echoing room of potential.It was a factory.And it was, Aurora had begun to fear, a beautiful, light-filled, thriving prison of her own making.Three months had passed since she had sold her first piece to Celine D'Albret. Three months since the "Phoenix Rising" collection had, with Elias's masterful, invisible guidance, become the quiet, explosive secret of the Paris fashion elite.The myth of "Ariane Rousseau," the mysterious, unseen protégée of the legendary Elias Ward, was a wildfire.Celine's boutique had sold out. Orders had come from Milan, then London, then New York. New York. That one had sent a jolt of pure, cold terror through her, a fear that she was building a beacon, not a fortress, and that he would see it.But Elias had handled it. "They are not buying 'Aurora Vale'," he’d assured her, his voice firm. "They are buying AVA. They are buying a ghost. You are safe."So she w
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 29: The Price of Success
Her new life was measured in two sounds: the high, frantic whir of the Bernina sewing machine, and the soft, rhythmic breathing of her son.Nine months had passed since Elias had carried her, a broken, triumphant, terrified mother, from the hospital. Nine months since he had installed her in the new apartment in his building.The apartment was no longer a sanctuary. It was a factory.The living room, with its grand, light-filled windows, was a cocoon of creation and chaos. Bolts of wool and silk were stacked to the ceiling. A massive oak cutting table dominated the center, permanently dusted in chalk. Three dress forms, her silent, headless assistants, stood guard by the cold, marble fireplace.And in the corner, a fortress of his own, was Ethan.His world was a small, blanket-padded playpen, surrounded by a mountain of sketches, fabric swatches, and the silent, ever-present hum of his mother's work.Aurora, now "Ariane Rousseau" to the world, was a ghost in her own machine.She worke
Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride Chapter 28: Building AVA
The stack of orange and purple euro notes sat on the oak cutting table for a full twenty-four hours.It was an alien object. A contamination.Aurora, now Ariane, had stared at it, her heart a cold, tight knot. It was the first money she had earned that was not from the scalding, anonymous labor of the café. It was money earned from her mind. From her name.And that, she knew, was dangerous.The five thousand euros was a validation. It was also a beacon.Elias had been right. Celine D'Albret, the boutique owner with the sharp eyes and the sharper checkbook, returned the next day.She did not bother to ring the buzzer, she simply appeared, having bullied the concierge into letting her up. She brought with her an energy, a sharp, commercial, outside world energy that made Aurora want to crawl out of her own skin."The coat," Celine had declared, throwing a fur-trimmed cape onto the lumpy bed, her eyes already on the rack. "It sold. In three hours. A Qatari princess. She didn't even blink
Maaari mong magustuhan
Rude Awakenings
Turquoise Grace1.1M viewsForbidden Love Stories
Avi22Nash1.1M viewsWatch Out, CEO Daddy!
Wine Warms The Flowers1.4M viewsMadam Winters’s Fight For Her Children
Summer Wine1.2M viewsBetrayed, but New Love Found
ROC37 viewsA Spark in The Ashes of Our Vows
A.E. Jones344 viewsBlackened: The Bastard Heiress's Rise
Scarlett Vex171 viewsShattered Vows
MJG604 views
