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Chapter 7: Wedding Morning

作者: Evve
last update 公開日: 2025-12-22 16:32:07

The sun came up.

Aurora watched it happen from the window seat of her bridal suite, her knees drawn to her chest. She had not slept. She had not even been in her bed.

After Liam had left her, she had remained in the foyer for a long, silent, shattered hour.

Then, on her hands and knees, her cashmere coat still on, she had picked up every last sliver of the broken glass. She had done it with her bare, trembling fingers, dropping the pieces one by one into her own hand until her palm was bleeding
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    The air on the terrace was thin. Seventy-five stories up, the wind coming off the Hudson had teeth, biting through the layers of the city’s heat island effect to find the bone.Liam stood at the railing, a tumbler of scotch in his hand. He hadn't taken a sip. The amber liquid was just a prop, something to hold onto while the ground shifted beneath his feet.Now.That was the word she had used. Not someday. Not eventually.Now.He heard the sliding glass door open behind him. The soft whoosh of the seal breaking.Aurora walked out. She had changed out of her work clothes into a heavy wool cardigan wrapped over her pajamas. She looked small against the backdrop of the skyline, but she moved with the indomitable gravity of a planet.She came to stand beside him. She didn't touch him. She just looked out at the lights of Manhattan—the grid of electricity they had both helped build."You're thinking," she said."I'm calculating," Liam corrected. "It's a occupational hazard.""And what is t

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 361: TIME JUMP SETUP

    Time, Aurora realized, had finally stopped acting like an enemy.For the better part of a year, time had been a countdown. A ticking clock on a high-risk pregnancy. A sentence handed down by a judge. A deadline for a deposition.But for the last six months, time had become a river. It flowed. It carried them forward, gentle and steady, smoothing the rough edges of their trauma into something that looked, remarkably, like a normal life.Aurora stood in her office at Vale-Cross Global. It was 4:45 PM on a Tuesday in October. Outside, the autumn sun was turning the Hudson River into a ribbon of hammered copper.She packed her bag. Tablet. Sketchbook. A half-eaten bag of goldfish crackers that had somehow migrated from her purse to her desk."Heading out?" Claire asked from the doorway.Claire was the COO now, officially. She wore authority as easily as she wore her tailored blazers."I am," Aurora said. "Ethan has a science fair project due tomorrow. We're building a volcano.""Vinegar a

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 360: ADOPTION FINALIZATION

    The courtroom didn't smell like fear this time. It smelled of floor wax and optimism.Liam Cross sat at the plaintiff’s table, but he wasn't a plaintiff. He was a petitioner. Beside him sat Aurora, wearing a soft cream dress that caught the morning light filtering through the high windows.On his lap sat River.River was three and a half years old. He was wearing a miniature navy blazer, a white shirt, and a bow tie that Ethan had tied for him (crookedly, but with love). He was holding his lamb, which had been washed so many times it was now more gray than white, but still soft.River wasn't looking at the judge. He was looking at Liam’s hand, tracing the veins on the back of his knuckles."Petitioner Cross," Judge Halloway said. It was the same judge who had sentenced Isabella. He looked less tired today. He looked almost... happy. "We are here to finalize the adoption of River Doe.""River Vale-Cross," Liam corrected gently.The judge smiled. "River Vale-Cross. Let the record reflec

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 359: HOPE'S FIRST BIRTHDAY + RIVER'S INTEGRATION

    The penthouse living room was a battlefield of wrapping paper.Aurora sat on the rug, a glass of iced tea in her hand, surveying the wreckage. It was a good wreckage. The kind that meant a life was being lived loudly and without apology.Hope was two.She was no longer the fragile preemie in the incubator. She was a toddler with a vocabulary of fifty words (mostly "no," "mine," and "cookie"), a head full of riotous dark curls, and a terrifying amount of agency.She was currently wearing a tutu over her pajamas and trying to put a party hat on the dog Marcus had adopted last month—a patient, elderly golden retriever named Buster who had joined the extended family."Gentle, Hope," Aurora called out. "Buster doesn't like hats.""Hat!" Hope insisted, jamming the cardboard cone onto the dog’s ear.Sitting next to them, watching with the intense scrutiny of a safety inspector, was River.It had been six months.Six months since the intake center. Six months since the night terror. Six month

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 358: ETHAN'S WISDOM

    The bedroom was a blue cave.The blackout curtains were drawn, blocking the city lights, leaving only the soft glow of the star-shaped nightlight. It was 9:00 PM. The penthouse was quiet, but it was the quiet of people sleeping, not people hiding.Ethan lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He was tracing the glow-in-the-dark stickers he had put there last year. Orion. The Big Dipper. The Death Star (which wasn't a constellation, but Uncle Marcus said it counted).He turned his head.In the bottom bunk across the room, River was awake.Ethan could tell by the breathing. Sleeping breathing was slow and heavy. River’s breathing was fast and shallow, like a rabbit waiting to run.River had been quiet for three days. Ever since the nightmare about the closet. He didn't play with the kaleidoscope. He didn't eat his toast. He just sat in the corner, holding his lamb, watching.Ethan sat up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed.He walked across the room. The floor was cold on his fe

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 357: RIVER'S NIGHTMARES

    The scream shattered the silence of the penthouse like a thrown brick.It wasn't the fussy cry of a baby. It wasn't the frustrated shout of a child who didn't want to go to bed.It was a sound of pure, unadulterated terror. High-pitched. Animalistic. The sound of someone being hurt.Aurora was out of bed before her eyes were open. Liam was right behind her. They ran down the hallway, their bare feet pounding on the runner.They passed the nursery. Hope was asleep, undisturbed by the noise that lived in the other room.They burst into the boys' room.The nightlight cast a soft, blue glow over the scene. Ethan was sitting up in his bed, clutching his duvet to his chin, his eyes wide with fear.Across the room, in the bottom bunk, River was thrashing.He was tangled in his sheets. He was kicking, punching, fighting an invisible enemy."No! No! Don't put me in!" he screamed. His voice was raw. "I'll be good! I'll be good!"Aurora moved to the bed."River," she said, keeping her voice low

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   61: Sophia's Friendship

    Sophia Tan was a professional listener. As the CEO of Tan Communications, she was paid to listen to crises, to spin them, and to bury them.But sitting in the back booth of a quiet, dimly lit bar in Tribeca, listening to the ghost of her best friend tell the story of the last five years, she felt l

    last update最終更新日 : 2026-03-21
  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 68: Ethan Tags Along

    The "five minutes" with Liam had stretched into something dangerous.A crack in the wall. A glimpse of a future that Aurora had sworn was impossible.Now, twenty-four hours later, the crack was widening.It was a Saturday. The penthouse was filled with the morning sun, turning the white surfaces in

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  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 64: Liam's Investigation

    The "war" wasn't being fought with supply chains anymore. It was being fought in the dark.Liam Cross sat in the back of his Maybach, the city of New York sliding past the tinted windows like a film noir. It was raining again, a relentless, gray drizzle that matched his mood.He wasn't going to the

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  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 60: The Breakup That Wasn't

    The "war" Vanessa Leigh had promised was not starting now. It had started five years ago, in the aftermath of a wedding that never happened.The present—Liam’s office, the dossiers, the obsession—faded as Vanessa sat alone in her dark apartment, pouring a glass of wine she didn't want.She closed h

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