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Chapter 8: A Bride's Intuition
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2025-12-22 16:32:17The 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 forgotten it. He had. Liam, in his cold, calculated fury in the foyer, had forgotten she’d left it there. He must have sent someone to retrieve it, and they, seeing the text, had tried to warn her.
Or... or was this Vanessa? A final, cruel twist of the knife, to make Aurora find them herself?
It didn't matter. The "who" didn't matter.
Only the "what."
Room 305.
That wasn't the groom's suite. The groom's suite was on the second floor, opposite her own, a symbolic, chaste distance.
The third floor was for honored guests. For the inner circle.
Outside her door, the processional music swelled, a wave of strings cresting, full of hope and unbearable tension. It was the final call.
A soft, firm knock.
"Aurora?" Her father’s voice. Muffled, proud, and full of love. "Darling? It's time. They're ready for us."
Aurora stared at the door.
Behind that door was her father. Her legacy. The Vale-Cross merger. The life that had been planned for her since she was born. All she had to do was open it, take his arm, and walk.
All she had to do was swallow the broken glass for good.
She looked at her reflection. The perfect bride, a prisoner in white lace.
She looked at the phone in her hand. Room 305.
This was the moment. The final, terrible choice.
She thought of Liam's face, contorted in righteous fury as he lied about the earring. A gift for YOU!
She thought of his voice, flat and dead, as he stood over the glittering, shattered mess of her heart. Clean it up.
She thought of Vanessa’s triumphant, crimson smile.
All night, she had been the victim. The passive, broken doll, moved from room to room, dressed, painted, and positioned for the ceremony.
But this text... this was not an accusation. It was a key.
It was permission.
It was her own intuition, the screaming, frantic voice she had been silencing for months, given a voice and a room number.
She could not walk down that aisle.
She could not stand at an altar and pledge her life to a man who was, at this very second, possibly in a room on the third floor with another woman.
She would not be "poor Miss Vale." She would not be the fool.
She would be the woman who knew.
"Aurora?" Her father's voice again, closer, a note of concern creeping in. He knocked again, harder. "Sweetheart, are you all right?"
Her heart hammered against the corset. It was a trapped bird, beating its wings against a cage of bone and silk.
She couldn't open that door.
She backed away from it, her movements frantic, the heavy skirt of her dress dragging, whispering liar, liar, liar against the carpet.
She looked around the suite, her eyes wild. The main door was impossible.
But there was another door.
A small, discreet door, painted to match the wallpaper, tucked away near her dressing room. It was the service entrance, the one the maids used to bring fresh towels and take away trays, the one that led to the back staircase.
It was her escape.
She was not running from her wedding.
She was running to the truth.
"Aurora! I'm coming in!" Her father's voice, now sharp with alarm. She heard the rattle of the doorknob.
She didn't hesitate.
She held the phone in one hand, the ruby earring still crushed in the other, a talisman of her own rage.
She grabbed the handle of the service door, yanked it open, and slipped into the narrow, dimly lit back corridor.
She pulled the door shut just as she heard the main door to her suite swing open.
"Aurora?" Her father's shocked, confused voice echoed from the room she had just fled.
She didn't wait.
She began to run.
It was a clumsy, agonizing, desperate run. She was encased in a 20-pound dress, her feet unsteady in three-inch silk heels. She hiked the massive skirt up, her arms bunched with satin and pearls, and sprinted down the narrow hallway, a vision of white fleeing the sound of her own name.
The back staircase was steep, carpeted in a thin, worn runner.
She didn't go down.
She went up.
She climbed, her breath tearing from her lungs, the corset a vice. She was running on pure, uncut adrenaline, a bride fleeing her own execution.
She reached the third floor.
The hallway was silent. Empty. The music from the garden was a distant, muffled thrum.
This floor was quiet. Too quiet.
She stood there, a ghost in her own home, her chest heaving.
Her heart was so loud, she was sure they could hear it.
She crept along the hallway, her silk heels sinking into the plush carpet.
Room 301. Room 303.
And then, at the end of the hall, she saw it.
Room 305.
The door was closed.
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