CHAPTER 5 - Face to Face

Hours later, Aurora stood on her balcony as rain began to fall, cold and heavy.  She watched the city lights blur into gold and silver streaks.  Her image in the glass was not the same shy girl from three years ago.  Yet beneath the expensive clothes and calm smile, that broken heart still pulsed.

 “Mama?”

 Leo’s small voice made her turn.  He stood in the doorway, clutching his toy wolf.  “Are you sad again?”

 She knelt, drawing him into her arms.  “No, my love.  Just thinking.”

 “About Daddy?”

 The question froze her.  He rarely asked about Damon perhaps because she never spoke of him.  But tonight, the innocence in his eyes tore something open inside her.

 “Why do you ask?” she whispered.

 “I saw him,” Leo said simply.  “On TV.”

 Her heart stopped.  “What?”

 He nodded.  “At the store today, the lady showed me.  He looks like me, Mama.  Is he bad?”

 Aurora swallowed hard, tears burning at the corners of her eyes.  “No,” she said finally.  “Just… lost.”

 Leo leaned into her shoulder, stretching.  “Then maybe he needs to find us.”

 Her arms tightened around him.  “No, baby.  He can’t.”

 But as she stared out at the rain, her heart quickened with dread because in the distance, beneath the thunder, she could swear she heard the low growl of an approaching chopper.

 The next morning, Aurora’s phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.

 “You can’t hide forever, Rory.  We need to talk.   D.B.”

 Her breath caught, the phone slipping from her hand as Leo’s laughter echoed in the next room.

 The past she thought she’d buried was flying straight toward her.

He hadn’t heard her name in three years.  But now, her face changed facefilled on every television screen in his office.

 Damon’s hand squeezed around the glass of whiskey until it cracked, golden liquid spilling across the dark mahogany desk.  The sound of cameras clicking and reporters screaming echoed through the speakers placed on the wall.  On the screen, a woman with red hair and an attitude that screamed power walked through LAX like she owned the world.

 Aurora Vale.

 But his wolf restless, snarling deep within knew better.  Rory.

 His mate.

 The one he had rejected.

 “Impossible,” he mumbled under his breath, walking across the office, muscles coiled tight.  “She’s supposed to be gone.”

 Across from him, his Beta, Lucas, moved uncomfortably.  “The news says she’s the Moonstone heiress.  Switched at birth, they say.  She’s here for the board meeting.”

 Damon’s eyes flashed.  “Moonstone heiress?  Don’t insult me.”

 Lucas looked at the screen.  “You can’t deny it, Alpha.  She looks… different.  But it’s her.  Aurora Haleno, Vale, now.  She’s alive.”

 Damon’s heartbeat thundered in his ears.  He watched her walk through the crowd, security guards splitting the sea of flashing lights as she passed.  Gone was the shy, soft-spoken girl who once stammered in his presence.  This woman was steel wrapped in silk.

 The way her chin tilted.  The shape of her mouth.  The storm in her eyes.

 And beneath it all, that smell.  Even through the screen, his wolf stirred restlessly, clawing at his control.  Mate.

 His hand shook slightly as he turned the level up.  Reporters’ words filled the room.

 “Miss Vale!  Is it true you’re the rightful Moonstone heir?”

 “Do you have a statement about the identity switch scandal?”

 “Were you hiding all these years?”

 Aurora didn’t answer.  She simply turned her head slightly, her red hair falling like a flame over her shoulder.  Her lips parted faintly, sharp as a knife.  “No comment,” she said, her voice calm, low, deadly.

 Damon’s chest tightened.  That tone wasn’t the voice of a broken woman.  It was the voice of someone who had learned how to make the world regret doubting her.

 “Find out when she lands at Moonstone headquarters,” he said, snapping out of his daze.

 Lucas frowned.  “You’re going to see her?”

 “Yes.”  Damon’s jaw clenched.  “She’s walking back into my territory.  I want to know why.”

 By the time he left his office, rain had started to fall over Los Angeles, turning the city into a blur of silver lights.  The drive to the Moonstone Tower was quiet, except for the growl of the engine and the storm inside his chest.

 He remembered that night.  The dinner.  The flash of cameras.  Her tear-streaked face.  The words he’d thrown like knives: You embarrass me.

 He’d meant to protect her.  That was the terrible irony of it all.  The threats, the danger his enemies would’ve killed her if they’d known she was his mate.  So he’d done the only thing that could save her.  He’d destroyed her in public to keep her alive in private.

 Or so he told himself.

 But the look she gave him before she ranthat broken disbeliefstill haunted him.

 Now she is back.  Stronger.  Richer.  And clearly not interested in forgiveness.

 At the Moonstone Tower, chaos ruled.  Paparazzi camped outside.  Employees talked in the halls.  Damon pushed through the private lift, ignoring their stares.  When the doors opened to the top floor, he froze.

 She was there.

 Standing before the panoramic windows, city lights blazing behind her like a crown.  She wore a black dress that hugged every curve, her red hair flowing down her back.

 For a moment, he couldn’t move.  Couldn’t breathe.

 Then she turned.

 Their eyes met.  And for a heartbeat, the world fell silent.

 She didn’t move.  Didn’t blink.  Just looked at him with that same arrogant calm that made his chest ache and his wolf growl.

 “So,” she said softly.  “The mighty Alpha shows his face.”

 Her accent had shifted silkier now, touched with Italian grace but the venom beneath it was familiar.

 Damon stepped forward, his voice low.  “You’ve changed.”

 Her lips curved.  “People do that when they’re betrayed.”

 The words hit harder than he expected.  He forced himself to stay calm.  “You shouldn’t have come back.”

 “I didn’t come back for you.”

 “Then why are you here, Rory?”

 She tilted her head.  “It’s Aurora Vale now.”

 He smiled bitterly.  “You can change your name, your face, your country but you can’t change what you are.”

 Her eyes flashed.  “And what am I, Damon?  A mistake you regret?  A ghost from your past?”

 He took a step closer.  “My mate.”

 The silence between them snapped like lightning.  Her breath hitched, but she didn’t back away.

 “Don’t,” she whispered.  “You lost the right to say that the moment you humiliated me in front of the entire pack.”

 “I did what I had to do.”

 “No,” she cut in sharply.  “You did what made you look strong.  You did what made me bleed.”