"I’ll give you the money as a gift, Aurora," Aiden says. "You don’t have to pay me back. All you have to do is marry me and give me an heir." Aiden King is cruel, cold, and heartless. A devil in a designer suit. People call him every evil thing imaginable . To the world, he’s a monster without feelings, but to me, he’s the man who once saved my life. He's my best friend's brother who I've been hopelessly in love with since I was in highschool but he made his feelings for me quite clear when he embarrassed me after I told him how I felt. Now I don't have a choice but to go back to the first man who broke my heart and ask him for help but his help comes with a price. The question is will this story end in heartbreak or happily ever after?
Lihat lebih banyakAURORA’S POV
"I can't believe you'd stoop so low. Cheating on me with my own cousin is disgusting and gambling our savings away is just cruel" my heart breaking with each word. Sign these divorce papers now." I said flinging the divorce papers in his face then walked out the room with tears streaming down my face. Those were the last words I told my ex husband eight months ago when I found him in bed with my cousin.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
The stones on the sidewalk hurt my feet as I parked my bike in the park . It was dark outside and the weather looked like it was about to rain. I hoped it wouldn't start until I got home . I just got back from my babysitting job because I needed the money.
After my divorce from that scumbag, I moved in with my sister, Annabelle. I’ve been working overtime for months, trying to save enough money to get my own place. My ex husband gambled away our savings. I know I was stupid to trust him, but I was young and thought I was in love. I ran to my door and felt relief when I got inside
"Annabelle, are you home? I brought lunch," I called out as I walked into the house, but there was no answer. Suddenly, someone grabbed me from behind and shoved me against the door
"Mrs Reynolds. It’s a pleasure to meet you," said a man’s voice. "I’m Peter Vory. Your husband told us so much about you. He also said that I could get my money from you." He tightened his grip on my neck. My heart stopped. Everyone in the city knew who Peter Vory was. He’s part of the Mafia and runs a club that’s really a front to launder money. Thomas swore that he was a bouncer for him and promised to find a decent job but that was just one of his many lies. Unfortunately Thomas owed Peter money and I've been stalked for weeks now by his henchmen. At first I just thought that maybe it was because they were watching me to see if Thomas would try to contact me so they could get their money back but I guess I thought wrong.
"It’s Miss Knight now, because I divorced him months ago." I replied .
"Well, I asked for a threesome with Blake Riley and Julia Roberts, but I’m not getting that, am I?" Peter sneered. "Here’s the dealy Thomas Reynolds owes me a lot of money, and he said you have it. He claims you stole it."
I stared at him in shock. "That’s a lie! I didn’t steal anything! Thomas cheated on me and wasted your money gambling. The rest he spent on his mistress."
Peter smirked. "It’s your word against his, and I really don’t care. I just want my money. Call him and tell him to pay up."
I looked to my left and noticed the man who’d been following me for months standing nearby. Annabelle had told me to go to the police, but the process seemed overwhelming, so I ignored him.
Peter caught my reaction and grinned. "Ah, I see you’ve already met Kenneth, my right hand man. I needed to make sure you wouldn’t run like you ran away from your husband. Thomas has left the country, and you won’t tell me where he is, will you?"
"His ex wife doesn’t know where he is," I snapped, trying to pull my hand away. He held on tightly. "And she knows how to use pepper spray, so stay back." I didn’t want Annabelle to hear and get involved. She had already done so much for me.
"Use your skills to find him," Peter said mockingly. "You found him once, so you can do it again."
"I haven’t spoken to him in months, and I don’t care to. I have nothing to do with him," I said, trying to push him away, but his grip tightened.
"Then his debt is now yours. What happened to ‘for better or worse’? How does the vow go?" Peter asked with a smirk.
"Beats me, Boss. Never been married," Kenneth replied.
"Smart man," Peter said with an evil smirk on his lips.
Peter kissed the back of my hand, then slid his tongue between my fingers, showing me what he wanted to do to the rest of my body. I swallowed and breathed through my nose. He was scaring me, and he knew it. Peter was a loan shark who always made sure he got his money, and Thomas owed him over three million dollars. He held my wet hand to his cheek, rubbing it against his face.
"Sorry, Aurora. Nothing personal. I need to collect a debt. If I don't soon, people will think it's okay to take money from me without paying. If you're interested in paying a different way, I can make a deal. I'm not unreasonable. But no matter what, you'll pay your husband's debt, and you better hurry because the interest keeps growing."
"What do you mean?" My heart was pounding, and I felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. This was the first time Peter and Kenneth had hinted at this kind of thing. I was a preschool teacher, how could I possibly come up with three million?. Even my kidneys weren't worth that much. And yes, I actually googled it.
"I'm saying if you can't pay, you'll have to work for it."
"Just say it, Peter "I snapped, ready to grab my purse and spray pepper spray into both their faces. As sleazy as he was, I doubted he would give up that amount of money just to have sex with me.
"Serving men who aren't very clean or good looking." Peter smiled like he was sorry. "You're a very beautiful woman, Aurora, even in those cheap clothes." He tugged at my dirty dress. "Work six months in my strip club, doing double shifts every day, and we can call it even."
I slapped him, my whole body shaking with anger.
"How dare you? I'd rather die than be a stripper!," He moved back, but I scratched his cheek. Kenneth stepped forward to stop me, but Peter waved him away and laughed.
"You won't be dancing," he said. "You'll be on your back in the VIP room. Though I can't promise you won't be on your knees too, if they're willing to pay extra." Peter wanted to sell me if I couldn't pay the money Thomas owed him. In the eight months since Thomas left, I had hoped he would come back and fix the mess he left behind, but he hadn't. I thought he might finally give me the divorce I had asked for before he disappeared. I held onto my anger, not wanting to accept that this was now my problem. But now, I realized Peter had known the truth all along, Thomas wasn't coming back. His problems were mine now. And I had to find a way to fix this, fast.
"What if I don't pay?" I asked, my voice trembling.
"Then I'll have to make an example out of you. It will hurt me more than you, I promise. It's always sad when the wife has to deal with her husband's mess." He stopped by the door, shaking his head. "But if I let this slide, I'll lose my street credit. You will pay. Either in money, with your body, or with your blood. See you later, Aurora and next time we meet I expect to be paid fully unless you will find out why they call me a monster”. With that, he walked out leaving me devastated with tears rolling down my cheeks.
ARIELLA I grabbed the sleeve of the guy running the ride and pulled on it.“I want to get off,” I said.He looked me up and down slowly, staring too long at my bare legs.“Damn, sweetheart, I’d like to get you off too. But I have to finish my shift. I need the money,” he said, sounding high.I held onto his hoodie and forgot all the manners I’d learned in fourteen years. I was too scared.“No! I mean I want to get off the ride. Unless… can someone sit with me?” I asked, a little hopeful.“Girl, it’s just a ride. If you’re taller than four feet, you can go,” he said, shaking off my hand. “You’ll survive.”“I know. I’m not scared. I just—”“Look…” He held up his hand to stop me. “If I don’t press that red button every three minutes, I lose my job. So are you getting off or staying on?”I was about to say I’d stay on and that I was just being silly, when someone stepped forward and cut in line.“She’ll stay on, Sir.”I didn’t want anyone to see me cry even as tears filled my eyes and ri
AURORA'S POV Aiden gave the door an annoyed look, then looked back at me. I raised my hands. “I can’t control what my sister says.”“If you could, it would be a full-time job. Have you heard from Morgana this week? She asked when she could visit.”After Aiden and I got back together, I started talking to Morgana Landon again. She was getting a divorce from Herold, who was still in therapy. He worked as a legal consultant and was trying to be a better dad to Tree and Tinder. Morgana was happy when I started visiting her again. I often brought Aiden with me. He watched Tinder and gave Morgana advice.We even took the kids and Aiden to visit Mrs. Veitch for Christmas at her nursing home. She passed away a few weeks later in her sleep.“I need to call Morgana back, but I hope the next time I see her, I’ll have a baby in my arms. Can you help me up? I need a shower.” I moved around on the bed.“I’ve got you.” Aiden picked me up and carried me to our bathroom. I stood under the warm shower
AURORA'S POV Sandy and Ariella were in the room too, fussing over me.“I’m tired of crying every time I see a Super Bowl ad or hear a Katy Perry song on the radio.”“You cry because she’s a bad singer, right?” Annabelle sat at the end of my bed, rubbing my feet. “Just making sure your hormones are only messing with your feelings, not your music taste.”I laughed and gave her a gentle kick. “I’m being serious.”“My mood swings never stopped,” Sandy said, lying on a recliner in the corner of our bedroom. “I remember pushing Tanya in her stroller on a walking path, and I saw a squirrel running around. I thought its tail would be good for cleaning baby bottles. It was very fluffy, okay?”“No offense, girl, but you’re not the best example,” Annabelle said, putting my right foot on her leg and pressing her thumbs into the bottom of my foot. “You got pregnant again before Tanya even learned to recognize voices. Does your husband know he can stop sometimes?”“No,” we all said at the same tim
AIDEN'S POV I had been in and out of clinics. Besides Tourette’s, I was also told I had OCD and ASD. To me, it felt like my world had ended. People think Tourette’s means you scream bad words without control and look crazy. They think OCD means you wash your hands over and over. And ASD means I’m on the autism spectrum. Most people think that means I’m like Rain Man—very good with numbers, but not smart in other ways. I quickly knew I had to get better if I wanted to live the life I wanted. I learned that I couldn’t stop the tics, but I could stop the things that made them happen. The tics came when I felt too much. Any strong feeling made it worse—sadness, anger, fear, or even happiness. If I got too excited, a tic attack would come soon. So I learned not to feel anything. If I stayed calm and didn’t feel too much, the tics stayed away. It was simple, and it helped everyone around me too. Well that explained a lot. Why Aiden always wore leather gloves because he didn’t like touch
AURORA'S POV He held my waist and gently pulled on my dress, stopping me from getting too close to the flowers. To the sea of flowers. I just noticed this part of the house was full of wildflowers. And not just any flowers. These pink and white ones looked like tiny, sad hearts. I swallowed and stepped back. “How long have you had those?” “Almost four years.” He looked at me with a small frown. “About a month after Henry and Sandy’s wedding, my gardener called me outside and said I needed to see something. He said it was strange. He didn’t plant the bleeding heart flowers and didn’t know how they got there. He thought maybe the wind blew seeds from another garden but I remembered something because after I took the flowers from your hair, I wrapped them in a napkin. Later that night, when I arrived home, I went out to the garden to smoke a cigar, found the napkin, and threw it out. It was just one flower. My gardener asked if I wanted to keep it. I thought about your curse, no,
AURORA'S POV The kids were running all around us. I thought it meant something, that the reason we were brought together, the idea of having children, surrounded us, even though I wasn’t pregnant.“I want one hour with you. Just sixty minutes. That’s all I ask. When do you finish work?”“Four,” I said. “Same as always.”“I’ll wait.”At least he didn’t tell me to skip work this time.“How did you make a cloud?” I pointed behind him.“NASA has a book. It’s easy.”“It looks amazing.”“Even third graders can do it.”“I don’t care.” I shook my head. “Will you wait for me?” I looked around at the school.He smiled. “Aurora, I’ve waited eight years for you. I can wait four more hours.”The drive to Aiden’s house was quiet. Before I got out of Little Genius, I set a timer for sixty minutes on my phone. I played with my bag strap, looking at the boring view outside, trying to calm down.This was the moment. A part of me always knew Aiden wouldn’t just sign the divorce papers and let go. Maybe
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