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Home / Romance / Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride / Kabanata 351 - Kabanata 360

Lahat ng Kabanata ng Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride: Kabanata 351 - Kabanata 360

461 Kabanata

CHAPTER 351: RIVER'S THERAPY

The room was different from the others.It didn't have a bed like the blue room. It didn't have a high chair like the food room. It didn't have a big window like the sky room where the baby cried.It had sand.River sat on a small chair. His feet didn't touch the floor. He wiggled his toes inside his new sneakers. They were blue. They lit up when he stomped. He liked to stomp, but he was afraid to do it here.A lady was sitting on the floor. Her name was Dr. Yuki.She wasn't like the other ladies. She didn't click pens. She didn't ask questions. She just sat there, moving little plastic people around in a wooden box filled with sand."This is the safe place," Dr. Yuki said. Her voice was quiet. Like a secret.River didn't believe her. There were no safe places. There were only hiding places.He clutched the red cape. Ethan had given it to him. Ethan said it was magic. River didn't know about magic, but he knew the cape felt soft. He rubbed the velvet against his cheek."You can touch

CHAPTER 352: MARCUS AND SOPHIA'S WEDDING

The wedding venue was small. A renovated firehouse in TriBeCa, all exposed brick and soaring windows, filled with the scent of lilies (ironic, Marcus had noted, but Sophia insisted they were classic) and expensive beeswax candles.It was intimate. Only fifty people. The family. The inner circle.Marcus stood at the altar. He was wearing a tuxedo. This time, it wasn't a torture device. It was an honor.He looked out at the room.Liam stood beside him as his best man, looking proud and annoyingly handsome. Ethan, the ring bearer, was standing very still in his own tiny tuxedo, his hand clamped over his pocket where the rings (and probably a Lego figurine) were safely stowed. He wasn't wearing his cape, but he had a red pocket square that matched it perfectly.And in the front row, sitting next to an empty chair reserved for Sarah Sterling, was Aurora.She looked radiant in a silver gown that matched her eyes. On her lap sat River.River was wearing a suit. A miniature, three-piece suit

CHAPTER 353: RIVER'S FIRST WORDS TO THEM

The kitchen was the heart of the fortress.Aurora stood at the marble island, chopping strawberries. The morning sun was pouring in through the east-facing windows, turning the stainless steel appliances into mirrors.It was 7:30 AM. The routine was set. The chaos of the early days—the broken plates, the hoarding, the screaming—had settled into a rhythm. A fragile one, yes, but a rhythm nonetheless.River sat at the small table in the breakfast nook. He was wearing his blue pajamas with the rocket ships. He was eating toast.He ate differently now. He didn't shove the food into his mouth as if someone were about to snatch it away. He took small bites. He chewed. He watched the room.Hope was in her high chair next to him. She was eighteen months old, a whirlwind of curls and demands. She was banging her sippy cup on the tray."Juice!" Hope commanded. "Juice now!""Say please," Liam said from the stove, where he was flipping pancakes. He had gotten better at cooking. The smoke alarm ha

CHAPTER 354: THE ADOPTION QUESTION

The master bedroom was bathed in the soft, amber glow of the bedside lamps. It was a quiet night—rare for a house with three children under the age of ten—but the silence felt different tonight. It wasn't the heavy silence of exhaustion or the tense silence of a siege.It was the silence of a breath being held.Liam sat on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his cuffs. He watched Aurora at her vanity. She was brushing her hair, the rhythmic swish-swish of the bristles acting as a metronome for his racing thoughts.Three months.It had been ninety days since they brought River home from the intake center. Ninety days of tantrums, hoarding, night terrors, and slow, agonizing breakthroughs.And yesterday, the question. Are you my daddy now?Liam looked at his hands. The hands that had signed billion-dollar mergers. The hands that had punched a photographer. The hands that had held a four-pound baby in the NICU.They felt empty. They wanted to hold onto the answer he had given River, to make

CHAPTER 355: FAMILY MEETING

A Family Board Meeting was different from a Business Board Meeting.Ethan knew this because he had been to both. Business meetings happened in rooms with long tables that smelled like lemons and old men. People wore ties. They talked about "Q4" and "logistics" and nobody smiled unless they were winning.A Family Board Meeting happened on the living room rug.Ethan sat cross-legged next to the coffee table. He was wearing his school uniform, but he had taken off the blazer because serious business required comfort.Across from him sat River.River was wearing the red cape. He wore it everywhere now. It was getting a little dirty at the hem, dragging on the floor, but Mom said we didn't wash magic things until they stopped working. River was holding his lamb in one hand and a half-eaten graham cracker in the other. He looked small. But he didn't look like he wanted to hide under the sofa anymore.Mom and Dad were sitting on the couch. Dad was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. Mo

CHAPTER 356: BUSINESS CRISIS REDUX

The alert on Aurora’s phone was red.In the old days—the days of the siege, the depression, the bunker—that color would have triggered a cortisol spike strong enough to stop her heart. It would have meant a leak. A lawsuit. A threat to her children.Today, sitting in her corner office at Vale-Cross Global, Aurora looked at the red notification with the calm, detached assessment of a structural engineer noticing a hairline fracture. It was a problem. It needed fixing. But the building wasn't going to fall down."Claire," Aurora said into the intercom. "Get Liam and Marcus. Boardroom B. Ten minutes.""On it," Claire’s voice came back, crisp and unbothered.Aurora stood up. She smoothed the front of her navy blazer. She checked the time: 2:00 PM.The notification was from the account manager for the Nexus Tech campus project—a three-hundred-million-dollar contract that was supposed to break ground in Seattle next month.Subject: CRITICAL. Nexus threatening termination. Competitor bid rec

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

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

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

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

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