บททั้งหมดของ Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride: บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

The invitation was a declaration of war. And the atelier was her armory. The decision, once made, had been a conflagration. The ice of her fear had not melted; it had flash-frozen, becoming a new, harder, sharper substance. Ambition. The two years of hiding were over. The next three months were a blur of focused, feverish, 18-hour days. The Maison AVA, the dusty, echoing storefront, was transformed. The front windows were blacked out with heavy paper, turning the sunlit room into a secret, nocturnal cavern, lit only by the harsh, brilliant, white-blue glare of design lamps. Elias was her shield. He was the public face, the "President," a role he played with a new, invigorated theatricality. He handled the logistics of the Fédération. He booked the venue, a small, atmospheric hôtel particulier that would cost a fortune. He hired the models, the lighting, the press, all under his own legendary, resurrected name. He handled the world, so that she, the ghost, could handle the work.

The atelier, which twenty-four hours ago had been a chaos of adrenaline and burnt hair, was now devastatingly silent. The sun, which Aurora hadn't seen in three days, streamed in, illuminating the aftermath. The empty racks. The scattered pins. The single, midnight-blue dress that had been left behind. And on the oak cutting table, a battlefield of its own: a mountain of newspapers. Aurora, "Ariane," had not slept. She stood in the center of the room, in her now-permanent uniform of a black tunic and trousers, her body a hollowed-out, vibrating shell. She was clutching Ethan, who was blessedly, mercifully asleep, his small, warm body a living anchor in her arms. The roar of the applause from last night was gone, but a new, louder, and far more terrifying roar had replaced it: the sound of the world’s press. "You are no longer a ghost, my child," Elias said, his voice a low, dry rasp. He was in his chair by the window, a cup of coffee in his hand, his phone—which had not stopped

Aurora Vale was a ghost. "Ariane Rousseau" was a myth.The woman standing in the center of the vast, sun-drenched hôtel particulier that now served as the Maison AVA headquarters was, to the world, simply "Madame."Five years.Five years had passed since she had made the deal with the New York investors. Five years since she had, with Elias as her shield, begun to build her fortress.The attic was a distant, feverish memory. The "unwell" woman, the one with the black, jagged, hacked-off hair, was gone.In her place was this new creature, carved from ice and ambition.Her chestnut hair, her own, was back. It was no longer the soft, hopeful style of the Vale heiress, but a severe, jaw-length, architectural bob that was as sharp as the seams on her designs.She wore her own armor. A floor-length, black, minimalist tunic of her own design. It had no waist, no softness. It was a column of pure, defiant power.She was in a fitting. The air in the grand, white, minimalist room was silent, br

The hôtel particulier was a tomb.The Maison AVA, which for five years had been a fortress of creative, chaotic, humming life, was now a hollow, echoing shell. The last of the sewing machines had been crated. The bolts of silk and wool were gone, shipped ahead in climate-controlled containers. The studio, which had been a forest of dress forms and rolling racks, was now just a vast, empty, sun-drenched room, the floor scarred with the chalk marks of a life already packed away.It was the final day. Tomorrow, they would fly.Aurora stood in the center of the emptiness, a solitary figure in her black tunic. The "Madame" of the house was now the curator of its remains.In the corner, sitting on the floor with a piece of chalk, was Ethan.He was five. A small, bright, beautiful boy, chattering in a fluid mix of French and English, drawing a "dragon" on the dusty herringbone floor. He was oblivious. He was a child, and this was just another adventure.He looked up, his face smudged with wh

The thud of the landing gear was a physical blow.It was a violent, mechanical slam, a punctuation mark at the end of her seven-hour truce with the sky. The void was gone. The dark, pressurized, anonymous cabin was no longer a shield.They were here.Aurora’s eyes, which had been closed, snapped open. Her hand, which had been resting on her sleeping son, flew to her own stomach in a phantom, protective gesture.She had spent the night suspended between two lives. She was not "Ariane Rousseau," the Parisian ghost. She was not yet Aurora Vale, the "unwell" woman. She was nothing, a passenger in the dark.She had whispered "I'm ready," as the coast of France disappeared, a promise of iron.Now, as the plane's engines reversed with a deep, guttural roar, that iron felt like ice."Maman...?"A small, sleepy voice. Ethan, her anchor, her why, was stirring. He had slept, a warm, feverish, five-year-old weight against her, for the entire flight, his small body finally succumbing to the exhaus