Aurora’s POV
The room smelled like old money and newer lies.
I stood in the center of the study, my hands clenched so tightly my nails bit into my skin. The walls were lined with portraits of ancestors who had built empires and destroyed families with the same steady hands. Tonight, all of it felt like a cage closing in.
Jake stood across from me.
No, Jake hovered.
His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a mess, his suit wrinkled like he had slept in it or torn it off and put it back on again. He looked nothing like the man I once trusted. Nothing like the man who once said he loved me.
“You were supposed to be mine,” he whispered.
Natalie leaned against the desk behind him, calm and composed, her lips curved in that familiar, cruel half-smile. She looked untouched by the storm she had ca
