Chapter 2: A Marriage Built on Hatred
1007 Words
The penthouse didn’t feel like a home. It felt like glass.
Aurora stepped inside and the doors clicked shut behind her. Marble under her heels. Floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over a city that didn’t know her name.
Charlie didn’t look at her. He dropped his keys on a counter and walked past her to the bar.
“Your room is down the hall,” he said. “Last door on the left.”
He poured whiskey. Didn’t offer her any.
Aurora’s suitcase was already there. One small black case. The doorman must have brought it up while she was signing papers. She stared at it sitting alone in the middle of a room big enough to fit her old apartment twice.
She didn’t cry. She’d cried at City Hall. Her throat felt raw from it.
Dinner was at eight.
Charlie didn’t tell her that. The housekeeper did. A woman with neat hair and quiet shoes who set a plate across from Charlie’s and then disappeared.
Aurora sat. The chair was too big. Her feet didn’t quite touch the floor.
Charlie cut his steak. The knife made a clean sound against the plate.
“Eat,” he said.
She did. The food tasted like nothing.
Halfway through, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it. Smiled. Not at her.
“Richard Hayes is already calling in favors,” he said, setting the phone down. “Asking who his daughter married at midnight.”
Aurora kept her eyes on her plate.
“He wants to know if you’re okay.” Charlie took a sip of wine. “What should I tell him?”
Aurora looked up. “Tell him I’m married.”
Charlie’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. “Good girl.”
After dinner he left. No explanation. The door closed and the penthouse went silent except for the hum of the city forty floors down.
Aurora walked the hallway. Last door on the left.
The room was bigger than her bedroom back home. The bed was made with white sheets. There were clothes in the closet. Silk dresses, heels, coats with tags still on them. None of them her size.
On the dresser sat a jewelry box. Inside, the ring from City Hall. His mother’s. She hadn’t taken it off.
She picked it up and turned it in her fingers. Too tight. It left a faint red mark.
She put it back.
The next morning she woke to voices.
Charlie was on the terrace, on a call. Shirt sleeves rolled up. He looked like he hadn’t slept.
“No,” he said into the phone. “I don’t care what the board thinks. We’re buying Hale Logistics. And I want his signature by Friday.”
He hung up. Turned. Saw her standing in the doorway.
“Breakfast,” he said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat anyway.”
She sat. He didn’t. He stood by the window with coffee and watched the street below like it owed him money.
A photographer’s flash went off outside the building.
Charlie didn’t flinch. “They’re already calling us the wedding of the year,” he said. “Kingston marries Hayes. My father would love that.”
Aurora pushed eggs around her plate.
“Smile more tonight,” Charlie added. “Gala at the Met. You’ll be on my arm.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“You do now.” He nodded at the closet behind her. “Pick something. Or don’t. I don’t care.”
He left.
Aurora stayed at the table until the housekeeper cleared her untouched plate.
She tried the closet. The dresses were beautiful. And wrong. Too tight in the shoulders, too long in the hem. Like they’d been bought for someone else.
For Lila, maybe.
She chose the simplest one. Black. It hung off her. The car came at seven. Charlie was already in it, tie loose, jaw tight.
He didn’t speak on the ride. At the Met steps, cameras flashed. Hands reached for him. He ignored them all and held out his arm.
Aurora took it.
His grip was firm. Not kind.
Inside, people came up to them. “Congratulations.” “So sudden.” “Love the ring.”
Charlie answered with one-word replies. He introduced her as “my wife” like it was a weapon.
A woman in red stopped them. “Aurora Hayes? I went to school with Lila.”
Aurora’s breath caught.
Charlie’s arm tightened on hers. “Aurora’s shy,” he said smoothly. “Excuse us.”
He guided her away before Aurora could answer.
In the bathroom later, Aurora locked the door and pressed her forehead to the mirror. Her reflection looked back, pale and borrowed in that black dress.
She whispered to herself. “You are not her.”
When she came out, Charlie was waiting by the wall.
“Having fun?” he asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
They left early. Back in the penthouse, he went straight to his office and shut the door.
Aurora went to her room. She opened her suitcase. Inside: two books, a sweater, and a small photo of her and Lila at the beach. Lila, twelve, grinning with sand on her nose. Aurora, fourteen,holding her hand.
She put the photo under her pillow.
Later, she sat on the floor with a notebook. She wrote two words at the top of the page: Get Out.
Under it: Job. Apartment. Bank account.
She underlined Bank account twice. The door opened. Charlie stood there.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” She closed the notebook.
He looked at the closed book, then at her. “Don’t get comfortable.”
“I’m not.”
He left the door open when he went Aurora lay in the big bed and stared at the ceiling. The city lights moved across it.
He thought she was a prisoner. She let him think that because prisoners watch and prisoners plan.
And Aurora Hayes was done depending on anyone named Kingston.
- Writer
