Chapter3
957 Words
Aurora Vale
Six weeks.
Which meant…
The night of the gala. The night I seduced Kai Cross, planning to use him for revenge.
The child growing inside me had nothing to do with strategy. No contract could erase that night.
My fingers trembled as I placed the test back under the sink, sealing it away like a dirty secret.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
I was supposed to break Kai.
Not carry his child.
Not feel anything real.
Certainly not regret.
I didn’t sleep that night. I stared at the ceiling and thought about names. Not baby names—God, no. But headlines.
Cross & Vale: Billion-Dollar Engagement or Billion-Dollar Lie?
Sleeping With the Enemy: Heiress’ Shocking Rebound Marriage
Is Aurora Vale Pregnant With the CrossTech Heir?
The last one made my stomach turn. Not from fear. From the awful, aching truth that I didn’t know how to be a mother. Not to this child. Not to his child.
A knock at my door jolted me upright.
I frowned.
It was nearly midnight.
Cautiously, I padded to the door and opened it just a c***k.
Kai stood there.
He looked like he hadn’t slept either.
“I need to ask you something,” he said quietly.
I opened the door wider, heart hammering.
“What?”
He looked at me like he wasn’t sure whether to speak or run.
“Are you using me to get to my father?” he asked. No venom. Just a raw, quiet question.
I blinked, stunned by the simplicity of it.
“Yes,” I said. “At first.”
He didn’t move.
“And now?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know.”
He stepped closer, and for the first time since this whole game began, he looked vulnerable. Not weak—just real.
“I don’t care why this started,” he said. “But if you lie to me again, Aurora… I will find out. And when I do, I won’t be kind.”
Then he turned and walked away into the night, leaving me alone with a lie in my belly and a war in my heart.
My father once told me diamonds are born under pressure.
“Just like you, starshine,” he said, tucking a loose curl behind my ear as he worked at his drafting table. “You shine because you endure.”
I was nine years old and didn’t know what enduring meant. Not really. I just thought it was the kind of word dads used when they wanted to sound wise. I thought his hands would always smell like cedar and metal polish. That his arms would always be strong enough to lift me. That the world, with all its headlines and cold men in suits, would never touch our house at the edge of the lake.
But I was wrong.
The world didn’t just touch us—it swallowed us whole.
The morning everything changed, I woke to birdsong and sunbeams, my satin canopy swaying with the summer breeze. I padded barefoot down the stairs in my nightgown, expecting warm waffles and hot syrup.
Instead, I found my mother crying into her coffee.
I had never seen her cry.
Not even when she burned her hand cooking or when she argued with Father about the board of directors. Her tears weren’t loud. They slid down her cheek like secrets.
“Mommy?” I whispered.
She wiped them away with a napkin, too fast to be real. “Go wake your father, darling.”
“But it’s Saturday.”
Her eyes flashed. “Now.”
I obeyed.
I always obeyed back then.
Upstairs, his study door was closed. That wasn’t unusual—he often worked late, reviewing blueprints for new stores, sketching custom settings for clients. His designs were famous for their precision and soul. The Heart in the Stone, the tabloids once called him. Edward Vale: the jeweler with fire in his hands and love in his eyes.
“Daddy?” I knocked softly. “Mom says—”
The door flew open.
Two men in suits stood inside. One held a folder. The other wore a badge.
My father stood behind them with his wrists bound in silver.
Handcuffs.
My breath caught. “What are you doing?”
The man with the badge crouched in front of me like I was some delicate thing.
“Hi there, sweetie. Your daddy’s just coming with us for a little while.”
“No, he’s not.” I looked up at my father. “Daddy?”
He gave me a smile, shaky and forced.
“Aurora, sweetheart… go back to your room.”
“No.”
“Starshine—”
“I said no!” My chest tightened, panic bubbling up from my ribs. “You didn’t do anything!”
He knelt and took my face in his hands, those hands that had never so much as trembled in front of me.
“Aurora,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine, “you have to be strong now. Strong like diamonds, remember?”
My eyes burned. “But I don’t want to be a diamond.”
He smiled through the pain. “Someday, you will shine brighter than any jewel I ever made.”
They took him after that.
I watched from the stairs as my mother sobbed into her hands and the reporters swarmed the gate. I clutched my music box so tight it cracked, and I didn’t cry.
Not then.
I didn’t cry until weeks later, when a classmate at my private school whispered “criminal’s daughter” behind her hand, and I realized no one was going to fix this.
No one was coming to save me.
- Writer
