CHAPTER THREE
1156 Words
Chapter Three – Built from Dust
Aurora woke before sunrise. The city was still quiet, the kind of quiet that only powerful people could afford to hear. She stood on her balcony, coffee in hand, watching Lagos stretch awake beneath the clouds.
Most mornings, she reminded herself of one thing — she had survived.
It wasn’t luck. It was fire.
After she and her mother were thrown out of the DeLuca mansion, life became hard and ugly. They rented one small room behind a tailor’s shop in Surulere. The roof leaked when it rained, and sometimes they had only bread and water for dinner.
Her mother never complained. She just worked, ironing clothes for people who would never know her name.
Aurora promised herself that their pain wouldn’t be for nothing.
At seventeen, she sold second-hand dresses in Balogun Market. At nineteen, she started fixing torn clothes for her friends and classmates. People loved her designs — simple, beautiful, different. She saved every naira she earned.
One day, a woman from a small fashion blog saw her work online and posted it. Orders flooded in. That was the beginning.
She called her first brand Velon — a mix of her name and “vision.” It started as a small online store. Within three years, it became a symbol of modern African luxury.
The girl who once washed other people’s clothes now had her own labels in Paris, Milan, and Lagos.
People said she was lucky. They didn’t know the nights she went without sleep, the days she cried quietly in her studio.
They didn’t know she built everything out of anger — the kind of anger that kept you moving when your legs wanted to quit.
And underneath it all, the image of one boy never faded.
Dom.
His silence. His eyes that day.
Every success felt sweet, but never enough.
That morning, her phone rang.
“Good morning, ma,” her assistant said. “Mr DeLuca’s team just sent the merger papers. They want a final meeting tomorrow.”
Aurora smiled faintly. “Good. Set it for ten a.m. And make sure the press doesn’t find out yet.”
“Yes, ma.”
She ended the call and looked out at the rising sun.
Tomorrow, she would walk into his world again — not as the maid’s daughter, but as the woman holding the pen that could end his empire.
Meanwhile, across town…
Dom sat at his desk, unable to focus. The memory of seeing her again still hit him like a punch.
He hadn’t expected her to come back so powerful, so untouchable. The same eyes that once looked at him with love now looked at him like a stranger.
He couldn’t blame her.
He’d been weak. Back then, when Isabella accused Aurora, he’d believed what was easy instead of what was true.
He had tried to fix it afterwards — he’d searched, sent money, tried to find her — but by the time he did, she was gone.
And now, she was everywhere.
On billboards. On magazine covers. On the list of people richer than him.
Dom sighed. “Maybe this is what I deserve,” he muttered.
His assistant, Tayo, poked his head in. “Sir, your mother’s lawyer called. She wants to know if you’ll sell the family estate.”
Dom looked up. “No. Not yet.”
He couldn’t let go of that place. The mansion held too many ghosts.
The next day came faster than both of them expected.
Velon’s black SUVs pulled up outside DeLuca Tower right on time. Cameras flashed, even though she had told the media to stay away. People whispered as Aurora stepped out — her heels clicking, her confidence louder than any sound.
Inside the boardroom, Dom stood waiting. He tried to look calm, but his heart raced.
Aurora walked in without hesitation. “Mr DeLuca.”
He nodded. “Miss Velasquez.”
No handshake. No small talk.
They sat opposite each other again, lawyers and assistants filling the room.
The discussion began, numbers flying, contracts passing across the table. Dom tried to focus, but her presence distracted him. The way she tapped her pen lightly when she was thinking, the slight curl of her lips when she disagreed — it was the same, yet completely different.
Halfway through, the power went out for a second — a usual Lagos moment. The lights blinked, and in that short darkness, they both breathed the same quiet air.
When the light returned, Aurora’s eyes met his. For a moment, the room disappeared.
After the meeting ended, her lawyer stepped out to make a call. Dom followed Aurora to the hallway.
“Can we talk?” he asked softly.
She didn’t stop walking. “We already did.”
“Not about business.”
Aurora paused, turning slowly. “Then about what?”
He searched her face. “About us. About what happened.”
She folded her arms. “There is no us, Dom. That ended a long time ago.”
“I know,” he said. “But I need you to know… I never wanted to hurt you.”
Aurora gave a small, humorless laugh. “You didn’t just hurt me. You made sure the world saw me as a thief.”
“I was scared,” he said quietly. “My father would’ve ruined you—”
“He already did,” she cut in. “You just helped him.”
Silence hung between them.
Dom took a step closer. “If I could take it back, I would.”
Aurora’s eyes softened for a second, then turned hard again. “But you can’t. And I’m not that girl anymore.”
She walked away, leaving him standing there with guilt heavy on his chest.
That night, Aurora sat on her bed, scrolling through old pictures on her phone — newspaper clippings, business photos, memories of her rise.
Then she opened an old folder she hadn’t touched in years. Inside were a few photos she once took with Dom.
Him teaching her tennis. Her laughing at the fountain.
They looked so young. So foolish.
She stared at the screen until her eyes blurred. Then she deleted them all.
She needed to stay focused.
Tomorrow, she would sign the merger papers. Once the deal was done, DeLuca Group would belong to her.
That was all that mattered.
But when she tried to sleep, her mind refused to rest.
She remembered the way he had looked at her today — not like a man trying to win her back, but like someone who had already lost something deeper than money.
She hated that it still touched her.
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” she whispered to herself. “He didn’t feel sorry for you.”
Still, when she closed her eyes, she dreamed of rain — the same rain that fell the day everything ended.
- Writer
