Married To The Forgotten Heir

lf she would not slip out some side door in shame, and she meant to keep that pro

rd them the way you hear rain start ....

r. That's

he sent

as no idea what to

somewhere to look besides all those faces. Her heels clicked against the floor, slow and steady, and she made herself breathe in

hed her arm as she passed. "

ne, and she knew if she stopped to explain herself to one more

r the back of a chair. Her hands moved on their own, folding, stacking, while her mind stayed strangely blank, like it had simply stepped outside

lix's mother app

voice was pitched just loud enough to carry, and Aurora understood, with

g," Aurora s

ething that almost looked like sympathy, if sympathy could also look faintly relieved. "A boy like Felix, from a fa

, she saw two women exchange a look, and she knew exactly wha

"You're telling me my family doesn't exist in front of a

ned, closed. For once, she

l in this room. She pressed her lips together and looked down at the gifts in her hands instead of at any of the faces around her. Somewhere behind her, someone

what she'd always been afraid she was ..... a girl nobody wanted enough to keep. She thought of every foster placement that had sent her ba

where beyond the fa

h something raw enough that even the words got lost in it. A second voice, higher, panicked. Chair

sound at once, like a held brea

r one strange, guilty second, she was almost grateful fo

," someone nea

," someone else said. "I heard th

e reckless, curious part of her ..... the part that had spent all day trying to hold herself together ..... wanted very badl

the doors that led to the ballroom next door, following the trail of guests and staff who were already drifting that way to see for thems

le from crowding the entrance. Aurora slipped past her without really meaning to, pulled along

rned chair. A shattered champagne flute glittering across the floor. A cluster o

ddle of it al

oment and no other. His head was down, his hands braced against the edge of a table, his shoulders rising and

lding himself together by sheer will, the same thing she'd been doing all afternoon in front of a mirror and a room full of guests. She

when he l

ined room, and for a brief, suspe

enched hands. Underneath it was something far more familiar. Devastation. The pa

Aurora forgot her own

broken glass on the same afternoon as her own. But somehow, looking at him across that wrecked ballroom, she kne