Chapter 18 Aurelia
AURELIA
Julian and I sit in silence on the drive home.
I try to keep my breathing steady, but my body won’t cooperate. Every time the car hits a bump, I feel the echo of Cassian inside me. The ache between my thighs. The bruise forming on my hip where he gripped too hard.
Can Julian tell?
I sneak a glance at him. His jaw is tight, eyes on his phone, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s always controlled.
My dress is smoothed down. Hair finger-combed back into place. Lipstick gone, but that’s normal after an event. Nothing obvious screams that I just had sex in a storage room at a charity gala.
But I feel marked. Claimed. Like everyone who looks at me will know.
The memory flashes hot and sudden—Cassian’s mouth on my neck, his hand fisted in my hair, the desperate way we came together like six years hadn’t passed at all. My thighs clench involuntarily.
“You were gone a while earlier,” Julian says.
My heart kicks up. “Yeah, I had a little bit of a wardrobe malfunction,” I lie.
He nods but doesn’t question it.
I turn to look out the window and let myself remember properly now that I don’t have to guard my expression.
The way Cassian touched me. Like he was trying to prove something. Like he was angry and desperate and couldn’t get enough.
Six years since we’d been together. Six years of wondering if it would feel the same.
It felt better. More intense because now there’s history. Now there’s the twins and the lies and everything we’ve survived.
Heat crawls up my neck.
The driver pulls into the estate driveway, and I force myself back to the present.
“Get some rest,” Julian says as we head inside. “We have that meeting with the lawyers day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there.” I head upstairs before he can ask anything else.
The twins’ room is dark except for the night-light Nadia plugged in near the door. Finn is sprawled across his bed like he fell asleep mid-motion, blankets kicked to the floor. Liam is curled on his side, breathing softly, one hand tucked under his cheek.
I stand in the doorway watching them, and my chest tightens.
They’re safe here. Julian has security everywhere, and Nadia watches them like they’re her own children. They’re adapting to New York better than I expected, asking endless questions about the city and making friends with the staff.
But Cassian knows I’m back. And tonight proved he’s not going to leave me alone.
I pull Finn’s blanket back over him and smooth Liam’s hair away from his forehead. Neither stirs. Then I go to my own room, close the door, and try to pretend my hands aren’t shaking.
I’m in the sitting room with Nadia the following afternoon, half listening to her talk about enrolling the twins in a private school nearby, when Helena appears in the doorway holding a massive arrangement.
Roses, peonies, something white and fragrant I don’t recognize.
Easily three dozen stems in a crystal vase.
“These just arrived for you,” Helena says.
Nadia’s face lights up. “Oh, how beautiful! Who are they from?”
I already know.
I take the card from Helena before Nadia can reach for it, opening the envelope as my heart races.
I can still taste you. - C
Heat floods my face. I close the card quickly and slip it into my pocket. “Just a friend,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “From before I left.”
“A very generous friend,” Nadia says, leaning in to smell the roses. “These must have cost a fortune.”
“I’ll have Helena put them in my room.”
“Don’t be silly. They’re gorgeous. Leave them here where everyone can enjoy them.”
Before I can argue, Finn and Liam burst into the room, fresh from the back yard where they’ve been playing with one of the staff members.
“Mam, look!” Finn shouts, holding up a frog he’s somehow captured. “Can we keep him?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But he’s lonely!”
“He has a whole pond full of friends outside. Put him back.”
Liam has stopped to stare at the flowers. “Who sent those?”
“A friend.”
“What friend?”
“Someone I used to know.”
“They’re pretty!” Finn says, finally noticing the arrangement now that Liam is interested.
“Very pretty,” Nadia says. “Come smell them.”
Finn abandons his frog on the floor and runs over. The frog hops away, and Liam chases it while Finn buries his face in the flowers and declares they smell “like Mam’s fancy soap.” I watch them, and all I can think about is the note burning a hole in my pocket.
Cassian sent these to my home. To the Vance estate. He knows where I live, knows I’m here with my family, and he’s making it very clear that he hasn’t forgotten about last night.
“Mam, can I have a flower for my room?” Finn asks.
“No, baby. Let’s leave them here.”
“But I want one!”
“Finn,” Nadia says gently, “how about we pick some flowers from the garden instead? We can put them in a vase just for you.”
Finn considers this. “Okay. But big ones.”
“The biggest we can find.”
She takes both boys by the hand and leads them back outside, and I’m left alone with the flowers and the knowledge that Cassian isn’t going to stop.
I pull out the note and read it again. I can still taste you. Five words that make my entire body flush with heat and shame and want. I tuck the note back in my pocket and go upstairs to shower.
Julian’s meeting with the lawyers takes up most of the next day.
I sit in the conference room at the Vance offices downtown, listening to men in expensive suits discuss property transfers and shell companies and legitimate fronts for operations that used to be entirely criminal.
Julian wants to clean everything up. Move the family into real estate development, investment portfolios, and consulting. Leave behind the violence and territory wars that defined Victor’s reign.
It’s ambitious. Maybe impossible.
But watching him work, I can see he’s serious. He’s already shut down three of Victor’s more questionable operations, paid off debts to families we’ve had conflicts with, and hired a team of accountants to make sure every dollar is accounted for legally.
“Your uncle left a mess,” one of the lawyers says during a break, “but we’re making progress. Another six months and most of this will be untraceable to anything illegal.”
“Good,” Julian says. “That’s the goal.”
I excuse myself and step outside for air.
The office building overlooks Central Park, and I stand at the window watching people walk below.
Tourists, families, couples holding hands.
Normal people living normal lives. I used to be one of them.
Before Victor, before the arranged marriage, before I ran and met Cassian and everything fell apart.
Now I’m back in the center of it all, pretending I belong here while hiding the biggest secret of my life.
My phone buzzes with an unknown number.
I almost don’t answer, but curiosity wins.
“Hello?”
“Aurelia.” Cassian’s voice is low, intimate, like he’s standing right next to me. “Did you get my flowers?”
My stomach drops. “How did you get this number?”
“I have resources. You know that.”
“You can’t call me.”
“I just did.”
“Cassian—”
“I meant what I said. I’m not letting you disappear again.”
“I’m not disappearing. I’m just living my life.”
“With your family. In their fortress. Surrounded by security.”
“For good reason.”
“Are you afraid of me, Aurelia?”
The question catches me off guard. “Should I be?”
“No. But you are anyway.”
“I can’t do this,” I say quietly. “Whatever you think is going to happen between us, it can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because my life is complicated now. Things have changed.”
“What things?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You keep saying that. Give me something real, Aurelia. One honest answer.”
I close my eyes. “I can’t be with you. That’s the truth.”
The line goes quiet for a moment.
Then he says, “I’ll see you soon.” And hangs up.
I stand there holding my phone, heart pounding, and wonder what the hell I’m going to do.
That evening, I find Nadia in the twins’ room reading them a story. She’s sitting on the floor between their beds, a picture book open on her lap. Finn is hanging over the side of his bed watching the illustrations while Liam lies on his back staring at the ceiling and listening.
“And the dragon said, ‘I’m not scary, I’m just misunderstood,’” Nadia reads in a dramatic voice.
“Dragons are scary,” Finn says.
“Not this one. This one just wanted friends.”
“I’d be his friend,” Liam says quietly.
“Me too,” Nadia agrees.
I lean against the doorframe and watch them. Nadia’s voice is warm and patient, and she keeps glancing between the boys like she’s checking to make sure they’re both engaged.
She’s a natural mother. It’s in every gesture, every smile, every gentle correction when Finn interrupts with questions. And she can’t have children of her own.
“Mam!” Finn spots me and waves. “Nadia is reading us the dragon book!”
“I can hear. It sounds very exciting.”
“Do you want to listen too?” Nadia asks.
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
“You’re not. Come sit.”
I join them on the floor, and Nadia continues reading. The boys settle in, Finn’s eyes drooping even though he’s fighting sleep, Liam already half-gone. By the time Nadia finishes the story, both boys are asleep.
We stand carefully and tiptoe out of the room.
“Thank you,” I say once we’re in the hallway. “For everything you do with them.”
“I love spending time with them. They’re wonderful boys.”
“They adore you.”
Her expression falters, then smooths over.
“About the miscarriages…” I say quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know. But I’m still sorry.”
Nadia looks at the closed door to the twins’ room. “Sometimes I watch them and think about what it would be like if they were mine. If I’d been able to carry a pregnancy to term. If Julian and I had our own children running around this house.”
“You’d be an amazing mother.”
“I already am, in a way. To them.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I know they’re yours. I’m not trying to replace you. But being with them helps. Does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
We stand there in the quiet hallway, two women bound by circumstances neither of us chose.
Then Nadia hugs me briefly and heads downstairs.