Chapter Sixty-Five Aurora
Chapter Sixty-Five
Aurora
After a pause, he tilted his head. “Now,” he said, as if he were changing gears on purpose, “tell me about you, Aurora.”
I blinked. “M-Me?”
“Yes.” There was a new focus in his eyes now, not business, not pleading. Curious. “You’re my son’s girlfriend, you attend Silverwood?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“And your parents?”
“My mum lives in New York, New York City," I said softly. “She—um—she’s a receptionist at a hotel there. My dad…” My voice caught on instinct. “He passed.”
His eyes flickered. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and it didn’t sound like empty sympathy. It sounded as if he actually meant it.
I nodded. My throat hurt. “It’s okay.”
“And Silverwood,” he said after a beat. “Who paid your tuition? Joshua?”
I shook my head fast. “No. No. I—um. I have a full ride.”
His brows lifted. “Silverwood doesn’t offer—”
“I know,” I whispered, a little shy. “They… made one for me.”
Silence stretched for a heartbeat. Something like pride, sharp and assessing, crossed his face. But it wasn’t the greedy kind. It was the kind that realise that: ah. You’re not here because you want a piece of us.
“Good,” he murmured.
My cheeks warmed.
He then asked what I studied at Silverwood.
“Psychology,” I said, “and math. And neurobiology. Triple under computational neuroscience. They—um—they let me pick.”
His brow lifted, impressed. “All three?”
I nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “They overlap more than you’d think. I like learning about how people work—the brain, emotions, habits, and why people do what they do. How something that small inside our head controls everything.”
He leaned back a little. “No wonder you earned that scholarship,” he said. “Those aren’t light subjects.”
I smiled, small. “I want to use math to understand thought. Research why people are the way they are and maybe help them see it too.”
He watched me closely, as if he were seeing another piece of his son’s world for the first time. “That’s quite a reason to study the mind. Has that always been your first choice?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Since I was a kid.” Then I bit my lip. “Not to sound sentimental or dramatic, but… I was bullied a lot growing up.”
His face changed, subtle, but protective.
“I had selective mutism when I was younger,” I went on quietly. “I barely spoke. I stuttered a lot, too. Still do sometimes.” I gave a tiny laugh. “It’s silly, I know.”
“It’s not silly,” he said. His tone was so calm that it made my chest loosen a little.
“I always wanted to understand why people could be cruel for no reason,” I said. “What makes the brain decide that hurting someone is… funny. Or powerful.”
He nodded, thoughtful. “And Joshua helped you out of that?”
The way he said it—soft, careful—made me smile despite myself. “Yeah. Your son broke it out of me, somehow.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Broke it out of you?”
“I speak now,” I said. “Not perfectly, but… I do.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He just watched me, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. Then, quieter, “Does my son ever do that to you?”
I blinked. “Do what?”
“Hurt you,” he said. “The way you said people did.”
I hesitated. My fingers twisted in my napkin. Heat crept up my neck.
He exhaled slowly. “He was one of them, wasn’t he?”
I swallowed. “He—he’s different now,” I said quickly. “He’s trying. Really trying. It sounds ridiculous, I know, to fall for someone who’s hurt you, but—”
“My son hurt you?” he interrupted, disbelief flattening his voice.
I looked down. “Just a little.”
“A little,” he repeated. “Emotionally?”
I hesitated again. “A little of both.”
His chair creaked as he straightened. “Physically?”
I lifted my eyes and said softly, “It was an accident. He told me it was. He kicked a football too hard during practice, and it hit me. I fractured my arm, but it healed fine.”
He stared at me. Then dragged a hand down his face. “My son is ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Yeah, he is.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile. “And yet you’re still with him.”
“Because he’s not like that anymore,” I said. “He’s… soft now. Clingy.” I laughed again, shaking my head. “He smiles all the time. Laughs a lot. He’s… home. He’s at peace. It’s nice seeing him like that.”
John leaned back, eyes gentler than I expected. “I’d pay everything I have to see my son happy,” he said quietly. “Thank you for making him so.”
My chest warmed, and I smiled at him across the table. “He makes me happy, too.”
He leaned back again, studying me for another long second. And then… he relaxed. I watched it happen. His shoulders dropped. His hands stopped flexing. Some of the hardness in his jaw eased.
Just like that.
Like being in a room with someone who wasn’t afraid of him, let him exhale for the first time all day.
Dinner came on quiet feet, a woman setting out plates, tea, something roasted and simple instead of ridiculous and gold-leafed. We sat across from each other at a table that could fit twenty and ate as if it was normal.
He didn’t talk to me as if I were a kid. But he also didn’t talk to me like I was an investor.
He just… talked.
About Joshua as a baby. About Sofia’s laugh. About the company. About how he keeps thinking he’ll hear footsteps upstairs and realises again, and again, and again, it’s just him in this castle.
It hurt to hear.
But also… it didn’t make me angry at him the way I thought it would. It just made me sad for both of them.
After dinner, he walked me back toward the front together, and he paused in the doorway, one hand on the frame, like he didn’t actually want to open it yet.
He turned to me.
“Come to dinner again sometime,” he said quietly.
I blinked. “Oh.”
“I mean that,” he added, and there was a softness in his face I hadn’t seen before. “I don’t…say that to people.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “O-Okay. I will.”
That same almost-smile tugged at his mouth. “Thank you, Aurora.”
He nodded to the driver. The driver, the same man from earlier, stepped forward and opened the door for me. I slipped into the backseat again, clutching my phone. The door shut. We pulled away from the castle.
For a minute, it was quiet. The city lights rolled back toward us. I exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
Then, from the front, the driver said, warm and low, “Miss?”
I looked up. “Mm?”
“Come back,” he said. “He wasn’t just being polite.”
My chest squeezed. “O-Okay.”
“He doesn’t invite anyone,” the driver added, almost like a secret, eyes on the road. “Ever. Not since… well. Not since her.”
Her.
Sofia.
I stared down at my hands.
Joshua’s dad, the man who built an empire and lost his family for it, had asked me to dinner again.
Not because of business.
Not because of money.
Because it was quiet there. And talking to me, just me, made it less quiet. I leaned my head against the window and watched the city flicker by.
—
The lobby lights were still on when I came back. It was quiet, that kind of quiet that feels like it’s listening.
And then I saw him.
Joshua.
Sitting on one of the couches. Arms crossed. Head down. I froze for a second, heart jumping up into my throat. Practice wasn’t supposed to finish for another two hours.
He looked up when I stepped in.
“Hey,” I said softly, smiling because that’s what I always did when I saw him. “When did you get back? Practice should’ve ended—”
“Coach’s wife had an emergency,” he cut in. “He ended it early.”
His voice was low. Not cold. Not angry. Just… wrong. There was something tight in it, like every word scraped his throat to get out.
“Oh,” I said quietly. “I hope she’s okay.”
He didn’t answer.
I shifted my bag on my shoulder. “Um… should we go upstairs?”
He stood. No nod. No word. Just stood, towering, and started walking past me toward the elevator. I followed, pulse climbing with every step. The air between us felt heavy, thick. When the elevator doors closed, the silence hit harder.
I could hear him breathing. That was it. I glanced up once. He was staring straight ahead, jaw tight, eyes darker than usual. I wanted to ask. I wanted to touch his arm. But something told me not to.
The doors opened.
We walked into the penthouse, still quiet, except for the faint hum of the city through the windows. I set my bag down by the counter, heart pounding because I could feel it. Something was wrong.
“Josh—” I started softly. “Are you—”
“Why did you go with him?”
The words hit so hard that it felt like the floor dropped.
I blinked. “W-What?”
He turned to me, eyes sharp, voice low. “Why did you go with him?”
My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“Why did you get in his car, Aurora?” His voice cracked on my name. “Why did you go with that bastard?”
“Joshua—”
“Why?”
He wasn’t yelling. But he might as well have been; his anger was quiet, shaking in his chest. He took a step closer and stopped himself halfway, running a hand through his hair as if he were trying to keep it together.
“How do you even—”
“I came home early,” he said, jaw clenching. “You weren’t here.” His hand dropped to his side. “I asked reception if you had come back, and they said no.”
I swallowed. “I—”
“I asked to check the cameras,” he said, looking away for a second as if he hated saying it. “And I saw you. You and him. Getting into his car. With his driver.” His voice dropped again, almost breaking. “You just… left. With him.”
“Joshua,” I whispered.
He shook his head, laughing once under his breath, but it wasn’t amusement. “And now you’re back, as if nothing happened. So tell me, what did he say? What did you talk about? Why did you go?”
Every question felt heavier than the last.
I opened my mouth, but my throat felt as if it were closing.
He stared at me, waiting. Waiting for something I didn’t know how to give.
“I—” I tried. “He just wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
“About you.”
His eyes hardened. “Of course he did.”
“No, Joshua, listen—”