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CHAPTER13
Aurelia
Over the next few weeks, Ryan and I find our routine while I wait for my brothers to come up with a plan to free me from our parents’ clutches. I hope it takes forever because the bubble I’m in is magical. I never want it to end.
Every morning I wake in Ryan’s arms. We fool around in bed before he makes love to me, then we get up and eat. He usually cooks; I’m terrible in the kitchen.
We hang around the apartment, watching TV, talking, having coffee on the balcony—living a dream within the four walls of our temporary home. I imagine this is our real life, that we’re actually living together. I don’t know what will happen when things start to change and we have to go back to normal, but I do know I don’t want to give Ryan up.
I haven’t really considered how things will work once we’re out of our bubble. I don’t want to think about it if I’m being honest.
I’m sitting in front of the TV, my legs curled under my bum and a cup of coffee clutched in my hand. I’ve been binge watching a show that Ryan hates but puts up with because it means we can sit together.
It’s moments like this that I don’t want to lose.
But my brothers will murder him for touching me. We have to keep our relationship a secret for now. But what happens down the line?
My phone ringing breaks through my musing. I grab it off the arm of the sofa and see it’s an unknown number. Weird. No one has this number except for my brothers and sisters-in-law.
I debate not answering, but curiosity gets the better of me. I swipe my finger over the screen and lift the handset to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Oh, darling! There you are.”
My blood freezes.
It’s Charlotte.
How the fuck did my mother get this number?
“Don’t hang up,” she says quickly.
I should, but years of conditioning stills my hand. “What do you want?”
“You to come home, of course. This whole business is foolish. I don’t know what your brothers think this will achieve.”
“I’m not coming home. Ever.”
“I know you think I’m trying to ruin your life, Aurelia, but I’m not. I’m trying to set you up for the future. I need to know you’re taken care of.”
I scoff at her words. To an outsider, it would seem as if she was being the doting mother. I know differently. Charlotte only does what benefits Charlotte. She doesn’t care about me. She only wants what I can give her, and that’s more power.
“I’m fine. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“Lord Huntsville—”
“Is not happening. I don’t want to marry him or anyone else for that matter.” That’s a lie. I’d marry Ryan in a heartbeat, but I’m not divulging that to my mother. She’d have him killed just to spite me.
“You really are being a selfish bitch,” she hisses, her demeanour changing abruptly. It doesn’t faze me. I’ve seen this switch flip in Charlotte more times than I can count over the years. “After everything I’ve done for you. All the sacrifices I’ve made! Do you understand just how hard I had to work to secure this marriage? The shit I had to dig up on that prick to ensure he’d marry you?”
“I’m sorry you wasted your time,” I mutter.
“Come home, Aurelia, or it won’t be you who suffers the consequences.”
The line goes dead and dread tears through me. What does she mean by that? What is she planning to do?
For a moment, I don’t move, my head a jumbled mess of scenarios.
