Page 163 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘You want to talk about him now?’

She nodded.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me about Michael.’

‘He was…’ She sucked in a lungful of fortifying breath. ‘He was my big brother, and I loved him. I looked up to him. I envied him in the earlier days.’

‘Why would you envy him?’

‘He was always so…free.’

‘Free?’

‘He never put on a show. He never pretended to be anything other than what he was. Cheeky, naughty.Innocent things when we were young. Speaking out of turn. Playing pranks.’ She swallowed. ‘Harmless things, really.’

‘Did you play pranks, too?’ he asked gently.

Her chest tightened. ‘Once.’

‘And what happened?’

‘It was silly,’ she said, remembering. ‘I collected worms from the garden and put them in the new nanny’s bed. I didn’t like her. She was mean.’

‘She hurt you?’

‘Only with words. But our parents assumed it was Michael, and I let them believe it. I let him take the blame, and he did. Not once did he tell them it wasn’t him. And I started to lean into that. I wanted them to love me,’ she confessed roughly. ‘I pretended to be the golden child that day, and it became my role. I dedicated myself to it. To being perfect.’

‘You are perfect.’

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t. I leaned into Michael’s misbehaviour to amplify my own goodness, because I wanted their approval, but they always withheld it anyway. Michael’s behaviour grew worse…’

‘How?’ he pressed softly. ‘How did it get worse?’

‘It was light stuff at first,’ she said. ‘Parties. Smoking. Cannabis.’ She swallowed, remembering finding him in the gazebo, reeking. ‘He said it was a one-off. Then he promised he only did it when he needed to relax. When he had to come home tothem. He was lying. He smoked it all the time. I could smell it. But I believed him. I believed it was harmless. That his habit wouldn’t progress.’

‘But it did?’

‘He took harder stuff, until I couldn’t see him behind his bleary red eyes.’ Aurora scrunched up her nose to stem the burn there. ‘My parents put so much pressure on us. On Michael, and he escaped it, them, with gambling highs and drugs. But the Michael I grew up with, who protected me from our parents’ put-downs and took them all for himself, was gone, long before my parents abandoned him. Before I did. He was gone before he died. I realise that now.’

Pain lanced her through the chest. ‘But the night my parents threw him out, he begged me to believe he could change, would change.’ A tear fell, and she let it fall. ‘I didn’t believe him. I let him go off on his own because I didn’t want to risk my parents’ wrath, their displeasure. I wanted to be good. To be loved. To be the golden child. And then Michael died.Alone, because I had been manipulated into being the daughter they wanted.’ She hissed, disgusted at what she’d let herself become to please her parents. Who, she realised now, would never have been pleased with her. Not obedient Aurora. Not rebellious Aurora.

‘Don’t cry.’

‘How can I not?’ she said. ‘I didn’t believe him. I didn’t give him a chance, not even one last chance to change, because I was too afraid to stand by his side and fail with him. And what did I achieve not lobbying for him one last time? Nothing. I became the heiress to the Arundel name and fortune because I was the only one left. And they thought I’d look after it when they were dead, how they wanted it to be looked after. But after you…after New York, I realised I didn’t have to do it their way. I could live my life how I chose to.’

‘And what choices did you make for your life?’

‘I chose to continue being the person I became the night I met you,’ she confessed. ‘To be brave and bold in the choices I make now.’

She searched his eyes, and she saw nothing but shadows.

If he wouldn’t let her in, she’d climb inside herself. Talk to the shadows he wouldn’t recognise still took up too much space in his mind.His dreams.

She moved her body until she was on her knees. Her blue dotted nightgown rose to her thighs as she crawled onto his naked lap.

‘Aurora…’ He held up his hands in the air as she settled herself, her thighs on either side of his. The baby was big and round between them. ‘What are you doing?’

‘You need to talk about them, like I did,’ she said. ‘You need to talk about her. Amelia. You need to face your demons, and—’