Page 169 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

A fatigue, so heavy, blanketed his mind.

He was so tired…

Darkness claimed him. And Sebastian slept a dreamless sleep, holding on to Aurora.

And she held him right back.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE KITCHENS HUMMEDwith activity and a thousand scents.

Aurora walked, one red silk pump after the other, through the white shirts and black waistcoats of the staff working diligently away in the smaller kitchen preparing the silver serving trays. The champagne glasses sparkled as the bubbles rose to the top. The canapés were the perfect size for the guests who were beginning to enter the great dining hall.

‘Mind your backs,’ a chef called as she stepped into the bigger second kitchen.

She stopped at the roasting trays, pulled from the ovens by the team of chefs in their whites. The trays steamed. The smell of tiny quails, smothered in herbs and butter, assaulted her airways, but she resisted the urge to stick her fingers in the juices and lick them.

She’d eat them soon enough at the head table with Sebastian.

‘Miss Arundel?’ She turned her back to the chefs, ignored the grumble of her stomach, and focused on the bright blue eyes of the event coordinator, Tina.

She was a godsend. Without her and Esther, she couldn’t have pulled it off in a week. But together they had pulled it off in an afternoon.

Her stomach twinged. She was right to rush this—to rush him.Their time was almost up. The baby would be here in three weeks…

‘What’s wrong?’ Aurora asked when those blue eyes, wide with worry, stared at her unblinkingly.

Tina pushed the microphone of her headset away from her lips. ‘Nothing.’ She smiled. A perfect smile. But Aurora wasn’t fooled. It was brittle.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Aurora said. ‘The hall isn’t ready, is it?’

She shook her head. ‘The dining hall’s ready,’ she said. ‘The guests are arriving and are being shown in.’ She waved to the staff exiting the outer kitchen. ‘The staff are taking the canapés out now…’

‘So, then, what is it?’

‘Esther Mahoti is here.’

‘Is she?’

Aurora couldn’t wait to meet her in person. A no-nonsense woman who had supplied everything Aurora needed to make today a success. She’d curated the perfect guest list, deployed the teams of staff to ready the castle. She’d planned, with her team, the transport for the guests, organised the art team to install Sebastian’s pieces in the dining hall, and personally sent Aurora the silk pumps on her feet.

‘She is.’ Tina swallowed. ‘And she’s demanding to see Mr Shard.’

‘Then show her to him.’

‘I can’t find him.’ Panic tightened the slender throat inside the baby-pink necktie. ‘I’m supposed to know where he is. Whereeveryoneis. And Esther—’

‘Will be fine,’ she soothed, but her throat was tightening too.

‘She’ll never use our event company again if I lose the star of the show.’

‘Bring Esther into the hall. Let her see what you’ve accomplished in such short notice.’

‘It won’t be enough. If I can’t deliver Mr—’

‘I’ll deliver him.’ Aurora tucked Tina’s arm in hers and walked her back out the way she’d come.

Her stomach flipped. Was he ready? Had she demanded too much? Too quickly. Too fast.