Page 170 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘Do what you do best.’ She smiled tightly. ‘We’ll be with you soon,’ she promised.

Tina flipped her headset back into place and walked off, talking into it in hushed whispers.

Aurora watched her leave, turned on her heel, and pushed through the side door to the back of the courtyard.

Her heart raced. This morning Sebastian had kissed her forehead and told her he was going for a walk. Alone. It wasn’t unusual. Since the night he’d told her about Amelia, he’d claimed more and more moments for himself. But he’d always returned to her by nightfall and climbed into bed beside her.

Aurora moved out of the side gate. She looked up at the skies. A helicopter whirred. It descended the mountains lined with trees. More guests.

She dropped her gaze to the trees standing guard at the entrance of the forest. She moved towards them, over the field of short green grass.

She’d find him.

Aurora stepped into the forest. Twigs broke underfoot as she took herself deeper into the overlapping trees.

‘Sebastian?’ she called, but all that answered her were the birds she’d startled, flying upwards to higher branches.

White beams of light shone through the branches overhead, scattered with drooping leaves.

She closed her eyes and listened.

She could hear running water.

She opened her eyes, listening, finding the right direction…

She moved toward the sound of rippling water, and it got closer with her every step.

Her feet halted at the top of an incline. A slow-flowing river moved below. A natural stairway of roots led the way down through the trees. She took them, step after step, down to the river. As she did, the trees parted.

And the view stole her breath.

‘Thereyou are. I found you,’ she husked, stopping still.

He stood from where he knelt next to the river. And she watched him rise. Watched the sun play with the wisps of his hair hanging loose at his shoulders. His open-collared white shirt revealed the thick hair-covered throat. And up her eyes went. To the tip of his bristled chin, to linger on his plump pink lower lip. Up the length of his noble nose. To his eyes. Green-and-amber depths staring straight at her.

‘I wasn’t lost,’ he said deeply.

She moved towards him. Her heart racing. Her body tightening, urging her closer.Nearer.

He had been lost. They both had in New York.

Would he tell her the same now as he had then? That he wasn’t hers to find.

She cleared her throat. ‘What are you doing down here?’

‘Thinking.’

‘And what have you been thinking about all morning?’ she asked, her lips moving into a smile. But her lips were too heavy, her lungs too breathless to perform the ease she wanted to portray.

She wasn’t at ease. The air hummed with it. A restlessness. And it made the hairs rise beneath her red-silk-covered arms.

‘You,’ he said, and his eyes dropped to her stomach. Rounded and obvious beneath the folds of her red sparkly gown. ‘And the baby.’

She stopped before him. The moss-covered ground was soft beneath her shoes. ‘What about us?’

‘They have breached the walls,’ he said. ‘The doors are wide open. And in they go. Into my house.’ His eyes rose to meet hers. ‘You invited them inside.’

His eyes were not accusing. His voice was soft, and yet she felt like a traitor.