Page 174 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

She was his power, and she fortified him. Strengthened him in this choice to claim this opportunity she’d given to him with her small hand holding his. An opportunity to stand as himself and bring Amelia with him out of the shadows. To give his name and his face to a charity he would found to support children like her. Forgotten children.

And he would do it. Today.

He would no longer let the rich and the privileged elite remain ignorant.

He would make them look.

He would make them see more than his pretty art.

And they would acknowledge what they feared.

They would acknowledgehim. All that he was, and all that he had become despite them.

Together, he and Aurora crossed the courtyard and entered the castle. Together, they walked down the corridor lined with a thousand windows. Long, heavy black drapes hung from the walls, tied with gold twine that held them open, let the light in. And on they went until they came to the two tall doors made of oak and iron. But neither stopped as Sebastian dipped his head and the staff on either side of the doors opened them.

Sebastian and Aurora swept into the great hall.

Together.

Hand in hand, they strode down the white carpeted central aisle between the circular oak tables of white cloth and silver cutlery to the front of the room.

They took to the stage, but she did not release his hand as he turned. As he looked at the guests Aurora had invited. She squeezed it.

He didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on them. On the ball gowns and tiaras. The diamonds dripping from throats and fingers. On the eyes staring at him, wide with anticipation.

But he felther. More than her hand holding his.Insidehim. He squeezed her hand back and knew she felt him too. That she recognised him. And all that he was about to say wouldn’t shock or appal her. He knew she had already accepted him. As he was.

And he couldn’t let himself examine it any more deeply. How this realization made the ache inside him pulse with something foreign. Something he did not want to acknowledge.

He took what she offered.

Her acceptance.

That was all he wanted, not these impostors in his house.

He did not needthemto accept him. He needed them only to know of him. Know he existed,would exist, with or without them. And so had Amelia.

‘I am Sebastian Shard,’ he said, and waited a breath too long for them to feel the weight of his name. The power of it.

His name mattered now.

He’d risen above them all from the dark places he’d called home. And he stood unflinchingly before them now as the man the forgotten boy had become.

‘I am Sebastian Shard,’ he said again, louder. Clearer. He would make them look now at the dirty secret they’d once preferred to ignore. ‘And my mother was a prostitute. Amadam. A pleasure provider to all those who entered her home and her body.’

The crowd gasped, and he let their shock feed him.

‘I was, am, the children in your neighbourhood, and in your gated communities,’ he told them, opening their ignorant eyes. ‘I was nothing more than a boy, living inside a house of depravity hidden beneath your respectable veneer,’ he told them. For the first time, he did not feel shamed by his past. He felt…strong.

‘There are many children like the boy I was. Living in dark spaces. Seeing unspeakable things. Ugly things. And we cannot forget them. I will not forget them.’

He inhaled deeply through flaring nostrils.

It was enough. He had said enough, told them enough.

He waved his free hand to the team of staff waiting beside the stage. He beckoned them to him with a flick of his wrist. They came. Gathered around the white cloth ten feet high behind him, concealing what he would now reveal.

He nodded, and dozens of hands pulled the cloth free until it revealed the twisted metal in all its glory. It was too tall to house in his studio, so he’d built it in the forest surrounding his home.