Page 68 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

CHAPTER FIVE

A S THE HELICOPTER flew above the tree line, Sebastian found it. The light that had been lost to him for months.

It was in her eyes.

Aurora , his brain hummed.

The pilot chased the afternoon sun atop the mountains, and Sebastian saw it shimmering in her eyes. There were no shadows lingering in their brown depths anymore. They were bright, and her light flowed through him in waves.

His hands itched to do what they hadn’t been able to do for months without being forced. To work. He wanted to map the contours of her face in clay. To sculpt every line and create a version of her he could keep, touch, whenever he felt like it, because he would not touch her .

He flattened his palms on his knees. Refused to clench his fingers.

He would control it. These new, and unwanted, impulses that had flooded through him the moment she’d appeared in the doorway of her house, from beneath white silk. Rounded. Vibrant with the seed he’d put inside her. The seed growing now with the swell of him .

Sebastian had not meant to take her. He had not planned to take her in his arms and carry her away from all she’d known. But the confession that she was not over their one-night stand, that she thought about it, about him…

The moment she’d asked him whether he would have changed how their night had ended if he could have, he’d known he would take her.

She was too naive, too vulnerable, with her romantic notions to be alone without him in this cruel and ugly world.

Dispassionate duty . That was all he could give. All he would give to keep them safe.

His home came into view.

‘Sebastian.’ Eyes wide, she turned from the window and looked at him. ‘It’s a castle.’

He nodded.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

So was she. She sat regally, suiting her inherited title. Lady Aurora Arundel.

Her brown skin shimmered beneath the loose-fitting green dress. Beads sat in an array of earthy colours on the cuffs and hem of her dress. Sewn in spirals on the seams outlining her body. Her planted feet were buckled in tan block heels. He yearned to remove them.

He wanted to see her feet. Inspect them. The soles that had run barefoot in the dark. To see if she was injured. If she’d healed.

‘It is,’ he agreed. Every muscle in his body urged him to close the distance between them. Rush to her, place his mouth upon hers, and crush her lips against his.

Control yourself.

Taking the sunglasses hanging from his T-shirt, Sebastian slipped them on.

She turned back to the view, and he watched her take it all in. The artillery walls. The high turrets. The foreboding black stone walls.

The helicopter descended to the dedicated landing pad just outside the castle walls. The pilot shut off the engine, and the blades slowed.

Sebastian unclipped his seat belt and stood, preparing to reach across and unbuckle her seat belt, too. But she beat him to it. And the movement caused a rush of her warmth, her scent, to hit him square in the nostrils. He felt dizzy at the assault on his senses.

‘Ready?’ She smiled as she spoke.

He didn’t return her smile. He was ready to do his duty. ‘I am.’

The pilot opened the door, and she didn’t hesitate. She took the pilot’s outstretched hand and left Sebastian to catch up to her. Across the low grass, she moved to the gated entrance, ready to receive them.

She stopped when she reached it and shielded her eyes from the sun. Her neck arched upwards, her rounded stomach pressed forward. He wanted to rush to the swell of her. Feel it again. His baby inside her. But he made himself go slow. He wouldn’t rush.

Unhurriedly, he walked to her and stopped beside her. He slipped his glasses off and held them out. ‘Take these.’

She turned to him, a deep crease knitting her brows ‘Why?’

‘To shield your eyes from the sun,’ he said.

She took them, pushed them onto the bridge of her nose. And he was grateful they blunted the force of her gaze on him.

‘How long have you lived here?’

He hadn’t expected her curiosity, didn’t know quite what answer to give her. How much he wanted to share. ‘Since… after ,’ he said simply, hoping she’d understand.

Her hand fell to her side, and he resisted the urge to take it. To hold it. Show her inside. Bring her into a place he’d invited no one else. Not his pilot. Not Esther. Only him.

He swallowed it down. The thrill tickling across his skin at the idea of being alone with her.

But he would not weaken.

‘After your time on the streets?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘And you chose a castle in the Scottish Highlands?’ she asked. ‘Far away from any city? Away from people?’

He did not enjoy people. The night they had met, the only night he’d ever attended an event where his work was being sold, Esther had arranged it all.

All so that he would be anonymous within the crowd.

Would be asked no questions. He didn’t like questions.

And yet Aurora had asked more than anyone.

He nodded. It felt too intimate to tell her why he’d chosen this place when it had been decrepit and unwanted, its roof leaking with every storm. He didn’t want to tell her that he’d hoped rebuilding this place, piece by piece, stone by stone, would fix something in him.

It was restored to its former glory now. Beyond it. But it hadn’t fixed him.

‘How many staff do you have?’ she asked, looking over every grey stone distorted to black with history and age, lined with moss.

‘None.’

‘ None? But it’s huge.’

‘The pantries are stocked monthly,’ he said. ‘It’s all I need.’

‘That’s not very much,’ she said.

‘I am a man of little need,’ he reminded her. ‘I only take what is necessary to survive. To create my art.’

‘Why would you live like that?’ she asked. ‘You’re rich?’

‘Because I want to,’ he answered shortly. His riches allowed him luxuries, he knew. But he used only what he needed. Employed the staff he required as a necessity. And his team on the ground was only himself and his pilot.

‘But that will change now you are here,’ he assured her. He’d change it for her. The baby. ‘I’ll employ a team to cater to your and the baby’s every physical need.’

What about her other needs? Her wants and desires.

He swallowed thickly.

He would not meet those needs.

‘A team?’ she asked.

‘A chef, a cook—whatever else you want, Lady Aurora Arundel.’ Her name felt exactly how he knew it would. It crowded his mouth. Heated his blood.

‘It’s a title, passed down from generation to generation. It has no real meaning anymore.’

‘It means everything,’ he corrected her. ‘A name of nobility. A rich history of wealth and privilege.’

‘You can talk.’ She chuckled. ‘Staff or no staff, you still live in a castle.’

‘It was not always so,’ he reminded her, and he didn’t know why. Why it was important for her to know he was not one of them. The rich. The elite. The privileged. The ignorant.

‘I know.’ She scraped perfectly white teeth against the lushness of her bottom lip. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been so hard for you,’ she said. ‘Out there.’

‘I have known harder.’

‘When your family died?’

He stiffened.

She removed her borrowed sunglasses and looked up into his face with wide brown eyes. ‘The press never talks about the before.’

‘The before?’ he croaked. She couldn’t know. No one did. No one except Esther ever would. And even she didn’t know it all.

‘Before your time on the streets,’ she clarified.

‘There is nothing else for the press to talk about,’ he dismissed her tightly. ‘There is nothing to know about the… before .’

‘I’d like to know,’ she said.

‘There is nothing else,’ he repeated. ‘I am Sebastian Shard. Street artist. Homeless man turned billionaire.’ He used the words she’d said to him earlier to sum up who he was in a few sentences that revealed nothing.

‘And who are you beneath the headlines?’ she asked quietly.

‘I am the father of your child. That is all that matters now,’ he said, ending this, whatever this was, because he didn’t want her questions.

That part of his life was for no one. It was not a story for Esther to use to increase the worth of his art.

It was his story. His burden. And he’d tell no one. Not even Aurora.

Her brown eyes searched his too deeply. ‘Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?’

His gaze dropped to her stomach. ‘Do you know?’

‘I do.’ Her hands tenderly moved to where his eyes lingered.

The image of a fat fist reaching for his cheek, pudgy fingers touching him with love, hit him squarely in the ribs. A memory of giving love freely in return. Without question. Without exception.

And you left her to die.

Sebastian’s throat closed. He shook his head. The sex didn’t matter. He looked back up at Aurora.

‘Is it healthy?’ he asked.

She smiled tightly. ‘ It’s perfect.’

‘That is all I need to know.’

Her mouth firmed. She slipped the glasses back on and moved in front of him.

Through the pillared entrance without him.

Down the path of earth, until it turned to stone.

She didn’t stop. She didn’t hesitate in her steps.

She walked through the stone courtyard and met the stone steps.

One step after the other, she took them to stand beneath the arched entrance.

She fingered the black iron handles to the heavy wooden doors. ‘In here?’ she called behind her.

‘Yes,’ he called back.

She pushed at the door and stepped inside. She slipped off his glasses and placed them on the small round table holding a basket of long reeds he’d pulled from the ground himself.

Hands knotted at her waist, she turned to him.

His heart hammered. There she stood in his sanctuary on the grey slate floor of the octagonal entrance to his lair. Waiting for him. And she was an array of earthy colours. Her dress. Her skin…

She wasn’t scared, was she? But he was. Scared of her proximity, and his body’s determination to get closer. But still he moved forward. He stepped inside the ruby-red entrance, which was now filled with the scent of her.