Chapter 168:
Elias, who had followed Aurora down, chuckled from behind her. “Subtle.”
Vivian stepped forward, holding a bouquet of white lilies. She looked like she had swallowed a lemon. “These are for you… cousin.”
Aurora looked at the flowers. “Lilies. How funeral appropriate.”
“They represent purity!” Vivian snapped, then caught Eleanor’s glare and shrank back.
“We are going to Le Bernardin,” the Matriarch announced. “The car is waiting.”
“I’m not leaving my work,” Aurora insisted.
“Your team can handle it,” Elias said, checking his watch. “Besides, you need to eat. And I suspect if you don’t go, she’ll buy the coffee machine next.”
Aurora looked at the determined old woman. She realized resistance was futile.
“Fine. One hour.”
Le Bernardin had been cleared of all other patrons. The silence in the Michelin-starred restaurant was heavy, broken only by the clinking of silver against china.
Aurora sat at the center of the table, eating her lobster with practiced elegance. She ignored Vivian’s glare and Eleanor’s fake smiles.
“So,” Eleanor began, “we were thinking of a debutante ball to introduce you properly.”
“I run a billion-dollar tech company,” Aurora said without looking up. “I think I’m introduced.”
“Society is different, dear,” Eleanor insisted. “You need to be legitimized.”
Suddenly, the double doors of the restaurant swung open with a bang.
Matriarch Margaret Vane entered. She was a force of nature, dressed in severe black, flanked by four bodyguards who looked like they were carved from granite. She didn’t look like someone who had just flown in; she looked like someone who owned the city block.
The restaurant manager tried to stop them. “Private event!”
𝖂𝖆𝖙𝖈𝖍 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖙𝖗𝖚𝖙𝖍 𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊: ⲅⱥ𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝖊𝗅𝘀⸳𝖼𝗈𝗺
One bodyguard handed the manager a thick envelope. He vanished.
Matriarch Kensington stood up, knocking her chair back.
“Margaret. You weren’t invited.”
Matriarch Vane ignored her. She walked straight to Aurora. She stopped. She looked at the Crescent Mark partially visible under Aurora’s sheer sleeve. Then she looked at her face.
“Isabella,” Vane whispered. Her voice broke.
Aurora felt a lump in her throat. She stood up slowly.
“I am Aurora,” she said.
“You have her face,” Vane said, tears spilling over her iron composure. “And my mark.”
“She is a Kensington!” Catherine Kensington shouted, banging her cane on the floor. “She has Edward’s eyes!”
“She has Vane blood!” Margaret shouted back. “You lost her! You let her be taken!”
“I mourned her for nineteen years!”
The two billionaires locked eyes. It was a clash of titans. Aurora stood in the middle.
“Stop!”
Both women froze.
“I am not a parcel to be shipped,” Aurora said, her voice cold and commanding. “I am not a Kensington. I am not a Vane. I am Aurora Vance. And I am trying to eat lunch.”
.
.
.