"What about your fiancée?" she murmured, letting her fingertips draw slow patterns over his chest. "
What do you think she'll do when she walks in and sees us like this? In her home?"
Liam's expression didn't shift. He only laughed—quiet, careless, wicked.
"Who ever told you it's her home?" His arm curled around her waist, claiming her without hesitation. "Everything in that placethe walls, the furniture, the air she breathes belongs to me. Not her. Never her."
Her lips tilted in a taunting little smile.
"Oh? And despite all that… she's still your fiancée. Doesn't this count as cheating?"
Liam's jaw tightened, irritation flashing in his eyes.
"She lost the right to call herself that a long time ago," he muttered. "I've put up with Aurora for two years. Two long, suffocating years. I can't do it anymore."
He scoffed.
"She should be grateful. Everything she has, everything she is, was because of me. And if she walks in right now?"
He paused, voice turning sharp as glass.
"She better say thank you. Because I'm done pretending."
The woman beneath the sheets giggled, brushing her fingers along his jaw.
"Okay then… baby but you still want to marry." the woman said seductively.
"Well, I want someone who I can just keep at home and take over the house chores, she'll never be my wife, just a glorified housemaid". The man said his voice stone cold
What neither of them knew.
Aurora stood frozen outside the door.
Not breathing.
Not blinking.
Just… listening.
She had heard every word. Every soft moan. Every cruel laugh. Every casual insult tossed at her as if she wasn't the woman planning to marry him.
As if she wasn't the person who gave him her heart.
As if she had not given him her everything.
Her legs trembled, not from weakness but disbelief.
Her pulse thundered so loudly she could hardly hear anything else.
Her fiancé.
Liam Hayes.
He was cheating on her.
Not just with any woman but with her stepmother.
The woman who raised her.
The woman who played the role of mother since she was eight.
The woman Aurora trusted.
The betrayal cut so deep she could barely stand.
The wrapped painting (which she had brought as a surprise) in her hands grew heavier, the ribbon digging into her palm.
It was the pre wedding gift she had created for Liam.
A gift she had imagined him smiling at, laughing softly, maybe even crying.
She had imagined love.
Instead, she walked into a different kind of truth.
Inside the room, the woman's voice floated out again mocking, cruel.
"How do you even stand being with her?" Evelyn laughed quietly.
"Sweet girl, yes, but… so bland. So unaware. She tries so hard to impress you—
it's cute, really."
Liam snorted.
"Cute? No. Sad."
He sounded amused, disgustingly pleased with himself.
"I can't even imagine being with her. The thought alone is disgusting.
"Have you ever slept with her " the woman drawled.
"What? You think I'd actually do that?" He sounded amused.
"That's disgusting. I can't even see myself doing such a thing with her. It's horrible, really horrible."
Aurora's heart missed a beat. Then another. Then it started pounding so hard, so loud, it drowned out the rest of their laughter.
Her hands clenched the painting hard. She had heard enough.
A sharp, cold ache stabbed through Aurora's chest.
Her breath hitched.
Her hand trembled.
The painting slipped slightly from her grip making a loud plop on the floor.
Everything she believed… shattered.
She could feel her head spinning.
Hear heart breaking into million pieces.
She had thought today would be beautiful.
She had brought the gift, ready to surprise her fiancé.
Ready to kiss him.
Ready to tell him how excited she was for their life together.
Tell him how excited she was to get married to him
She had imagined their future.
Instead, she learned that her fiancé never wanted her.
And the woman she trusted most had betrayed her in the worst way.
She inhaled once,deeply
and the air burned in her lungs.
Her fingers curled around the doorknob.
Her palm was sweating.
Her heart was breaking.
The couple hadn't even heard the fact that the painting fell to the floor engrossed in their conversation.
But she pushed the door open.
The moment she stepped in, the world stopped.
Liam's expression froze.
The color drained from the woman's face as she grabbed at the sheets.
Aurora stood in the doorway, silent, expression stripped of emotion, the painting she had now picked up still in her hand.
Her stepmother's voice cracked.
"Aurora… sweetheart"
Her stepmother had told her she was away on a business trip but she did not know that the trip was the bed of her fiancée.
Aurora didn't blink.
"Don't."
The painting slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor again.
The ribbon unraveled, showing the painted image of the now ex couple smiling brightly at each other.
A soft breeze blew in making the wrapping flutter like the last breath of something that used to be alive.
And Aurora finally understood:
Her life would never be the same again.
She had lost two of the most important people in her life .
She thought of leaving quietly. She had thought she'd just disappear from Liam's life without a word, without ruining the man she once loved.
But not anymore, not after this.
Her silence was no longer kindness. It was weakness.