Page 108 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
She looked over the masked crowd, dressed in their finery, the atmosphere buzzing with an adrenaline she didn’t feel. Not yet. But surely she would, wouldn’t she?
Tonight, the fifty million dollars she had paid for the piece of artwork before her would be donated to those without shelter, without a home. To those who lived on the streets. It was a cause her parents should have invested in long ago. They should have put aside their ugly views and done the right thing by their son as a way of making amends.
She waited for it. The exhilaration. But nothing came. No relief. Not redemption.
And Aurora began to understand that despite what she’d hoped, this one altruistic act didn’t erase all the times she’d let her parents trample her moral consciousness. They never would have listened to her anyway, but she knew her silence went deeper.
Disgust crawled over her skin.
She had so desperately needed their love, their approval…
Golden girl, Michael had christened her, and she’d played her role impeccably. She’d been the perfect daughter, and still they’d withheld the love that should have been unconditional, should have been given to both children freely.
Her chest ached. She knew that tonight didn’t redeem her. It wouldn’t bring her brother back. Wouldn’t stop the guilt she felt for remaining her parents’ golden girl while Michael had died the black sheep.
But this was a start, right?
Tonight, she had broken free of their chains and paid an enormous sum to a charity that helped people like her brother. People who didn’t have or weren’t able to go home.
So why didn’t it feel…good?
Because you’re too late. You can’t save him now.
The applause around her died.
And so too did something inside Aurora.
She clenched her hands into tight fists, the heavy handle of the gold paddle biting into her flesh.
What was the point of any of this? The dress? The shoes?
She never should have come here. Tonight meant nothing. Not to her brother. Not really to the people on the streets her money would support. Because this event, the people in this room, her parents, even Aurora herself, were so far removed from what her brother had lived through. What he had died enduring.
Taking a deep, pained breath, she gazed at the flamboyant bodies now being taken into the ballroom. Into a room where they would smile and nod, pleased with themselves for attending an event that would do good for people they would never see, never recognise as human.
In a minute, maybe an hour, they would forget why they had come here. Who tonightshouldbe benefiting. They’d forget the people lining in queues to receive a bundle of fresh underwear and blankets so they could huddle, still cold, under a sky that would show them no mercy when the winter came.
A sky that had showed no mercy to Michael.
Did she really think a donation would make it all better? She was no better than any of them.
Aurora dropped the paddle. She needed out. Out of this room.
Blinded by grief and regret, she pushed herself through the crowd and through the doors, hurried along the wood-lined halls, and down the floating staircase. The bow on her hip, too big and obscene, she realised now, caught the vase standing in the alcove at the head of the staircase.
It fell. Smashed in to a thousand pieces of ceramic green. But on she ran without looking back. They could add it to her bill. She didn’t care.
Her body urged her to go faster, as fast as her heels would allow. At the bottom of the oak stairs, she unhooked the silver straps around her ankles and slipped her heeled sandals free, one at a time.
Barefoot, she ran through the silk-lined corridor until she came to the first door that led outside.
She yanked down the silver handles and pushed open the French doors. Cool air greeted her flushed skin as she stared up at the starless sky. She dropped her shoes where she stood on the terrace. Eachus House was behind her, the grounds sprawled out before her, a perfectly manicured lawn, with trees on either side blocking out the skyline of New York.
And she did the only thing she could. She kept running.
It didn’t matter which way. If she took the stairs leading down to the gardens on the right or the left. It didn’t matter that shadows lay at the end of the lawn. It didn’t matter that beyond the shadows were two hundred acres of woodlands, ponds, and landscaped meadows. It didn’t matter where she went, only that she kept moving. As fast and as far as she could.
The bare soles of her feet tingled from the crush of the damp lawn, but she didn’t stop. Not even when the grass turned to stone beneath her feet. She followed the softly lit path, through the man-made tunnel of tall firs, interlaced with swaying weeping willows, until she reached a dead end.
