Page 106 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
Kidnapped for Her Secret
Lela May Wight
CHAPTER ONE
IN A ROOMfull of eyes watching her, onlyhismade Aurora Arundel feel like an impostor.
She was projecting, she knew. She shouldn’t be in New York. Not for this exclusive auction of a single piece of coveted artwork, or for the masquerade ball that followed.
It wasn’t her invitation. It had been meant for her parents. But the dead couldn’t forbid her from attending tonight.
The dead couldn’t complain that she’d stolen their invitation.
Only she knew that the gold embossed invitation wasn’t hers as she moved through the black iron gates and up the pebbled driveway to the columned entrance of Eachus House. Only she noticed her fingers trembling as she released the invitation from her sapphire-adorned fingers into the white-gloved hands of the man who stood beneath the cherub-topped entrance.
The prayer on her lips had been for her ears only, thanking whatever gods that be that she was able to keep her spine straight and her head held high as she was ushered her through the heavy oak doors and guided through hallways with painted ceilings and ornate walls, up the floating oak staircase, and finally to the green drawing room, transformed, only for tonight, only for the invited, into an auction room.
Gilded mirrors lined the vivid green walls. The velvet apple-green drapes were drawn against the night. An oak lectern displaying the name of a famous auction house was positioned in front of a marble fireplace of epic proportions, masterfully crafted with silver-accented winding vines.
Ball gown after ball gown moved around the room as everyone began to take their seats. Aurora had been handed a gold-etched paddle, and the auctioneer had taken her to her seat in front of a podium, where the wooden legs of the easel beside her peeked out from beneath a black cloth.
The room was heavy with tension. All eyes fastened on the easel’s black cloth. All hands itched to reveal what lay beneath.
This was the appetiser for the night before the red ballroom opened its doors and they were all encouraged to indulge in champagne, music and the discretion their masks would afford them for the night.
Only the staff knew who was behind the masks, and only because they knew the names allotted to the numbered paddles.
And Aurora understood it to be one of those games the elite played. The night would start this way in order to build the anticipation, to fire the blood—to heat it.
The rich didn’t care that tonight was supposed to be for charity. They didn’t care about those the charity would support in their darkest hour.
Her parents had certainly never cared.
Butshedid.
Up and up Aurora drove the bid. The price rising to hundreds of thousands of dollars within minutes for a painting no one would see until the bidding war was over.
Andhisgaze intensified with every bid she placed.
His tilted head, his elegant, bow-tied neck, arched so he could stare at her from the front row of intricately carved antique white chairs. The curved gold leaf mask covering his cheeks, his nose, and his upper lip only sharpened his green-rimmed irises, making the inner amber of his eyes glow.
She was aware of how different her gown was from all the others around her. Her mother wouldn’t have approved of her dress either. The colour or the cut.The sequins.How she shimmered under the chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. How it drew attention to her.
Her mother, Lady Arundel, wife of Lord Arundel, most definitely would not have approved of the mask she’d chosen. The dainty pearls rising in stalks from the blue-and-brushed gold mask. The shells clustered on the right-hand side, interlaced with the purest of diamonds and uniquely cut sapphires.
She knew what she looked like. A mermaid. She’d chosen the off-the-shoulder asymmetrical gown with its thigh-high slit to showcase she was, in fact, human, with legs. Each adornment she’d approved. On purpose. Because she liked them. She liked that tonight, she was daring. Uncompromising.
Yet under the onslaught of the man’s gaze, the bow on her left shoulder felt too big. Her bare right shoulder felt too exposed. Too naked. She felt too bright. Too colourful. Too breathless.
The bodice of her aquamarine dress felt too tight. And she was all too conscious of the skin and muscle beneath it. Of her breasts tightening, her nipples hardening.
Aurora swallowed, readying herself to continue the bidding. For herself. For her brother.
Pain settled inside her chest. Still acute even after all this time. Still as visceral as the night she’d been told he was gone.
She straightened her spine, squared her shoulders. She would end this. Now. She would win for Michael. For all the times she’d let him down, for all the times she hadn’t fought for him.
Her pulse raced. Her heart hammered hard inside her ribs. ‘Fifty million,’ she said. The crowded room gasped. But he didn’t. The eyes holding hers hostage didn’t blink.
