The cameras went crazy, flashes popping everywhere until the ballroom felt like daylight.
Lucian didn’t even hesitate. He pushed Polly away, but not hard enough to make it look like rejection. Just enough to show control. I couldn’t move. I just stood there, frozen, watching as the two of them walked forward like they belonged together.
He slipped out of his suit jacket, that perfectly tailored black one, and laid it over Polly’s shoulders. The future ruthless king of New York busiess world with the darling daughter of the Velasquez family. They looked perfect. Too perfect.
Then his eyes found mine. For a moment, I thought I’d see something familiar, but instead his face went cold.
“Aurelia.”
That was all. Just my name, flat and distant. He used to say it like it meant something. Now it sounded like a stranger calling me out in a crowd.
My cheeks burned. What happened to the man who once made me believe I mattered?
Polly leaned into him, her hand brushing the lapel of his jacket like she owned him. “Lucian, the champagne’s too cold. Can you get me something warmer? Maybe ginger tea?”
He didn’t argue. He didn’t question. He just nodded once and walked away like a soldier carrying out orders.
A couple minutes later, he was back, setting a delicate porcelain cup in her hands. Steam curled into the air. His gaze softened as he looked at her. “Careful. It’s hot. Sip slowly.”
In my last life, when my body ached and I couldn’t even stand straight during my period, a steaming cup of ginger tea always appeared at my side. He never said a word back then. I only ever knew it was him because no one else cared enough to notice.
Now all of that tenderness belonged to her.
I turned away before the tears could spill and hurried out of the hall, the noise of the flashes still chasing me.
***
Back at the Velasquez place, I let the bridal shop girls fuss over me. They slipped one white dress after another onto me, telling me how gorgeous I looked, how perfect I’d be as a bride. I just stood there in silence, staring at myself in the mirror like it was some stranger’s reflection.
I already knew the truth. Marrying Viktor was a trap I’d never crawl out of.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed, I turned, I stared at the ceiling until my eyes burned. Finally, I made up my mind. I had to run.
The next morning I slipped out with a few pieces of jewelry, the kind that could pay for a plane ticket and a new life. At the first store, the manager smiled politely but pushed them back toward me. “Sorry, Miss Velasquez. We can’t take these.”
At the second store, same thing. Third, fourth, all the same. By the fifth, I pressed the man harder, my voice shaking. “Tell me why. Why won’t you take them?”
He looked uncomfortable, his eyes darting to the door. Finally, he sighed. “Mr. Roberts gave the order. Anyone who touches your jewelry is finished in this city.”
Heat rushed to my face. Viktor had already cut off every path before I even tried to take it. I knew the moment I vanished, my father would freeze all my cards too. Viktor understood exactly how much I needed cash. That was why he was strangling me with it.
I walked aimlessly until my phone buzzed with a notification. An upcoming auction in Manhattan. Celebrities, collectors, rare treasures.
I stopped dead. An idea lit up in me. If I couldn’t sell directly, I could slip my things into an auction, anonymously. Viktor couldn’t trace that.
That same afternoon, I contacted the house and sent over the emerald brooch… one of my most valuable pieces.
When the night of the auction arrived, I tucked myself into the shadows of the room. A wide-brimmed hat covered half my face. I kept my posture low, and invisible, though my heart was thudding like crazy.
And then I saw them. Lucian and Polly. Sitting in the front row like they owned the place.
I shouldn’t have looked. But my eyes betrayed me, fixing on them, refusing to let go.
When the auctioneer rolled out a pair of antique couple’s watches, Polly’s eyes lit up like fireworks. She leaned into Lucian, her voice high and sweet. “Lucian, those would look amazing on us. Matching, you know? Buy them for me?”
Lucian’s expression barely shifted. He lifted his hand with that commanding ease of his, “Put them on the block.”
The crowd buzzed instantly. His reputation always carried weight. The sourness swelled up my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it back down.
The bids shot higher and higher until the price was obscene. Of course Lucian won. Cheers filled the room as he unclasped his own watch, the one I knew so well, and replaced it with the antique piece.
The watch he’d just discarded so easily… I had given it to him. On his birthday.
And now it meant nothing.
Lucian once told me he would always treasure the watch I gave him. Said he’d wear it forever. But tonight, I watched him take it off like it meant nothing.
