Chapter3

Aurora’s POV

A smile flickered across Chloe’s face, quick and thin, without a trace of sadness in it.

Then she dug her nails into the inside of my arm as hard as she could. Pain shot up to my shoulder, and I jerked my hand away on instinct. Chloe gave a sharp cry and dropped to the pavement.

“Ah!” She curled over, gripping her ankle, her face crumpled in agony.

“Aurora!” Ethan lunged forward and shoved me out of the way.

I lost my footing and fell backward against the stone rim of the fountain in the hotel forecourt. Cold water splashed over me as I went down.

My wrist hit the stone first. Something inside it gave with a dull, sickening crunch, and a low sound escaped me before I could stop it.

Ethan froze when he saw me on the ground. For a second, he took half a step toward me.

Then Chloe caught his sleeve. “Ethan, it hurts so much…”

One look at her, and I vanished from his mind. He bent to help her up.

When he looked back at me, his eyes were full of fury. “Enough with the act, Aurora. Five years together, and I never realized what a good actress you are. Chloe is sick! How could you go after her, let alone shove her?”

“I didn’t push her,” I said. “She threw herself—”

Chloe’s scream cut me off. “It hurts! Ethan, am I dying?”

“I’m taking you to the hospital right now. You’re okay, I’ve got you…”

He swept her into his arms and hurried away without another glance at me.

I watched him carry her off, and something in my chest went cold and still.

I pushed myself up, cradling my throbbing wrist, and called Matteo. He was there within minutes and drove me to the hospital.

The X-ray showed a fracture. The doctor set my wrist in a cast and told me to rest.

Chloe had other plans for my rest.

I was lying in the hospital bed when my phone began buzzing on the nightstand and wouldn’t stop. Message after message, all from her.

First, a photo: Ethan sitting by her bed, head bowed, blowing on a spoonful of soup before feeding it to her.

“Has Ethan ever fed you soup, Aurora? I know you got hurt. But if I tell him you’re faking, he’ll believe me.”

“You actually think he cares about you? Dream on.”

“We grew up together. Did someone like you, who can’t even support herself without him, really think she could come between us?”

“Do yourself a favor and disappear before I make you.”

Right after, a message from Ethan arrived, with a pin dropped on the hospital.

“Room 307. Chloe’s really upset. Come and apologize to her. Once she’s better, we can still get married.”

I laughed out loud.

He was using our wedding as a leash to drag me back into line.

That was the moment the last of my hope ran out. I typed one short reply to Chloe: “I hope you two are very happy.”

Then I blocked them both.

Matteo studied my face carefully. “Principessa, would you like us to take care of anything?”

“No,” I said evenly. “We leave Marisol tonight.”

“Understood.” Matteo hesitated. “Signor Santoro called. He asked if you were all right.”

I looked down at my cast. “Tell him I will be.”

…

Third-Person POV

On another floor of the same hospital, the moment Chloe drifted off, Ethan pulled out his phone.

He was expecting an apology from Aurora. There was nothing, and the empty screen left him strangely restless.

In five years, she had almost never left him without an answer.

He called her. A recorded voice picked up instead. “The number you have dialed is unavailable. Please try again later…”

He couldn’t believe it. She had blocked him.