Chapter 4 Vanessa's Smile

The dark suite was a tomb.

Aurora stood at the window, unmoving, for how long, she didn't know. The sound of the string quartet had finally faded, replaced by the polite, muffled roar of departing cars. The rehearsal dinner was over. The lie was over.

Except it wasn't. The real lie was just beginning.

She was still in her silver silk dress. It felt like a costume.

She could still feel the cold spot on her cheek where Liam had kissed her. I'll see you tomorrow.

She could still see the ghost of the red dress.

But most of all, she saw the smile.

Vanessa's smile.

It was burned onto her memory, a triumphant, crimson slash in the middle of her perfect, curated life. It was a smile that said everything Liam's words had tried to deny.

It said: He's mine.

It said: You are a fool.

It said: I'm not even hiding.

Aurora turned from the window, her body moving with a stiff, robotic grace. She had to get this dress off. She had to wash her face. She had to pretend to sleep.

She had to prepare for her wedding day.

The thought sent a wave of nausea so profound she had to grip the back of a velvet armchair.

How?

The question was a raw, silent scream in her mind. How do I walk down the aisle tomorrow? How do I stand there, in front of God and my father and two hundred guests, and marry a man who is actively betraying me?

He's lying. He's lying. He's lying.

The frantic pulse from the party returned, louder now in the silence.

But a colder, more insidious voice-the one that sounded like her father, like a Vale-answered back.

Prove it.

She had no proof. Not really.

She had whispers from servants. A scrap of lace in a car. And a smile.

What was a smile? What was a lipstick color?

It was circumstantial. It was emotional. It was, as Liam himself had so expertly pointed out, the kind of thing a "hysterical" bride would fixate on.

He had built a fortress of denial, and all she had to throw against it were her own broken feelings.

She walked into the white marble bathroom, the light reflecting off every surface, blinding her. She turned on the tap, the sound of rushing water a small mercy.

She had to get control.

She was Aurora Vale. She did not fall apart. She strategized.

She would sleep. In the morning, with a clear head, she would assess. This was a business problem. A variable she had not accounted for.

Vanessa Leigh.

Aurora stared at her own reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were huge, dark with a fear she didn't recognize. Her skin was pale, translucent. She looked like a ghost. She looked like the "poor Miss Vale" the caterers had pitied.

Rage, cold and sharp, cut through the panic.

How dared they? How dared he stand there, in her family's home, and lie to her face? How dared she smile at her, a victor claiming her prize before the battle was even announced?

Vanessa's smile hadn't just been a taunt. It had been a calculation.

Vanessa knew Liam. She knew his cold ambition. She knew he would never risk the Vale-Cross merger, the single biggest deal of his career. He wouldn't risk it for love, and he certainly wouldn't risk it for lust.

Unless...

The water from the tap was running cold over her hands, making her fingers numb.

Unless Vanessa wasn't the risk.

Unless Aurora was.

Unless the affair, the "3 AM meetings," the red dress... unless that was the real relationship. And this wedding, this white lace monstrosity, this was the inconvenience.

He's lying to me. He's lying to my father. He's marrying me to secure the merger, and he's going to keep her.

The "broken glass" in her stomach wasn't just a feeling. It was the truth, and it was shredding her from the inside out.

She looked at her own face in the mirror. She saw the perfect bride, the perfect daughter, the perfect asset.

And she saw Vanessa's smile, painted over her own reflection, mocking her.

"No," she whispered, her voice rough.

She would not be the fool. She would not be "poor Miss Vale."

She couldn't sleep. Not now. Not when the lie was this big, this suffocating.

She had to know.

She couldn't wait for the wedding. She couldn't wait for the music to start, to see Liam at the end of the aisle, his eyes cold and assessing, his vows another "merger" clause.

The doubt was worse than the truth. If she was wrong, if it was all a hideous misunderstanding, she needed to know.

And if she was right... she needed to know that, too.

She turned off the water. The silence of the suite was absolute.

Liam wasn't here. He was at his penthouse. He'd claimed he needed a night alone to "get his head straight" before the wedding.

To get his head straight. Or to have one last night with his mistress.

Aurora's hands fisted by her sides.

She knew the code to his penthouse. He'd given it to her months ago, a gesture of "total trust."

She looked at the clock on the bedside table. 1:17 AM.

The night before her wedding.

She unzipped the silver dress. It fell to the floor in a shimmering, empty pool.

She didn't put on her pajamas. She pulled on a pair of black trousers, a silk camisole, and a dark cashmere coat. She slid her bare feet into loafers.

She wiped her face, leaving her skin pale and scrubbed. She took the pearls from her neck and placed them on the vanity. She pulled the Vale diamond from her finger. It felt like a shackle. She let it fall beside the pearls.

She was no longer the bride.

She was the woman who needed to see the truth, no matter how much it broke her.

She grabbed her car keys.

She didn't take the grand staircase. She took the service stairs, the same ones the gossiping caterers had used, and slipped out of her own home, a thief in the night, stealing away to find out if her entire life was a lie.