Run: 2026-05-27-01KSMF93BHVBWX984QGCG60555

Aurora's heart skipped as she swung open the door, and there stood Lucien, taller and broader than she remembered - also too damn good-looking, with his perfectly coiffed platinum hair and tailored charcoal suit. She gripped the door frame, knuckles white. "Well, fuck me. Look what the devil dragged in." Lucien's full lips curled upward, his heterochromatic gaze - one amber, one black - appraising her from head to toe. "Aurora. A pleasure, as always. Though I had the impression you'd be happier if you never laid eyes on me again." He stepped forward, and Aurora took an involuntary step back. Suddenly, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the cramped flat. She could feel the heat of him, smell the leather of his coat, and the dark, intoxicating cedar scent that was uniquely his. "That's because the last time I saw you, you stood me up. Again." Her voice trembled. Lucien's eyes flashed, a hint of irritation crossing his otherwise impassive face. "Business intervened, as it tends to do in my line of work. But I'm here now, aren't I?" Aurora put a hand on her hip. "So you are. Ptolemy," she called out. Her tabby sauntered in from the bedroom and wound around Lucien's tailored trousers, purring loudly. Traitors, the both of them. "I didn't expect you to come herself," he murmured, nudging the cat away gently. "I thought for sure you'd send that bartender chappy again. Silas, was it?" "Silas is busy," Aurora said shortly. He wasn't, exactly, but Aurora hadn't been ready to face Lucien and had put him off for a whole week. But here he was, in the flesh, looking good enough to eat. A spark ignited within her despite everything, as it always did. "Besides, a lady asks for a visit from her ex-fiancé, she expects her ex-fiancé to show." "Is that why you look like you're about to faint, chérie?" His gaze softened. It was the only sign he gave that he wasn't as unaffected by their reunion as he tried to appear. Aurora crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, then crossed them again. She couldn't seem to still her body. "What do you want, Lucien? If you've come here to gloat about your success, I've already heard it from Silas. First-rate fixer, Da UN CHEVAU superstar, blah blah." Lucien took another step forward. Aurora held her ground, even as her pulse began to race. They were toe to toe now, close enough that she could see the stubble shadowing his chiseled jaw. "I'm here because it's time we had a certain conversation, Rory." The nickname alone made her go weak in the knees. "One we seem to be running out of plastic from." "Not me," Aurora said defiantly, though her voice sounded small. "Some things just can't be said, no matter whose face they're snuggled up to." "Even if I'm the one who poisons you?" Lucien breathed. He brought a hand up to her face, and Aurora trembled at his touch. "Rory, I know we left things -" "I left things!" Her words came out high and waspy. "I wasn't the one to disappear five weeks ago at the altar!" Lucien's eyes darkened, and he engulfed Aurora in an iron embrace. "I know, I know. But I wasn't the one to get cold feet." The raw pain in his voice made her heart wrench. Was that what he thought? That she'd cried off? "It wasn't cold feet." Aurora's eyes glistened with unshed tears. "It was a panic attack. Do you know how many people die on their wedding day? But I didn't want to burden you with that." Lucien stroked her hair, and Aurora melted into his touch. "You silly thing," he whispered. "Is that what you thought? Rory, you're the only burden I want to bear. The only one I want to wake up to for - my whole life." Aurora couldn't hold back the tears any longer. They spilled down her cheeks as Lucien pulled her in for a kiss, his lips warm and insistent against hers. She kissed him back with equal fervour, pouring all the pent up emotion, pain, and longing into it. "I love you," she whispered between kisses. "I never stopped loving you. I just - I didn't know how to tell you." Lucien smiled, braving the warm afterglow of the kiss. "Then let me tell you, Rory. Let me tell you every day for the rest of our lives. I love you, now and forever." And so they stood, in the threshold of Eva's cluttered flat, forgetting all the hurt and toil of the past and instead letting the promises and sacrifices of hope fill their hearts.