The Widow's Price: Owned By Adrien

1

The air in the Holden estate smelled of lilies and expensive hypocrisy. Aurora Soto stood near the mahogany casket, her fingers gripping the velvet edge until her knuckles turned the color of bone. She was the widow. The intruder. The charity case Clark Holden had picked up from the gutter and tried to polish into a diamond before his Porsche wrapped itself around a tree. She was Mrs. Holden in the eyes of the law, though she'd stubbornly kept her own name—a small rebellion Clark had found amusing. In truth, their marriage had been a shield. Clark knew the Soto family's greed and had given her his name to protect her, tenderly promising they would make it real only after she had established herself at the ballet company. He never lived to see her first standing ovation.

"Drink this."

The voice was sweet, like syrup laced with arsenic. Aurora turned to see her sister, Chloe, holding out a crystal flute of champagne. Chloe's eyes were dry. Perfect makeup. Perfect grief.

"It will settle your nerves," Chloe whispered, pressing the glass into Aurora's hand. "Everyone is staring. You look like you're about to faint."

Aurora took the glass. She didn't want it, but she wanted Chloe to leave even less. She downed the liquid in one burning gulp. It tasted sharp, metallic, but the bubbles distracted her from the nausea churning in her stomach.

"Good girl," Chloe said, her smile not reaching her eyes.

Ten minutes later, the room began to tilt.

The heat didn't start in her head; it started in her belly. A heavy, coiling warmth that spread through her veins like liquid lead. The faces of the guests—Clark's business partners, his judgmental aunt Eleanor, the vultures from Wall Street—began to smear. Their voices stretched and warped, sounding like a record playing at the wrong speed.

Aurora blinked, trying to clear the fog. Across the room, three men she didn't know were watching her. One licked his lips. They looked like wolves circling a wounded deer.

Get out.

The instinct was primal. It screamed over the roar of blood in her ears.

She stumbled away from the casket, her heels catching on the thick Persian rug. She needed a door. Any door. She pushed through the crowd, ignoring the whispers that followed her like smoke.

"Look at her," someone hissed. "Drunk at the funeral."

Aurora hit the stairs. The mahogany banister felt slippery under her sweat-slicked palm. The second-floor corridor stretched out endlessly, the walls breathing in and out.

"Aurora?" Chloe's voice floated up from the bottom of the stairs. "Where are you going?"

Panic spiked in Aurora's chest. If Chloe found her like this—disoriented, flushed, weak—it would be the end. The headlines would write themselves. Widow disgraced.

She lunged for the nearest handle. Locked.

She tried the next. Locked.

Footsteps clicked on the stairs. Closer.

Aurora threw her weight against the heavy double doors at the end of the hall. The handle turned. She slipped inside, her