Aurora let out a quiet sigh, her face filled with helplessness.
Her mother, still holding her hand, continued to persuade her with a gentle but persistent tone.
“Aurora, I promise you, he’s a good person. Just meet him once, and if you don’t like him, I’ll find a way to cancel it, okay?”
Aurora hadn’t expected that the first challenge she’d face after returning home would be an arranged childhood engagement.
Years ago, her mother and a close friend had become pregnant around the same time. On a whim, they made a promise–if one
had a boy and the other a girl, they would arrange a marriage between them. If both had children of the same gender, they would
simply raise them as close siblings.
When the time came, fate had played along. One boy, one girl. The two mothers had been ecstatic, imagining how their friendship
would one day transform into a family bond.
But then, Aurora was taken.
The engagement, naturally, was left unsettled.
Now, after confirming that she was single, her mother had brought it up again: Coincidentally, her friend had also remembered.
As it turned out, the boy–now a man–was still single too. The two mothers decided to revive the arrangement, encouraging
them to meet.
After five years of a failed relationship, Aurora no longer had the energy for love. The scars from the past hadn’t healed, and she
wasn’t ready to open herself up to someone new. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother everything, and she didn’t want
to make her worry. So, she agreed to the meeting.
She figured she could talk to him, make things clear, and at worst, they could remain friends.
Seeing her daughter nod, Aurora’s mother wasted no time setting a date. As if afraid something might interfere, she and her
friend decided on that very evening–dinner at the Campbell family’s estate.
By the afternoon, her mother had even called in a stylist to prepare her. Aurora let herself be fussed over, feeling resigned.
But when she finally saw the man she was supposed to meet, she was stunned.
“It’s you?!”
“It’s you?!”
They spoke at the same time.
She stared at Nathaniel Madison, taken aback.
He looked equally surprised.
