Wrongfully Claimed

Chapter Ten

                          Aurora

Aurora couldn't even bring herself to look at Ryder after what he did to her back in the bathroom. She just lay still in his arms, numb from the waist down as he carried her out, wondering how he expected her to lie to his own son.

Instead of just letting her go, he would rather just keep her there as a prisoner in his home and live in this deluded fantasy world of make-believe, even if it meant lying to his own flesh and blood.

It was clear to her that he was nothing but a heartless sociopath who cared about no one but himself and there was no hope for him.

"Aurora, wake up. I wanna show you somethin'," he said, nudging her awake in the shoulder blade as if he thought she'd fallen asleep.

It wasn't hard, but it was enough to force her eyes open in an instant. She blinked rapidly; her eyes drooping from sheer exhaustion, groaning inwardly as soon as he released her from his tight grip, her bare feet trembling once they hit the thin beige carpet beneath her.

That's when she realised he hadn't taken her back to her room like he usually would do after she'd had a bath, but she was in his bedroom of all places.

Aurora didn't know whether to be relieved or worried about what his intentions were until he flicked the light switch on the wall and started scouring through his closet, in search of something. He told her to stand back and that he wouldn't be long.

Aurora didn't say anything and just stood there, expressionless, staring at everything as if she were lost in a daze.

His bedroom was bigger enough to exhale into where a twin bed sat in the centre of the room.

There was a desk that accommodated a small outdated computer and a telephone covered in a horde of newspapers and magazines buried over it.

Other than the excessive and unnecessary clutter on his desk, the room was relatively neat and organised, but overall it had been plain and boring to look at.

The white cream walls, much like her room, were dreary and bare, bereft of colour and life, with no pictures adorned on them. There was but one photograph that caught her eye sitting on his bedside table in a frame. It was a picture of a young boy in a restaurant wearing a green and red Christmas jersey.

Out of curiosity, Aurora seemed to gravitate to this picture like a child would to a candy store. She held the photograph with trembling hands and kept it low with her back facing him, purposely hiding it from Ryder.

She stared at the young boy in the photograph looking back at her with strawberry blonde hair and big dazzling green eyes.

She'd found it hard to believe that someone so evil could have been responsible for bringing such a beautiful child into the world.

"Found it," he mumbled under his breath, before turning around to face her, holding some sort of black dress in his hands.

Aurora panicked and put the picture down without hesitation, worried he'd seen her, and pretended as if she had been standing there the whole time, minding her own business.

Ryder, furrowed his dark eyebrows in thought as if he seemed to notice the photo had been moved, but he didn't appear all that bothered because he didn't question her about it. Instead, he just stood over her, holding this exquisite but very expensive-looking black satin frock on display for her, coaxing her to try it on.

"It used to belong to my ex-wife," he said,
his eyes sweeping across her body from head to toe, as if he were trying to imagine it with her on. " I bought it for her just before we went on honeymoon. She's roughly got the same build as you and I thought you could wear it tonight when we have dinner together."