My Runaway Groom Came Back I Became His Aunt! novel Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The day Aiden was discharged from the hospital happened to be his sixth birthday.

It was also the sixth anniversary of my marriage to Vincent.

Vincent came to pick us up himself.

The trunk was packed with Aiden’s favorite gifts.

On the passenger seat sat a huge bouquet of my favorite red roses.

Aiden was in the backseat, his color finally back, hugging the stuffed toy Vincent had bought him, his eyes shining.

“Daddy, Mommy, are we having cake today?”

Vincent glanced at him in the rearview mirror, and even his voice softened. “We are.”

“Our little man only turned six once.”

“Tonight, the entire Vale family is waiting for you.”

By the time we got back to the Vale estate, the whole mansion was glowing with light.

The long table was covered in white roses and silver candelabras.

And it wasn’t just family and close friends who had come.

There were business partners, the men who sat at the family table, and every sharp-eyed social climber in Chicago worth mentioning. They weren’t there for an ordinary family dinner.

They were there to see me.

The moment the car door opened, every head bowed.

“Don.”

“Donna.”

This time, no one got it wrong.

Aiden was startled by the spectacle for half a second, but then he lifted his chin, puffed out his little chest, and gripped Vincent’s hand tighter.

Vincent lowered a hand to smooth his hair.

“Don’t be scared.”

“They’re all here for your birthday,”

Aiden nodded, then turned to me. “Mommy, was I extra awesome today?”

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I smiled and straightened his bow tie. “You were.”

“No one was more impressive than you.”

Once we stepped into the main hall, even I had to admit the scene was grander than I’d expected.

A massive cake sat at the center of the long dining table.

Silver platters held delicacies.

At the far end of the garden, there was even a live band set up beneath the lights.

The same people who had once spoken to me with cool, unreadable faces in board meetings now approached with practiced smiles and lowered gazes.

“Donna Elena.”

“Happy anniversary.”

“Congratulations to you and Don.”

“And to the young master as well.”

Only then did it truly sink in.

I was no longer the woman who had been abandoned at the altar six years ago, humiliated, discarded, and left holding someone else’s child.

I was Vincent Vale’s wife.

I was the Donna of the Vale family.

And in this house, I was the one everyone now placed at the center.

Before dinner officially began, Vincent walked up onto the stage with Aiden in his arms.

The entire hall fell silent at once.

He cradled our son with the ease of a man who held the world. He looked out at the crowd, then turned his

head slightly to glance at me.

His gaze was steady.

And soft,

“Today is my son Aiden’s sixth birthday.”

“It is also the sixth anniversary of my marriage to my wife, Elena.”

“Six years ago, I brought her home as my bride.”

“Six years later, she had protected this family for me and given me the best son I could have asked for.”

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The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

Vincent kept going.

“Over the years, many people in the Vale family met her.”

“Some looked down on her.”

“Some doubted her.”

“But starting today, I want every last one of you to remember this.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping slowly across the room.

“She was never anyone’s replacement.”

“She was never somebody else’s leftover problem.”

“She is Elena Vale.”

“She is my wife, and the only Donna of the Vale family.”

The second he finished, the entire hall erupted into applause.

In his arms, Aiden blinked, then suddenly raised one little hand with grave seriousness.

“And she’s my mommy too.”

The room burst into laughter.

Vincent looked down at our son and smiled. “That’s right.”

“She’s your mommy too.”

Then he lifted one hand.

Evan stepped forward immediately with two folders.

“Tonight, I have two gifts to give.”

“One is for my son, Aiden-a fifteen percent equity stake in the Holdings, as his sixth birthday present.”

“The other is for my wife, Elena-twenty percent of the company, along with joint title and power of attorney over every Vale estate on the map,”

This time, what swept through the room wasn’t applause.

It was shock.

Those weren’t ordinary gifts.

They were power.

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They were status.

And they were Vincent’s way of securing Aiden and me at the very heart of the Vale family, where no one

would ever be able to pry us loose again.

I stood in the glow of the chandeliers, my vision blurring with tears.

Vincent stepped down from the stage and stopped in front of me.

Then, in front of everyone, he dropped to one knee.

The entire hall went dead silent.

He took a ring box from Evan, opened it, and slid a new diamond ring onto my finger.

The center stone blazed under the lights.

But in tha “ent.

I barely saw it.

All I heard was Vincent’s low voice as he looked up at me.

“Baby, happy anniversary.”

“That wedding six years ago wasn’t good enough.”

“So tonight, I’m making it up to you.”

He paused, then smiled.

“We’ve got a long life ahead of us.”

“And I’m going to spend every second of it worshipping the ground you walk on.”

I reached out and touched his face, nodding through tears.

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