Nora's drive home was agonising. She spent the entire time trying to focus on the road instead of her own situation. In only a day, Nora had lost Ben, Madeline, Spencer and Oliver. And it was all because of her foolish mistakes. She was so stupid! She angrily banged her hands on the steering wheel before placing them back in the 'three o'clock, six o'clock' position.

Five years ago she was Nora Lawrence, girlfriend to billionaire Oliver Scott, friends with the Madeline Lockhart and Spencer Kingsley. She was a successful model, making herself a housefuls name. She was a strong girl with a bright future ahead of her.

Three months previously she was the fiancée of Oliver Scott and a straight A student studying physics.

What was she now? A college dropout. A friendless, single, miserable loner. She was nothing, just like what Oliver has called her all those months ago.

  Nora was slow to enter her apartment building, even as the doorman held the door open for her. She was reluctant to go in because she knew that being back home meant she would have to confront her problems. And she knew which one she had to fix first.

♡♡♡

  "Nora?" Ben gasped as he opened his door to find Nora standing in front of him.

  "Hi."

  He jumped out of the way, letting her enter his living room. They sat down silently as Ben tried to stop himself from smiling. He really missed Nora. Nora, on the other hand, was desperately fighting off the urge to cry.

  "How are you? How have you been? How was Madeline's thing?" Ben rambled, trying to fill the awkward silence by loading Nora with one too many questions.

  "It was good. So,um, look, I really appreciate how you've given me space these past two days. It gave me a lot of time to think-"

"I've missed you so much," Ben sighed, running his hand nervously through his jet black hair.

"Me too," Nora croaked. She opened her mouth to confess her sins but nothing came out. "God, why is this so hard for me to tell you!"

"What? What's wrong?"

"I forgive you for not telling me about your ex-wife. I overreacted and I was being naïve by expecting you to be perfect. I just... I-I-"

"Nor, whatever it is you can tell me." He scooted closer to her and stroked her cheek, wiping her tears away. Just like Oliver did the day before.

Nora shook her head. "I can't..."

Ben slowly leaned down to kiss her. He was so gentle and it was so easy for Nora to kiss him back.

"Then don't," He murmured against her lips.

"Huh?"

Ben smiled and placed a kiss on her wet cheeks. "Don't tell me. I don't care. I-I love you and-"

"You love me?"

Ben scrunched his face up in embarrassment. "Yeah. I mean, how could I not!"

It was easy. All Nora had to do was suppress her guilt and never contact Oliver again. She could live out her fairy-tale with Ben. He didn't need to know. She was saving them both a lot of heartbreak. Maybe it was wrong but Nora wanted to be happy. She needed Ben to be happy. Why couldn't she just be selfish for once?

  "I-I love you too."

  Ben smiled before yawning. "Not that I'm complaining but it's like five in the morning," He laughed. "What made you rush to see me so early?"

  Nora swallowed down the truth and smiled. "Just...really missed you."

  "Me too. Now, how about we go back to bed because I don't have to get up for another two hours."

  Nora's hand squeezed his. "I would love that."

♡♡♡

  Ben's fingers traced random shapes on Nora's back as they chatted away.

  "How was the rehearsal?" Ben hummed quietly.

  "Eventful.... I don't really want to talk about it."

  "That's okay," He whispered, kissing the back of her shoulder. "You're going to the wedding next week though, yeah?"

  "Um, I don't know." Before Ben could say anything Nora quickly spoke. "You're going to be late to work."

  "The bastards can wait. I'm so happy here, at this moment, with you right beside me."

  "Me too. But seriously, Jenny is literally crying in the next room. Get up!" She laughed, turning to face him.

  "Fine!" He groaned. He surprised her with a burst of kisses all over her face as she squealed in delight.

  "I love you, I love you, I love you!"

  Nora stroked his cheek and looked into his eyes. "I love you too."

  After he left, Nora turned her attention to her phone. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as she thought of what to text Madeline. Her previous six texts had elicited no response so she was trying again.

  "Maddie please reply. I'm sorry, I'm an idiot!! Let's talk this out. I don't want to miss my sister's wedding"

  After praying for a response from Madeline, Nora checked her messages to see if Spencer had replied to any of her previous messages but there was nothing but unopened texts from Oliver. And Oliver's texts were the last thing she wanted to see. The message preview only contained the words "Why are you so...." so he was obviously calling her something. What? Needy? Pathetic? Unfaithful? Weak? Nothing she didn't think already. However when she opened the text out of curiosity to finish the sentence it read "Why are you so angry at yourself? I want you to be happy." 

  Nora scoffed but as she was about to reply to angrily blame him as the source of her lack of happiness, Ben came back into the room with a huge smile on his face.

  "I'm working late today but Veronica's parents are collecting Jenny tomorrow to bring her to her cousin's name day."

"Name day?"

"It's a Russian holiday that celebrates, well, someone's name. Anyway, I'm telling you this because it means that tomorrow we'll be all alone, all night in this house."

"Hm, I wonder what we can do," Nora joked impishly, standing up to kiss Ben.

"Ms Lawrence, are you trying to seduce me?"

Nora's hands reached down to unbuckle his belt. "I don't know. Am I?"

"Very successfully yes."

♡♡♡

  After Ben left for work, Nora went back to feeling guilt-ridden. The high disappeared and her mind began to clear up as she realised how bad she messed up. Ben didn't want to hear what happened but she couldn't hold it in. Every time she went back to feeling happy, thoughts of the previous night ambushed her mind. All she could see was Oliver. Every time she blinked she saw him, every time she moved she felt him. He was everywhere like a euphoric gas diffusing across the room.

  Her phone's ringtone began to go off after hours of torturous thinking and after checking the caller ID she answered without hesitation.

  "Spencer?"

  "Hey, Nora...."

  Nora sat up quickly. "I am so sorry Spencer. I thought Madeline would-"

  "I'm not calling you about that. I'm angry at myself not you. Although Madeline is pretty pissed off at both of us. I've officially been uninvited to the wedding. I got them a toaster and everything!"

  Nora laughed at his lame joke. "I was uninvited too..."

  "Really? Damn, I didn't think she would do that. Her loss though, right? She's going to miss our killer dance moves," Spencer joked.

  "Oof, with your robot and my sprinkler we would have dominated the dance floor."

  Spencer's laugh had this magical power of being able to make you feel better and at hearing his hearty chuckle, Nora felt genuinely happier.

  "Anyway, I'm just calling because I'm worried about Oliver."

  Nora froze at the mention of his name.

  "W-why would you call me?"

  "Look, I know you two have a rocky history but he's been spending a lot of time with my brother and you know what that means."

  She did know what the meant. Spencer's drug dealing brother, Charlie, was probably supplying Oliver with wild concoctions of cocaine, ecstasy and any other drugs that satisfied the never satisfied Oliver Scott.

"He seemed okay yesterday," Nora let slip before immediately clamping her mouth shut.

"Huh?" Spencer questioned. "You saw him yesterday?"

Nora groaned. "Forget I said that-"

"Wait, what? No, what happened-"

"Spence, please. I really can't talk about it and I don't want to talk about Oliver. He should sort out his own demons."

"Nor, he's going to kill himself with everything he's taking..."

Nora sighed. She heard the front door opening and decided to wrap up the conversation. "Not my problem. I gotta go."

"Nor-"

"Bye, Spencer. I'm sorry again about Maddie."

Nora hung up before Spencer could interject. Although she said Oliver wasn't her problem, it took everything in her to stop her from running to save him. She still loved him, still cared for him and if anything happened to him she would never be able to forgive herself.

Oh god. She loved him. Not the type of love that stayed in the past but the type that transcended through time. But it also weighed her down.

Ben returned home when he said he would, ten o'clock on the dot. He strolled to the sitting room joyfully, immediately going over to Nora to kiss her.

"You're still here. Wait, here I'll be right back."

Nora's throat suddenly felt dry. She felt a sense of impending doom. She had to tell him.

He returned half an hour later, his hair wet from a shower and his hands curled around a bouquet of flowers.

"I got you these. And I was thinking we can make dinner together. And then tomorrow we can go on a trip. And... Nor, you okay? You look a little lost."

Nora hadn't moved from her position for hours. She was certain her face looked ghastly and grave.

"I...I,"

The devil on her shoulder cursed at her because she would ruin her chances with Ben if she told him what happened but the angel soothed her by saying that Ben wouldn't care. He loved her too much.

Ben kneeled down beside her and looked terribly worried. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry...." She whispered, beginning to break down and cry.

Ben wrapped his arms lovingly around her. "What's wrong?"

"I...."

"Nora?"

"I slept with Oliver."

♡♡♡

Dear reader,

Just want to thank you for reading my book. To everyone, I love you and I really appreciate you.

I also wanted to share this veryyyy crappy graphic I did to illustrate the timelines of the 4 books in this series.

So, THE END of Opulent Glory is 5 years from the start of Gilded Butterflies. And, although it's not in the graphic, the start of Gilded Butterflies takes place a few MONTHS before the start of The King of Metropolis (Spencer's book). The start of Oliver's book (whose title I haven't released yet but it's two words starting with B and F) takes place after the start of KOM but, significantly, simultaneously takes place along with GB and KOM.

If that confused you well none of that was very important anyway! I just wanted to clear the air in case you were wondering what the future holds for this series. Gilded butterflies probably has like ten more chapters left so I hope to finish them by the end of this year.

Love,
-hexed