The Rejected True Heiress (Liora) novel Chapter 58

“I was trying to protect you,” he finally said.

“That’s not protection, Callum. That’s erasure.”

Silence.

Then, his voice dropped to a whisper.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I just… didn’t know what to do. The people I love—my family—and the girl I was supposed to love… they all wanted someone I actually care about gone. Dead.”

A pause.

“I made the wrong call.”

A longer stretch of silence settled between us. No shuffled steps. No page turns.

“I think about you all the time,” he said finally. His voice cracked like it physically hurt to say. “Even now. Especially now.”

My fingers tightened around the book. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

“I didn’t want you hurt, Liora. I didn’t want you pulled into my mess. I just… I wanted to give you a chance to have something better then… my mess.”

“Then you should’ve trusted me to choose that for myself.”

“I didn’t want you dead,” he said, more forceful now. “Over nothing but family spite. You didn’t ask for this.”

“You’re right.” My voice sharpened. “I didn’t. And you haven’t given me a reason to trust you.”

“Giving you a reason?” he echoed, bitter and hurt. “Liora, I’m not even sure you tolerate me, let alone see me as a fated mate. How did you think this was going to go? Easy? Everything about you, this right now, is a risk I’m still taking. Over and over.”

The words slammed into the silence like a dropped weight.

The truth sat between us.

Silence pulsed between us, thick as smoke. Then I heard it, a quiet exhale, like he’d just taken a hit to the ribs.

“That’s not fair,” he said softly.

That almost cracked me. Almost shattered the bricks I’d stacked, day by day, since he let them use me as their chew toy. I felt this gravitational string between us, a pull—hot, reckless. I wanted to knock over the entire shelf just to get closer. To touch him. To scream at him.

Instead, I dug my heels in.

“What’s not fair,” I said, my voice sharp as splintered glass, “is not being enough for you without a title.”

He didn’t chase me. Didn’t speak. But I felt him, standing there like a storm held back by threadbare strings.

I turned on my heel, and I didn’t look back.

The only thing I let myself feel was the weight of what was coming. Besides, I had a dress with my name on it I still had to finsih tailoring.