The Rejected Principessa Returns novel Chapter 57

Chapter 9

For years, I had pushed myself to keep pace with Adrian, draining every ounce of energy until I became a ghost of myself-hysterical, hollow, barely human.

It wasn’t until I escaped that suffocating world, until I was free of his control, that I finally began to rediscover who I really was.

Now, my life is simple and full. I’m content.

Fame, wealth, even Adrian himself-none of it matters anymore. All of it feels like a set of chains I’ve finally learned to live without.

But to Nora, my peace sounded like mockery.

Without a thought for her eight-month pregnancy, she grabbed a vase from the counter and hurled it at me.

Adrian stepped in before I could move. The vase shattered, blood spilling down his temple and staining the collar of his white shirt-a crimson bloom against snow.

Nora’s face drained of color. She stammered, panic rising in her voice. “Adrian, I-I didn’t mean to, I swear-”

But his tone was sharp, colder than I remembered, cutting through her excuses. “I told you never to bother Lillian again,” he said. “Never to interfere in my affairs.”

“Are you ignoring my words, or are you just too comfortable with your life now to remember what happens

when you cross me?”

The same words. The same threat.

After all these years, he still hadn’t changed.

Nora had believed that winning him meant victory-that she could finally rest easy atop the mountain she’d

clawed her way up.

She never realized she’d traded her freedom for a cage.

The olive branch Adrian offered her years ago was gilded iron. The moment the illusion of transcendence

cracked, she’d discover just how easily he could send her back to where she came from.

I didn’t bother arguing. I pulled out my phone and called the police.

History had a strange sense of humor-only this time, the roles were reversed.

Now, Nora was the unstable one, paranoid and frantic.

Pregnant, desperate, clinging to what little control she had left, she could no longer even stand up to the man

she’d once stolen.

For weeks afterward, she spiraled.

Chapter 9

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She hired thugs to smash the windows of Lillian’s Deli. She screamed through the neighborhood, calling me

a homewrecker.

She even mimicked my past-sending anonymous letters to Summit University, trying to tarnish Adrian’s

name.

But things weren’t the same anymore.

This time, I wasn’t the trembling woman trapped under Adrian’s shadow. I had roots here, a life, people who

knew the truth.

The neighbors had watched us grow up together-they didn’t buy her accusations.

And the university, burned once by scandal, quietly warned Nora to back off.

Cornered and unraveling, she lost her last shred of reason.

She set fire to my shop.

If it hadn’t been for Stella, who smelled the smoke and dragged me out in time, we might not have made it.

I called the police immediately and refused to settle.

Adrian handled the aftermath efficiently. He didn’t defend her, didn’t plead for mercy.

He turned her in himself.

That was how Nora, once the beloved of a professor, ended up behind bars.

When it was all over, Adrian waited outside the police station. The setting sun washed his face in gold,

softening the lines that years of ambition had carved into him.

“I’m sorry, Lillian,” he said quietly. “I know my apology doesn’t mean anything. But I don’t know what else I

can do.”

“If you ever need help, with anything, I’ll do whatever I can. You have my word. It’s what I owe you.”

He confessed that he’d grown to despise Nora long ago-but his reputation, his standing, his obligations left

him trapped.

The board had warned him: no more scandals. No more mistakes.

So he’d kept living beside her, bound by the same golden cage he’d once built for me.

Their future was already written.

The sun dipped below the rooftops. I pulled my coat tighter and shook my head with a faint smile.

“No need,” I said.

We had finally reached the point where strangers meet and pass without turning back.

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My father cooked my favorite meals, trying anything to bring me back.

But their worry only deepened my guilt that I had destroyed myself for a man-and in doing so, I was destroying them too.

I told myself to move on, to rebuild. But I couldn’t.

Two decades of life together had bound us like vines. Every object, every sound, every familiar smell dragged

me back to him.

To forget him felt like peeling off my own skin.

Back then, I truly believed my life was over, that I would either live in pain or end it altogether.

But I didn’t die.

I lived.

And somehow, I began to live well.

I built a life of my own-small, steady, and peaceful.

I found work I loved, enough to support myself, enough to make me proud again.

Those twenty years with Adrian were unforgettable, yes, but they were only part of my story. I still had the

rest of my life to write.

So I began to live it-pouring my time and care into Lillian’s Deli, polishing every counter, learning new

recipes, and finding comfort in the scent of fresh bread.

Business had slowed lately, so I’d started trying out breakfast menus from other cafés, studying how to

improve.

That morning, I’d gone out for inspiration. I hadn’t expected it to rain.

I hadn’t expected to see him again.

And I certainly hadn’t expected him to follow me here.

Maybe fate hadn’t finished its cruel joke, but love-love had long since burned out.

I had already died once for him.

There would not be a second time.

I looked at Adrian, wordless, and waited for him to leave.

He stared at me for a long time before lowering his head. His voice was low, almost lost beneath the hum of the oven.

“I’m sorry, Lillian,” he said. “I regret everything.”

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