The Rejected Principessa Returns novel Chapter 59

Chapter 2

When I reached the bedroom door, Eliza was already curled in Callum’s arms, trembling like a startled doe.

“Cal…” she whispered, her voice delicate and scared. “I-I accidentally knocked over the wedding photo you took with Savannah. I broke it. It looked important… She’s not going to be mad, right?”

Callum didn’t even glance my way.

He looked at the shattered frame at his feet, nudged it aside with his shoe, and tightened his arm around her.

“It’s fine,” he murmured. “Just a photo. Nothing important. Savannah’s not that petty.”

Nothing important.

I thought reliving this moment would numb me-that his words could never cut as deep as they once had.

But hearing him dismiss our memories so casually still punched the air from my lungs.

My eyes fell to the fallen photo amid the shards of glass.

And just like that, the past flooded in.

I had always hated being photographed.

On our wedding shoot, I was stiff, awkward, and painfully self-conscious.

Even the photographer grew impatient.

But Callum never lost his temper. He teased me, pulled faces, made a fool of himself just to coax a real

smile out of me.

Every photo we kept had been captured between his laughter and my embarrassment.

When he saw the final shots, he’d joked, “Getting you to smile should qualify as a circus act. Next time we take photos, I’m hiring a ringmaster to help me.”

I’d flushed scarlet.

He’d only laughed harder, hugging me and promising, “Doesn’t matter. Even if you never smile, you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

He’d picked the photos, chosen the frame, and set it on our nightstand himself-every detail done with care.

I knelt and silently picked up the glass shards one by one.

Eliza bit her lip, her voice trembling with manufactured guilt. “I’m really sorry, Savannah. I didn’t mean to.”

I lifted my head and smiled faintly. “It’s alright. He’s right. They’re just things. Not important.”

Callum’s expression flickered-just for a moment-before something unreadable shadowed his gaze.

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I ignored him and began removing every photo in the bedroom, placing them carefully into a box.

“You two should rest,” I said softly. “I won’t disturb you.”

Then I carried the box downstairs, walked through the back door, and set a metal firepit on the stone patio.

One by one, I fed our photos to the flames.

When the fire grew bright and hot, I pulled out my phone and opened a message thread I hadn’t touched in

years.

My senior-Dr. Ethan Clark-now stationed overseas with the Global Aid Corps.

I typed: [I’m ready, I want to join your team.]

His reply came within minutes.

[Good. I’ll send the application forms. Fill them out first. I’ll be back in the States next week-I’ll go with you

to headquarters for onboarding.]

I opened the link he sent.

Back then, he’d invited me to join his humanitarian medical team several times, calling me “a bird built for

sky, not a cage.”

But I chose love, marriage, and a man who clipped my wings until I forgot how to fly.

I lost my career, myself, and even my child.

This time, I wouldn’t repeat a single mistake.

When I submitted the final form, a familiar voice behind me cut through the night.

“What are you burning?”

I locked my phone and rose slowly. His face was the same as ever-familiar, yet impossibly distant.

“Just a few unimportant things,” I said quietly.

Callum didn’t press.

He simply frowned, impatience tightening his jaw. “Eliza’s a light sleeper. Any noise wakes her. Go back to

your room. And keep it down.”

“Alright.” I extinguished the fire and headed inside.

Callum watched me walk away, something uneasy stirring behind his eyes.

He followed after a beat.

“These next few months might be…difficult,” he said in a low voice. “Just bear with it. When Eliza delivers

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safely, I’ll take all of us on a trip. Anywhere you want.”

All of us.

A laugh almost escaped me.

If someone asked him what the three of us were supposed to be-husband, wife, mistress?-I wondered how

he’d explain it.

The answer came the next day.

When we met in college, I’d been a timid girl buried in student council paperwork.

He was the golden boy-the president, the star, the untouchable.

I had never believed he would ever choose me.

I hid everything between us, too afraid to announce that someone like him belonged to someone like me.

By the time we got married, my roommate was still grieving a devastating breakup, and I didn’t have the

heart to tell her while she was crying over lost love.

And from that lie of omission…everything else began to crumble.

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