The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 389

Liora’s POV

“What is that?”

Mia reached for the berries, but I smacked her hand out of the way. “Don’t touch those without gloves,” I said. “It’s wild ipecac.”

Zane raised an eyebrow. “Wild what now?”

“Do you pay attention in class?” I asked. “Or are you just here for the vibes?”

“The vibes, mostly,” he said, checking his nails.

I rolled my eyes and sat in my desk chair. “It’s a plant with emetic properties. Strong ones. I have very good reason to believe that Bianca collected these and has been eating the berries.”

Mia stared at me. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at my friend. “Why do you think?”

The implication was clear.

“She’s been making this whole production out of how sick she is,” I said, mostly just because I needed to say it out loud to feel like I wasn’t going completely insane. “Every time she needs sympathy, every time she needs Callum to come running, she vomits.” I gestured to the stem. “Three berries appear to be missing. One was squished under my shoe. That leaves two unaccounted for.”

Zane’s brow furrowed. He pushed off the doorframe where he was leaning and came over, looking down at the plant without touching it. “You can make yourself sick by eating these?”

“That’s literally what she just said,” Mia said flatly.

He shot her a look. “I heard her. I was just… making sure.”

Mia groaned and scratched her head.

“Okay.” I leaned back in my chair and looked at them both. “If Bianca’s been faking the morning sickness, then the question is why. And I think the answer is obvious.”

Mia met my eyes. She already knew what I was going to say.

“If she’s faking the morning sickness,” Zane said, “then maybe there’s no baby at all.”

The room went quiet.

“Please be careful,” I said as Zane opened the window and swung one leg out into the cool night air. “And if you get caught, we had nothing to do with it.”

Zane saluted me, then climbed out onto the ledge and disappeared without a sound.

Once he was gone, Mia turned to me. “This is insane.”

“It’s Zane. He’ll be fine.” I squeezed her shoulder and flopped onto my bed, staring at the ceiling.

Zane came back just before midnight with nothing.

He dropped in through the window, making Mia shoot bolt upright in bed with a gasp. Sighing, he plopped into my desk chair, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture. “Clean. Like, suspiciously clean. I went through every drawer, her closet, her bathroom. Nothing.” He paused. “Well. She has an absurd amount of shoes.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” He shook his head. “Either she’s smarter than we give her credit for, or there’s genuinely nothing to find.”

My lips pursed. I hated that that was a possibility, and I hated that I was annoyed that it might be even more. Technically, I figured I should be glad if she was telling the truth about the baby, because at least it would be better than her trapping Callum with a fake pregnancy. But it also made me uneasy, because it meant that she and Callum were really stuck together.