The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 424

Liora’s POV

The words hung in the air between us.

Callum didn’t say anything for a long moment. He just looked at me, and I looked back at him, and somewhere behind us a truck rumbled past on the highway and the oak tree overhead rustled in the breeze.

“Say that again,” he said.

“I’m the princess,” I said. “Bianca has been impersonating me since the start of last semester. She’s been using the title, the status, all of it.”

Callum stared at me. “And you just… let her?”

I exhaled. “My wolf left me.” I picked at a blade of grass near my knee. “A female Alpha without a wolf can’t exactly walk up to a school full of people and announce herself as the heir to the royal pack. I had nothing to prove who I was. So I kept quiet and I waited for the right moment, which, unfortunately, never came.”

He was still staring.

“I know,” I said. “I know how it sounds.”

“So… that list…”

“It was my father’s idea. He wanted me to pick a suitable mate from it, since the obvious choice wasn’t available.” I didn’t look at him when I said that last part. “I didn’t want any of them. I never wanted any of them.”

Callum pressed his mouth together and looked out at the parking lot. His jaw was working silently. I let the quiet hang between us for a little while, giving him the chance to speak. He didn’t.

“I wanted to tell you the truth so many times,” I finally went on. “From the very beginning, honestly. But every time I came close, something happened. You’d go back to Bianca, or I’d convince myself that even if I told you the truth you’d still choose her, and I—” I stopped. “I suppose I was scared.”

“Scared.”

I nodded. “Of you not believing me. Or worse—of you choosing me the moment you found out I was the princess, just because I was the princess, and not because you actually loved me.” I finally looked at him. “And then when we actually got together, my father told me not to say anything. He was so firm about it, and my father doesn’t issue orders without good reason, so I obeyed. But I couldn’t keep lying to you.”

Callum was quiet again. A longer sort of quiet this time.

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