The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 552

Liora’s POV

“Find him yet?”

Callum shook his head, a little breathless. After two hours of dancing and drinking, his hair was slightly mussed and his tie had been lost somewhere along the way, leaving the top two buttons of his shirt undone.

“No. But I asked one of the servers, and they said he took two slices of cake to-go and left.”

“Someone else told me they heard a motorcycle engine,” I added.

Two slices of cake. A motorcycle engine. And a missing best man, minutes before he was supposed to give his speech.

I met Callum’s gaze and realized that we were both having the same thought.

We slipped out through the kitchens while the band played behind us, my train bundled over one arm, Callum’s hand in mine. Shirley sat in the back corner of the royal garage exactly where I’d left her three months ago, dusty and rust-bitten and probably more than a little pissed at me for neglecting her, if her engine was any indication. She started on the second try after sputtering indignantly for a while.

It turns out wedding gowns were not designed with stick shifts in mind. I got the skirts crammed under the wheel anyway, kicked my heels into the back seat, and drove barefoot.

“Your Majesty,” Marcus’s voice came through the mindlink as the gate guards scrambled out of the way, “the reception—”

“We’ll be back before the dancing,” I told him. “Cover for us.”

I could practically hear the Delta’s groan through the link, but he didn’t argue.

The road out to the forest was as beaten as I remembered, Shirley’s one working headlight bouncing off the trees. Callum rode with his window down, one arm hanging out. We didn’t turn the radio on, nor did we talk along the way. The air was too solemn. Too many bad memories.

Just as we suspected, Zane’s motorcycle was sitting by the trailhead, in the exact same spot where we’d parked Shirley one fateful night what felt like a lifetime ago.

We walked the rest of the way in by moonlight. The grass was cool under my bare feet, and the tree came into view first, and then the mound of earth beneath it, and then Zane, sitting against the trunk with his jacket balled up beside him and his sleeves shoved to his elbows.

Two slices of cake sat a small takeout box in the grass at his feet. One of the slices was half-eaten. The other hadn’t been touched, a fork standing upright in it, waiting.

My chest tightened painfully at the scene, tears instantly pricking my eyes.

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