The True Heiress Reborn And Slays (Alicia Delaney) novel Chapter 427

Chapter 427 Secrets in the Diary

Emily had taped it to the inside back cover for her.

Riley took a long breath, steeling herself, before she was finally ready.

She eased the cover open. The pages had yellowed with age.

Her diary wasn’t the daily–log type. Back then, Riley had been guarded and closed off, and she only left marks on these pages when her emotions boiled over and she had nowhere else to put them.

The early entries were mostly small, childish confessions.

“The director handed out new uniforms today. They’re two sizes too big and they’re old styles, but the collars are scrubbed clean.

“Won first place in the math competition. The prize money goes straight into savings for that reference book I’ve been wanting in this world, nothing really belongs to me except what’s in my head.”

Between the lines, the stubborn, clear–eyed isolation of an orphan girl bled through.

She’d realized it young. If she didn’t work twice as hard as everyone else, if she didn’t split every minute in two, she’d spend her whole life clawing at the bottom–just another weed withering by the orphanage gate.

But as the pages turned, the handwriting grew messier. Something restless bled into the ink.

Then, deep in the back half, a long, detailed entry stopped Riley cold.

“March 14th. Rain. I was working as a greeter at the Sundale Hotel/Among the crowd of rich wives in their designer gowns, sam

someone.”

The woman’s back, her profile, even the slight tilt of her head as she walked–all of it matched the blurry figure seared into the deepest part of her memory. The woman who’d abandoned her at the orphanage gate in so many nightmares.

“Her name is Melissa. I heard someone call her that. She’s so elegant and gentle. Like a white rose someone tended with care. her hand is holding another girl’s hand. A girl in a pink princess dress, beaming, tugging at Melissa’s arm and whining for a new necklace.

“In that moment, I felt like a rat in the gutter. I wanted to march up to her and scream, ask her if she’d tersten she had daughter drowning in the mud. But when I saw that smile–soft, loving, the way she looked at that girl–1 backed down. That kind of light is too bright. It’d burn someone as low as me to ashes.”

Riley’s hand stopped. Her face drained of color.

The broken pieces of her memory slarnimed together in a violent rush.

I saw Melissa before the accident? And I already knew back then that my mother hadn’t just abandoned me of her love into another girl?

No wonder Melissa had hidden behind excuses of illness every time Zavier and Raymond tied to bring them toget the word “mother” had always triggered something cold and physical deep in her gut

She wasn’t even surprised. She felt no real sense of loss

Chapter 427 Secrets in the Diary

It was tike some part of her had always known exactly who Melissa was.

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The diary was too much. The information tore through her head, wild and relentless tangling her thoughts into knots. She closed the cover. Her palms were slick with cold sweat.

Outside, the sky had gone completely dark.

She hadn’t turned on any lights. The city’s glow flickered through the window, catching her face in uneven pulses. Her eyes were cold and hard.

Then came the soft click of the front door. Steady footsteps followed.

Sebastian shrugged off his jacket and stopped. The house was too quiet.

He frowned and scanned the empty living room. Then he headed for the study.

He pushed the door open and found her sitting in the dark.

Riley hadn’t moved. She just sat there on the couch, half her face shadowed, staring out into the night.

The loneliness rolling off her hit him straight in the chest.

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