Page 97 of Regally Binding

Chapter Forty-Five

The bed moved once the sun climbed higher in the sky.

Liss let Bear leave without telling him she was awake. It was what he wanted. The sadness that captured her heart streamed down her cheeks as soon as the door closed.

He was gone forever.

She sobbed without sound for fear that he might hear. She couldn’t stomach that he’d regret their last hours together.

By eight a.m., she’d tossed some clothes on, but her eyes were red and raw, and her heart broken. The knock on the bedroom door was heavier than Bear’s.

“I’ll be out in a second,” she shouted. Strike’s familiar grunt reverberated through the wood.

Bear made good on his promise and was absent from the breakfast, but she had no stomach to eat. As Strike drove her, he attempted to make conversation with information about Steve but gave up at her lack of response.

Liss’s heart sped as they neared the palace, thudding frantically. It was like the second time she’d visited, except there was no one to comfort or keep her calm.Because I’m all alone.She’d started this because she’d wanted a family, yet it took the last week to realise that the family available to her wasn’t in blood but in those she chose to be around. Bear was right.

Liss’s pulse continued to climb, and her limbs shook. She couldn’t breathe. She gripped her throat tightly. She needed her mum’s heart talisman. It must still be in Strike’s parents’ house. Princesses probably weren’t allowed such momentos anyway.

I can’t do this.

The sun glinted off the tears caught in her eyelashes, blinding her.

Strike yanked the steering wheel and pulled the car to a stop.

“You’re panicking.”

“No shit,” she snapped as she gasped for breath. The car didn’t smell like Bear anymore. She’d already lost him. Strike’s scent of spice, oranges and musk radiated around her.

“What would Bear do?”

Liss closed her eyes and tried to imagine Bear’s face even though it ripped at her chest. “He’d tell me to put my hand on my heart.”

Strike helped move her hand and put his own to his heart. Her rapid heartbeat eased a little as she did the breathing exercise Bear taught her. Her breathing slowly returned to her control. It was inevitable that it would happen again, maybe throughout her future.

The palace loomed in the distance like something out of a dark fairy tale. She was getting every young girl’s dream, yet it was her nightmare.

“I wanted to say sorry,” Strike suddenly said, staring out the front windscreen.

She fixed her chin. “For...?”

Strike dropped his head before turning in his seat. “For the way I treated you. I’ve been a dick in numerous ways, and you’ve tolerated my shit and Bear’s too.”

“There was nothing to tolerate,” she mumbled.

“Yes, there was. Don’t let me off. I’ve got baggage from my past that Bear doesn’t know about, and I treated you like crap because I haven’t dealt with it.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry for trying to keep you apart and then telling you to break his heart as your final goodbye.”

“But I didn’t break—”

Strike held a fist to his lips. “He’s heartbroken, Liss. You may not have done it, but it happened anyway. I’ve never seen him like that before. Bear doesn’t let people in. His parents mistreated him, and he refused to trust a soul again, apart from me and my parents. But he let you in and showed you his vulnerable side.”

Liss let out a long breath. “But it’s all been too quick and based on drama. It’s not real. And it doesn’t matter because if I could be with him, which I can’t, he doesn’t do relationships.”

Strike huffed. “Didn’t do relationships. What the hell do you think you two have been doing? And so what if it’s been quick? Some people exist in long relationships without feelings and tolerate each other every day, and some relationships have the passion that lasts forever through the arguments and daily bullshit.”

Liss stared out the window at the palace’s turrets, but the blue flags swishing in the breeze made her feel sick. They should have put them at half-mast.

“You don’t have to do this,” Strike added with a grunt.

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