Mira’s POV
Cale pulled out his phone to make a call.
I panicked.
Was he really going to borrow money?
He was already drowning in debt.
“Cale.” I stopped him, pressing his hand down.
He smiled.
“What, worried about me?”
I bit my lower lip and nodded.
Cale turned to Marcus.
“Alpha, we had a deal. The money goes to you, and Mira comes with me. I trust you’ll keep your word.”
My eyes went wide.
What was he saying?
I wasn’t an object to be bought and sold.
Vivienne smirked from the side, convinced Cale was stalling because he couldn’t come up with the money.
“Mr. Cale, as long as you can write that check, my father will agree.”
But before she could finish, Marcus cut her off sharply.
“Shut up! What are you implying? Do you think I’ve been reduced to selling my daughter?”
He pointed at Cale.
“Get your hands off my daughter. Let me tell you, I doesn’t need your money! Take your things and get out. Leave my daughter here.”
I paused, somewhat surprised.
My father might be misguided, constantly duped by Seraphina and Vivienne, but I hadn’t been wrong about one thing: he hadn’t given up on me.
It was just that in his heart, I would always rank behind Seraphina and Vivienne.
Looking at Marcus’s furious expression, I said calmly, “Dad, I’m twenty-one. I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”
Then I turned to Cale.
“Let’s go.”
Cale’s hand slid from my shoulder down to my hand, his fingers lacing through mine.
A current seemed to travel from my palm through every limb.
My heart skipped.
I flushed but didn’t pull away, letting him hold my hand.
To my father, the gesture was nothing short of provocation, his daughter walking off with a man whose background he didn’t even know, not caring what he thought.
Cale and I got into the car.
I remembered Cale used to drive luxury cars worth millions.
The thought that he’d fallen this far—yet still risked exposure to stand up for me in front of Marcus and Vivienne—made my chest ache.
In my last life, I’d always been the one giving.
Elias had never been this good to me.
So every word this man said, every thing he did for me, touched me deeply.
I watched his profile as he focused on driving and said softly, “Cale, thank you. Don’t take what my dad said to heart. I believe you’ll make your comeback one day.”
Caelan’s POV
Twenty-six years I’d lived, and this was the first time a single sentence had been this hard to answer.
She said I’d make my comeback sooner or later.
But I’d never gone bankrupt in the first place.
How was I supposed to respond to that?
Tell her the truth?
Tell her I was the Alpha of Silvercrest Pack, that the bankruptcy and the debt were all a story Ryan had concocted to deceive her?
And then what?
Would she see me as a liar?
Would she remember all those notorious rumors about me?
Any sane woman would run, and she’d probably be no exception.
I swallowed the words that had been on the tip of my tongue and said nothing.
She must have thought she’d struck a nerve.
For the rest of the drive, she sat quietly in the passenger seat without saying another word.
I was relieved.
I focused on driving.
The clunker Ryan had found was unreliable, but I couldn’t drive it too well either.
I couldn’t risk giving myself away.
After a while, the engine sputtered, shuddered twice, and died on the side of the road.
I swore, got out, and lifted the hood.
It was unfixable.
We were in the middle of nowhere, still several kilometers from home.
I said we walk.
After a while, she slowed down.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
She pursed her lips, her voice carrying a note of grievance.
“My shoes are rubbing.”
I looked down.
The skin at her pale ankle was rubbed raw, beads of blood seeping through.
The wound stood out starkly against her fair skin, like a knife slash across a blank page.
A nameless anger flared in my chest.
I scowled at her.
“Are you stupid? Your feet are torn up like this and you didn’t say it hurt?”
She sighed, the sound carrying the resignation of someone long accustomed to enduring.
“Even if I said something, there’s no car out here to take us back.”
Before she could finish, I’d already turned around and crouched in front of her.
“Get on my back.”
She hesitated.
“You’re going to carry me?
Won’t that be too much for you?”
I said without expression, “From now on, think about yourself first instead of everyone else.
Stop talking and get on.”
When she climbed onto my back, I realized she was lighter than she looked.
She barely weighed anything.
Her frame was slender, her shoulder blades pressing into my back through the thin fabric.
I hitched her legs up, my hands settling under her knees, and my palms inevitably made contact with her bare calves.
The skin was smooth as silk.
My fingers stiffened.
I tried to shift my grip higher, away from the exposed skin.
But her dress was too thin, thin enough that I could feel the warmth of her legs through the fabric.
My palms started to burn.
I gripped the backs of her knees carefully, not too hard, afraid of bruising her, but not too loose either, afraid she’d slip.
She seemed to sense something too, shifting uneasily against my back.
“You can carry me,” her voice came, muffled against the back of my neck, “but could you stop groping?”