Chapter 98
Nora's POV
Julian got in and closed the door. The rain sealed us in.
"What did she say to you?"
"Nothing important."
He turned to look at me, the full weight of his attention on me. "Nora."
"We were just talking."
"You have the same expression you get when someone's said something they knew would land." He paused. "What was it?"
I looked out the window. Annabel was already gone.
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me." He shifted in his seat, and I was suddenly aware of how close we were in the confined space. "If you won't tell me, I'll go ask her myself."
"Don't—" I stopped.
"I mean it." His voice was quiet but absolute. "I don't leave things unresolved. You know that."
I stared at my hands in my lap. The knuckles were still slightly pink from the cold.
Just say it. It's probably nothing. He'll explain it and it'll be nothing.
Except I'd heard that before. It's nothing, Nora. It doesn't mean anything. It's just temporary.
I knew what it felt like to be the person who wasn't supposed to know. I'd been that person. I'd stood in that charity auction ballroom and watched my boyfriend put a necklace around another woman's throat, and I'd told myself right up until that moment that I was overreacting.
I wasn't doing that again.
"She said—" My voice came out steadier than I expected. "She said you have a fiancée."
The silence in the car pressed down like a physical weight.
Julian didn't look at me. Just stared straight ahead through the rain-streaked windshield, jaw working like he was trying to find the right words.
That hesitation told me everything I needed to know.
Oh God. It's true.
"There was an engagement," he said finally. His voice was flat, almost clinical. "Past tense. The ceremony happened. The bride didn't show up."
I blinked. "What?"
"Two hours before the ceremony was supposed to start, she left. No note. No explanation. Just gone." He turned to look at me then, and something in his expression made my chest ache. "Left three hundred guests, both sets of parents, and a venue sitting empty."
"It was an alliance marriage," Julian continued, still in that same detached tone. "Sterling family and the Mitchell Alphas. My father spent six months negotiating the terms. When she didn't show, he blamed me for not 'handling it properly.' Wanted me to track her down, convince her to come back." His laugh was bitter. "I told him no."
"Why?" I asked.
"I told him I wasn't going to chase down someone who clearly didn't want to be there. That if she'd rather run than marry me, that was answer enough." He shifted in his seat to face me fully. "My father called it a dereliction of duty. Said I'd embarrassed the family, damaged our standing with the Mitchells, thrown away a strategic advantage." His eyes held mine. "So I requested a transfer. To the rust belt. The place they send people they want to forget about."
Rain hammered against the roof. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears.
"Your parents," I said. "Do they still—"
"Call every week. First five minutes are pleasantries. Next five are 'when are you coming back to Aetheria' and 'Senator Morrison's daughter is very accomplished.'" He smiled without humor. "Like clockwork."
I couldn't help it—I laughed. Just a short, startled sound, but it broke something in the heavy atmosphere. Julian's expression softened, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"I'm sorry," I said, trying to compose myself. "It's just—God, that sounds exhausting."
"It is." He reached out, fingers closing gently around my wrist. Not pulling, just... holding. "But I'd rather be exhausted than be someone I'm not."
The warmth of his hand seeped through my skin.
"You've already done more than most people would," I heard myself say. "At least you didn't—" I stopped, swallowed hard. "At least you didn't tell someone you loved them while secretly planning to betray them."
His thumb moved in a slow circle against my pulse point. "Are you angry?"
"About what?"
"Not telling you about the fiancée..."
"That's past tense," I interrupted him. "Isn't it?"
He smiled. "Yes. Now I have you. I'm not going anywhere."
The highway stretched ahead, nothing else but each other in our eyes.
---
We'd been driving for maybe twenty minutes when the sky opened up.
Not regular rain—the kind of downpour that turned the world into a gray wall of water. The driver slowed immediately, hazards flashing, and pulled onto the shoulder.
"We should wait it out," the driver said, glancing back. "Can't see more than ten feet ahead."
Julian nodded. Then turned to me. "This might last a while. You should let your family know you'll be late."
I fumbled for my phone. Signal was spotty, but I managed to send a text to Marianne.
Headlights cut through the rain. A pickup truck pulled up alongside us, the driver rolling down his window and shouting something. Julian's driver got out, hunching against the downpour.
When he came back, his expression was grim. "Road collapse about a mile ahead. Two vehicles went into the sinkhole. Driver says he doesn't know if anyone's hurt."
Julian was already reaching for the door handle. "Call for rescue. We're going to check it out."
I pulled out my recording equipment from under the seat. Julian noticed, raised an eyebrow.
"You want to go to the scene," he said. Not a question.
"It's my job." I met his eyes.
For a moment I thought he might argue. Instead, he just nodded once, sharp and decisive.
"Then let's go."
---
The collapse site was chaos.
A ragged hole had opened up in the northbound lane, maybe fifteen feet across and deep enough that I couldn't see the bottom in the rain. Two cars sat at angles in the pit, their roofs crumpled, metal twisted. A crowd had gathered—maybe twenty people, some holding umbrellas, others just standing in the downpour staring.
The good news: both drivers were out of their vehicles, sitting on the shoulder wrapped in emergency blankets. Cuts and bruises, but conscious and talking.
The bad news: the edges of the sinkhole were still crumbling, chunks of asphalt sliding into the darkness with wet, sucking sounds.
"State police are twenty minutes out," someone was saying. "Maybe longer with the storm."
I pulled out my camera, started documenting—the hole, the vehicles, the survivors, the growing crowd of onlookers.
I approached the first driver—a middle-aged man whose hands were still shaking. He described the collapse in fragments: normal driving, then suddenly falling, the sickening lurch as the ground disappeared beneath his tires.
I recorded everything, keeping my voice gentle, my questions clear. Behind me, I could feel Julian's presence. Julian was holding an umbrella, the bulk of it angled over me and my equipment.