Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 273

#hapter 273

Elena: POV

The silence that followed Julian’s confession felt suffocating, pressing down on us from all sides.

I stared at him, searching his face for any hint of deception, but all I saw was raw anguish etched into every line of his features.

“When I got there, you had already fallen from the bridge,” he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

His hand still hovered near mine, trembling slightly, but he didn’t try to touch me again.

“The Coast Guard searched for hours. Days. They found your coat downstream, torn and bloodied, and everyone told me to accept that yeu were gone. But I

couldn t.”

I wanted to look away from the devastation in his eyes, but I couldn’t.

Some masochistic part of me needed to see this, needed to witness proof that I’d mattered to him, even if it came four years too late.

But there was something else gnawing at me, something that had been eating away at my consciousness ever since I’d sat in that taxi and searched my own name on my phone, reading about a life I couldn’t remember.

“My mother,” I said abruptly, pulling my hand away from his proximity.

“When I was in the taxi earlier, I looked up information about Josephine Vance. About what happened to her.”

I watched his face carefully, looking for any flicker of guilt.

“The news articles said there were irregularities in her death. Something about medication issues at the hospital.”

Julian went very still, and I saw something flash across his features-surprise, maybe, that I’d already started digging into my past.

“What else did you find?”

“Not much,” I admitted, my voice tight.

“Just that she died four years ago, right before I- I stopped, the words catching in my throat.

“Right before I went into the river. Alexander told me it was cancer, that she’d been in palliative care and had chosen to stop treatment. But the articles made it sound like there was more to it than that. Like maybe it wasn’t natural.”

Julian’s jaw clenched, and I watched him weigh his words carefully, as if afraid of how I’d react.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” he said finally.

“A lot I need to tell you about that night.”

My stomach dropped.

“What happened?”

1/3

3:55 pm

Chapter 273-

Iulian took a deep breath, his hand curling into a fist on his thigh.

“The night your mother died, your called me, It was around six in the morning, New York time. I was in Singapore-there was an acquisition that needed my attention, a deal that was falling apat

His voice was rough with self-recrimination.

*You were hysterical. Screaming that I’d killed her, that I’d sent someone to murder her. I tried to tei! you I didn’t know what you were talking about, but you wouldn’t listen. You just kept saying-*

His voice cracked.

“You kept saying I’d taken everything from you.”

I felt my breath catch, trying to imagine myself making that call, feeling that level of rage and grief.

“Why would I think you’d killed her?”

“Because of what your mother said before she died,” Julian said quietly, and something in his tone made my blood run cold.

“According to the hospital staff, Josephine regained consciousness briefly, just minutes before the end. She was confused, disoriented from the medication, but she managed to say a few words.”

He looked at me, and I saw years of guilt swimming in his eyes.

“She said my name. Said I’d ‘sent someone.’ And then she was gone.”

The words hit me like a physical blow.

I tried to imagine my mother-this woman I couldn’t remember but who’d apparently loved me enough to raise me as her own-dying with my husband’s name on her lips, believing he’d betrayed us both.

“Did you?” I whispered, even though part of me already knew the answer.

“Did you send someone?”

‘No,’ Julian said, and the word was absolute, final.

“But I know who did. And I know why your mother said those words.”

I stared at him, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.

“Tell me.”

Julian pulled out his phone, his fingers moving across the screen with barely controlled urgency.

1:55 pm

Please Come Book, My Love

#hapter 274