Reborn at Eighteen The Billionaire's Second Chance novel Chapter 15

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Reborn at Eighteen: The Billionaire’s Second …

Chapter 15

Elara

The darkness wasn’t supposed to feel this heavy.

I jolted awake at 2:17 AM, heart hammering against my ribs like it

was trying to escape. The room was too quiet–that particular silence

of Blackwood Estate at night, where even the walls seemed to hold

secrets. My reading lamp cast a weak pool of yellow light across my

desk, and for a moment, I couldn’t remember falling asleep.

Then I saw him.

Julian sat in my desk chair, spine straight, legs crossed with that

effortless elegance that came from eighteen years of etiquette

training. His fingers–long, precise, the fingers that had once stroked

my hair before shoving me away–were turning the pages of my

notebook with the careful attention someone might give to a museum

artifact.

Or evidence.

My throat closed. Every instinct screamed at me to make noise, to

protest this invasion, but what would happen if I did? In Blackwood

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Chapter 15

Estate, if I screamed right now–a young woman alone with Julian in

the middle of the night–everyone would assume I’d orchestrated it.

That I’d left my door unlocked deliberately. That I was trying to trap

him, to create a scandal, to force his hand. They’d paint me as the

seductress, the schemer, the housekeeper’s daughter who’d finally

shown her true colors.

So I sat up slowly, clutching the duvet to my chest like it could

protect me from anything.

“Mr. Vane?” My voice came out smaller than I’d intended, rough with

sleep and fear. “How did you get in here?”

He didn’t look up immediately. Just kept turning pages, his

expression unreadable in the lamplight. When he finally raised his

eyes, they were dark and assessing–the look of someone examining a

lab specimen that had started behaving unpredictly.

“The door wasn’t locked.” His voice was low, controlled, with a hint of

reproach. “Careless of you.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to break into my room,” I said,

keeping my voice level. My pulse hammered in my ears. “I’d like you to

leave.”

His mouth curved–not quite a smile, more like the acknowledgment

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Chapter 15

of an interesting chess move. He stood, and I hated how my body

tensed, how some primitive part of my brain still catalogued his

movements like a prey animal tracking a predator.

He was tall. I’d forgotten how tall, in that way that made “tall” feel

inadequate. The lamplight caught the sharp angle of his jaw, the cold

precision of his features. He’d been beautiful once, when I was

seventeen and stupid. Now he just looked dangerous.

“I was concerned,” he said, each word measured and deliberate, “when

you didn’t bring coffee this morning. Or prepare my afternoon

briefing materials. Or knock on my study door at 11:30 PM like

clockwork.”

He took a step closer to the bed. I pressed back against the

headboard.

“I thought perhaps you were ill. That your sudden… reformation…

was a symptom of something more serious.”

Another step. The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge, far enough

to be almost respectful, close enough that I could smell his cologne-

cedarwood and something darker, more expensive.

“Then I found these.”

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He opened my notebook to a page I’d hoped never to see again. My

stomach dropped.

Practice signatures. Hundreds of them, filling the margins of my

calculus notes. “Elara Vane. Mrs. Julian Vane. E.V. + J.V.” Some with

little hearts. Some with wedding dates I’d fantasized about. The careful, obsessive handwriting of a girl who’d convinced herself that if she just practiced enough, she could will herself into belonging.

I’d forgotten about them. In the chaos of returning to my body, of trying to navigate this timeline without repeating every mistake, I’d forgotten to destroy the evidence of who I used to be.

“So you see,” Julian continued, his voice dropping lower, almost intimate, “when you say you’re ‘over it,‘ when you make those pretty little speeches at dinner about respecting boundaries and moving

on…”

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Reborn at Eighteen: The Billionaire’s Second …

Chapter 16

He leaned in. I could see my reflection in his eyes–small, cornered,