Reborn at Eighteen The Billionaire's Second Chance novel Chapter 174

Chapter 174

The subway ride from the Bronx to Manhattan felt both endless and

too short. By the time I emerged at street level and started walking toward the Chelsea Arts Center, my hands were trembling despite the cold morning air. The building rose before me like a monument of glass and steel, its facade catching the pale sunlight and throwing it back in cold, sharp angles. The front entrance was already crowded with other competitors–most of them dressed in expensive casual wear, some with assistants helping carry their supplies.

I clutched my worn canvas supply bag tighter and slipped through the crowd to the registration desk in the main lobby. The line moved slowly, giving me too much time to notice the difference between myself and the others. Designer backpacks. Pristine portfolios. Confident laughter. I looked down at my thrift–store clothes and scuffed sneakers and felt a familiar prickle of inadequacy that I forced

myself to ignore.

When I finally reached the desk, the staff member–a young woman with a sleek ponytail and a professional smile–handed me my competitor number (B–47) and a detailed instruction sheet. “The preliminary round is divided into five batches, ten people each,” she explained in a tone that was polite but utterly impersonal. “You’re in

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Chapter 174

the fifth batch, which starts at approximately one p.m. You can wait

in the holding room on the second floor until then.”

“Thank you,” I managed, taking the materials and turning toward the

elevators.

That’s when I heard it. A laugh I’d know anywhere, bright and musical

and utterly confident.

I turned slowly, and there they were: Julian Vane and Sloane Kennedy,

walking through the entrance with two assistants trailing behind

them like courtiers attending royalty.

Sloane looked perfect. Of course she did. She wore a cream–colored

dress that draped elegantly over her growing belly, cinched at the

waist with a silk ribbon. Her hand rested on Julian’s arm with easy

familiarity, and they looked exactly like what they were–the kind of

couple that belonged on magazine covers, the kind of couple that

other people aspired to be.

Julian wore a charcoal suit that fit him like it had been made for his

body specifically, because it probably had. His expression was the

same controlled mask I’d seen a thousand times, calm and slightly

distant, the face of someone who was used to being watched and had learned to give nothing away.

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Chapter 174

Then his gaze swept across the lobby, and for a fraction of a second,

our eyes met.

I saw surprise flicker across his face. Then something else, something

complicated that might have been guilt or regret or just discomfort at

seeing me here. But it lasted less than a second before he looked

away, refocusing on the staff member who was greeting them with an

enthusiasm notably absent from my own check–in.

Sloane noticed me too. I watched her gaze land on me, taking in my

shabby clothes and worn supply bag, and her mouth curved into a

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