Reborn at Eighteen The Billionaire's Second Chance novel Chapter 224

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Reborn at Eighteen: The Billionaire’s Second Chance

Chapter 224

Ethan’s face had gone from red to white, his eyes wide with a mixture of pain and horror at having his secret laid bare. Beside him, Sloane had frozen, her

expression caught somewhere between shock and calculation.

“So yes, Julian said, “I’m ending my engagement. I’m choosing Elara. And if you ever lay hands on me again, or publish another word designed to damage

her reputation, I will destroy you so thoroughly that your own mother won’t be able to find your byline in the archives.

He turned back to me then, and despite the blood and the violence and the shattered remains of the life he’d just demolished, his expression when he

looked at me was almost tender.

“Let’s go,” he said quietly, reaching for my wheelchair.

Detective Brown cleared his throat. “Mr. Vane, I really must insist-

“We’re done here, Detective, Julian interrupted, not unkindly. “You’ve made your determination. We’ll respect it. But Miss Vance needs rest, and I need to get

her back to her room.”

He began pushing my wheelchair toward the door, and I let him, too stunned by everything that had just happened to protest. Behind us, I could hear

Sloane’s ragged breathing, Ethan’s pained gasps, the detective’s frustrated sigh.

As we reached the doorway, Sloane’s voice rang out, sharp and brittle as breaking glass. Julian, you’re cruel!

He paused, his hands tightening slightly on the wheelchair’s handles. “If that’s what you think,” he agreed quietly. “then so be it.

Then we were through the door and into the corridor, leaving behind the wreckage of his former life and the woman who’d tried to drown me, moving

forward into whatever uncertain future we’d just chosen.

The elevator arrived with a soft chime, and Julian maneuvered the wheelchair inside. As the doors slid closed, I finally found my voice.

“Your mouth is bleeding.”

He touched his lip gingerly, examined the blood on his fingertips with mild interest. “It’s nothing.”

‘Julian-

“You were right,‘ he said, cutting me off. His voice was rough, exhausted, but underneath it all was something that might have been relief. “You asked me to

choose. So I did,”

The elevator descended in silence, I stared at my hands in my lap, at the IV line still taped to the back of my left hand, at the hospital bracelet around my

wrist. My throat felt tight with emotions I couldn’t name–gratitude and terror and a fragile, dangerous hope that scared me more than Sloane’s hands

around my ankles had.

‘She won anyway,” I whispered finally, “The detective believed her story. She gets to walk away from this like she’s the victim.”

Julian’s hand found my shoulder, warm and steady, “The police might have called it an accident,” he said, “but everyone in that room knows what really happened. Including Sloane And now she knows that I know too, and that I chose you anyway.”

The elevator reached the ground floor, but Julian didn’t move to push me out. Instead, he came around to kneel in front of my wheelchair, his eyes level with mine, one hand reaching up to gently cup my face.

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Chapter 224

I should have made this choice months ago, he said quietly. “I should have made it the first time you asked me to. But I’m making it now, Elara. I’m choosing you. In front of everyone. And I’m not taking it back.”

A tear escaped, trailing down my cheek to pool against his thumb. “Even though it costs you everything?”

“Especially because it costs me everything,” he said. “Because that’s how I know it’s real.”

He leaned forward, pressing his forehead gently against mine, and for a moment we just breathed together in the fluorescent–lit elevator, two people who’d finally stopped running from the truth of what they meant to each other.

“I love you,” he whispered against my skin. I should have said it years ago. I should have said it every day. But I’m saying it now, and I’ll keep saying it until

you believe me.”

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