Reborn at Eighteen The Billionaire's Second Chance novel Chapter 266

Chapter 266

The silence stretched so long I thought the connection had dropped. Then I heard it–the small, broken sound of my mother crying.

“Mamá-

“Your father, she managed through tears, her voice thick with emotion I rarely heard from her anymore. “He would be so proud. So proud, Elara. You did this yourself. No one gave it to you.”

I closed my eyes, letting her words wash over me. She was right. This was mine. Built from the wreckage of everything I’d lost, created in those late nights when I’d painted until my hands cramped, earned through every moment I’d refused to give up even when giving up would have been easier.

“I wish he could see it,” I whispered.

“He can. I know he can.”

We talked for another twenty minutes–about logistics, about timing, about whether I’d come home for holidays. Normal mother–daughter conversation, the

kind we’d never really had before. When we finally hung up, I felt lighter somehow, as if sharing this joy had made it more real.

That left one more person to tell. The hardest one.

I stared at Julian’s name in my contacts for a full five minutes before I managed to type out a message: I got into RISD. Full scholarship.

His response came faster than I expected: I never doubted you would. What do you want as a celebration?

I set the phone down, suddenly aware of how much had shifted between us. He’d kept his distance since Boston, giving me space to process everything- Sloane’s exile, the Kennedy family’s cold calculations, the way he’d chosen me over everything his world had told him mattered. We’d texted sporadically, careful conversations that skirted around the enormous weight of what we both knew but hadn’t fully addressed.

But now, sitting in my small Bronx kitchen with an acceptance letter that represented everything I’d fought for, I realized what I actually wanted. What I

needed.

I want to see Sloane, I typed, my thumb hovering over the send button for a long moment before I pressed it.

The three dots indicating he was typing appeared immediately, then disappeared. Appeared again. I could practically feel his surprise, his concern, his

attempt to understand what I was really asking for.

‘Finally: Are you sure?

Yes.

Another pause, longer this time. I imagined him in his office, staring at his phone, trying to parse my motivations. Wondering if this was about closure or revenge or something else entirely.

I’ll arrange it, he sent at last. When?

Soon. Before I leave for Providence.

Okay.

1/2

1:10 pm

Chapter 266

ppp.

He wasn’t asking why. Wasn’t trying to talk me out of it or protect me from whatever I might find. He was simply… agreeing. Trusting that I knew what I

needed.

Thank you, I sent back.

Anything for you.

I set the phone down and stared at the acceptance letter still spread on the table in front of me. RISD. Providence. A fresh start in a city where no one knew my history, where I could be just Elara Vance, artist, instead of Elara Vance, the girl who’d loved the wrong man and paid for it in ways most people couldn’t

imagine.

But first, I needed to close this chapter properly. And that meant facing the woman who’d been my tormentor in one life and my rival in this one. The woman who was carrying Julian’s child but had lost everything else.

The woman I’d helped destroy.

I thought about what I’d say to her, what I wanted from this meeting. Not forgiveness–I didn’t think either of us was capable of that. Not understanding- we were too different, wanted too different things. Maybe just… acknowledgment. A recognition that we’d both been caught in a system that pitted women against each other and called it romance. That we’d both made choices we couldn’t take back.

Or maybe I just needed to see her one more time to know, with absolute certainty, that it was truly over.

My phone buzzed with a message from Julian: Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll send a car.

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