Reborn at Eighteen The Billionaire's Second Chance novel Chapter 85

Chapter 85

Elara

Julian was silent for a long moment. Then, finally: “Did you really

think I’d let him touch you?”

“Yes.” I stared at him, at his too–calm face and cold eyes. “Yes, I

thought exactly that. Because that’s what you said.”

“I was teaching you a lesson.”

“A lesson?” Anger surged through the fog in my head, sharp and clarifying. I pushed myself upright, ignoring how the room tilted. “You call this a lesson? Getting me drunk? Stripping me in front of strangers? Letting that animal drag me in here and-”

“I stopped him,” Julian interrupted flatly.

“After!” My voice cracked into something close to a scream. “You

stopped him after he–after he-”

I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t admit what had almost happened. What I’d

been sure was about to happen when he touched me, when he tore my

clothes, when his hands-

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Chapter 85

“You did this.” I was shaking now, my whole body trembling so hard my teeth chattered. “This was all you. The club, the drinks, Marcus-

all of it. You wanted to scare me. You wanted to–to-”

“I wanted you to understand,” Julian said, and his voice was still so calm, so controlled, like we were discussing the weather instead of my near–assault. “That there are consequences for your actions.”

“Consequences.” I laughed–a harsh, broken sound. “Right. Because I dared to leave. Because I stopped following you around like a lovesick puppy. Because I moved out.”

“Because you’ve been causing chaos since the day Sloane came back.” He moved then, finally, pushing off the door to walk toward me. “The scene at Blackwood. The incident at school. The hearing. Tristan’s party. Every single time, you find a way to make a scene. To drag our family name through the mud.”

I stared at him. At this man I’d loved so desperately, so completely, that I’d destroyed myself for him in my past life. Who’d I once thought hung the moon and stars.

And I said: “So you brought me here to punish me. Like a dog that needs to be beaten into submission.”

His eyes flashed. “Don’t be dramatic.”

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“Dramatic?” I pushed off the bed, stood on legs that shook but held.

Crossed the space between us until we were inches apart. Close enough that I could smell his cologne–expensive and familiar and wrong. “You got me drunk. You let strangers strip me. You gave your

friend permission to–to-”

My voice broke. I couldn’t say it again.

Julian’s jaw clenched. “He wasn’t going to-”

you knew

“Yes, he was!” The words exploded out of me. “He was! And it! You wanted me scared enough to–to what? To come crawling back to Blackwood? To sign whatever papers you want? To disappear?”

“I wanted-” He stopped. Took a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, rougher. “I wanted you to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop disrupting everything.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Stop making me—”

He cut himself off. But I saw it–the crack in his perfect composure. The flash of something real beneath all that ice.

“Making you what?” I pushed, reckless now with anger and alcohol

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