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Chapter Fifty-Seven:

last update publish date: 2026-03-23 16:28:48

Julian's POV

September arrived with the particular focus of a month that had things in it.

The Columbia application deadline is on the eighteenth. Nadia's World Bank meeting on the fifteenth. The shelter's public opening on the first, which Elena had kept small but which still required Julian Ashford to stand in a room and accept that what he'd built mattered without deflecting it into someone else's credit.

I was working on that.

The public opening was on a Tuesday evening.

Elena had invited c
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  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter One Hundred and Four:

    Nadia's POVElena arrived at two with the energy of someone who had been waiting her whole life to buy tiny shoes.She looked at Julian sitting in my apartment like it was completely natural, which it increasingly was, and said nothing except: "Good. You can carry things."Julian stood. "Happy to." "Don't be charming. It's suspicious." She kissed my cheek. "You look rested. Something happened." "Nothing happened." "Something always happens when you look like that." She handed me my coat. "Tell me in the car."I didn't tell her in the car. She talked the entire way to Brooklyn about the shelter's new intake system and a grant she was pursuing, and I let her because it was easier than explaining that I'd spent the morning with my head on Julian's shoulder deciding to try.He sat in the front. I sat behind him. At one point he glanced back to check on me at a sharp turn, and our eyes met for exactly a second, and Elena, who missed nothing, said "mm-hm" to the window."Leave it," I said.

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter One Hundred and Three:

    Julian's POVShe fell asleep at the table again. She'd finished her food, pushed the container aside, and was reading through the control group notes when it happened. Head dropping slowly, then her cheek found her folded arm, and then she was just gone. The pen was still loosely in her hand.I sat there for a moment.Then I did what I always did. Covered her, cleaned up, and left a note. This one said: “The control group structure is solid. Reeves won't touch it. Sleep." She called at six in the morning. "You keep leaving notes." "You keep falling asleep mid-project.""I'm growing as a person. I'm allowed.""You're allowed to do whatever you want. I'm just documenting it."A pause. "The note said Reeves won't touch it. Why?" "Because the reweighting transparency argument is airtight. You showed the work completely. He can question the approach, but he can't question the rigor.""You worked on it after I fell asleep.""I had thoughts. I wrote them down.""Julian." Her voice shifted.

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter One Hundred and Two:

    Nadia's POVI said it and then immediately picked up my phone and called Dr. Reeves.Not because I regretted it. Because if I sat in the silence after saying it, I would overthink every syllable, and I'd already decided I was done doing that.Julian stayed quiet like I'd asked. He sat slightly behind me where I couldn't see his face, and I was grateful for that because I needed to think about methodology and not about the fact that I'd just told him I wanted more of something.Dr. Reeves answered on the third ring. "Hale. I heard about the Mehta commitment. Congratulations.""Thank you. I need twenty minutes.""You need more than that. Send me the zone three variance data first.""Sending now." I forwarded it while we talked. Julian's laptop was already open; I could hear him typing quietly. "I've identified a controlled variable I missed in the original model. Density as an aspiration amplifier."Silence. The kind that meant he was reading. "Where did this come from?" he said finally

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter One Hundred and One:

    Julian's POVShe let me keep my hand there for four seconds.I counted. Not because I was measuring but because I wanted to remember exactly what it felt like, her cheek warm against my palm, her eyes not looking away. Four seconds, and then she turned back to the city, and I dropped my hand, and we stood there like something had shifted the air between us without either of us naming it.On the drive back, she was quiet but not the closed kind. The processing kind. I'd learned the difference. At her building, she said, "The roof. Thank you." "Anytime. It's yours if you need it."She looked at me. "You're giving me your thinking place.""You think better than anyone I know. It seemed right."She got out without responding. But at the door, she turned back. "Tomorrow. Bring the board prep you've been avoiding. We'll work through it here." Then she went inside. I sat in the car for a moment; she'd noticed I was avoiding the board prep. I hadn't told her that. She'd just seen it.I was co

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter One Hundred:

    Nadia's POVI didn't sleep well after he left.Not because anything went wrong. Because something went right, and I didn't know what to do with that yet. I'd read him that page, and the world hadn't ended, and he hadn't tried to turn it into a moment, and somehow that was the most disarming thing he could have done.He just stayed in it with me. I lay awake running that over until two in the morning when the baby shifted, and I put my hand on my stomach and said out loud to nobody, "I know. Me too."He texted at seven: “The city you'd never actually lived in. I've been thinking about that since last night.”I stared at it for a moment. “And?”I think it was the traffic and noise. I never gave you anywhere to sit down.”“Julian.” “I'm not looking for absolution. I just wanted you to know I understood what you were saying. All of it.” I set the phone down. Picked it up. “You understood it.” “Every word.”I didn't respond to that because there wasn't a response that wouldn't open somethi

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter Ninety-Nine:

    Julian's POVShe sent the methodology document at eleven that night with a message: The executive summary is clean. You're good at translating me. I read it twice before responding. She was right; it was clean, but more than that, it sounded like her. The precision, the layered argument, the way it anticipated the reader's skepticism and answered it before they could voice it."You're easy to translate. Your thinking has a logic that follows itself." “That's the nicest thing anyone has said about how my brain works." “It shouldn't be.”A pause. Then: “Why are you still up?" “Board prep. You?”“Baby's been moving for an hour. She's restless.”Something moved in my chest. “Is that normal?”“Dr. Mills says yes. She just has opinions about when I should sleep.” “She gets that honestly.” “Did you just imply our daughter inherited my stubbornness?” “I implied she has strong convictions about her own schedule. Draw your own conclusions.” Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Then: "I'm choosing

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter Forty-Three:

    Julian's POVElise turned five months and developed a personality that was entirely her own and completely inconvenient. She had opinions about everything. Which direction did she face? Which songs counted? Whether the person holding her had earned the right to hold her that particular day.She rej

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter Forty:

    Nadia's POVI wore the dress Elena helped me pick because it was the right dress for walking into something new. Julian made coffee and handed me mine at six forty-five without commentary, the way he always did now, and when I picked up my bag at seven-thirty, he looked at me with that specific exp

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter Thirty-One

    Julian's POVThe board meeting was set for the fifteenth, the same day Nadia’s consulting contract hit its three-month mark. She didn’t mention the milestone. She didn’t need to. I saw it in the way she packed her laptop each morning, lighter shoulders, quicker steps.Monday night, she rehearsed he

  • HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE    Chapter Thirty:

    Nadia's POVThe first week at the new job passed in a rhythm I hadn't known I was missing. Mornings started with Elise's soft coos pulling me out of sleep, then coffee while Julian packed her diaper bag like he'd been doing it forever. I'd leave by eight, subway to Flatiron, and walk into an office

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