All Chapters of Reborn Rich: My Fiancé and Step-Sister Killed Me Once.: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

ARDEN Jett texted me Sunday morning, three days after the gala. (Did you get home okay that night? Forgot to ask.) (I did. A week ago, but thank you for the concern.) (Better late than never.) It had been like that since then, small and irregular, mostly me reaching first, him answering fast enough that I knew he was waiting for it. Neither of us brought up what had almost gotten said at the gala. I wasn't ready to push it, and he clearly wasn't going to be the one to push first, not after everything. I'd told Rita the truth about the older man story two days after the retreat, once the hearing had already blown Richard apart and there wasn't any real reason to keep it going. I framed it carefully, made it sound like fear instead of strategy, told her I'd panicked under Richard's pressure and made something up on the spot because I didn't trust anyone in that building not to use the truth against me. Rita looked hurt for exactly as long as it took me to apologize, then accepted

ARDEN​"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Lucas asked, turning off the engine as we parked beside the secluded lakeside cabin. He turned to me, his eyes cautious, searching my face. "Just two days away from the city? No family drama, no talk about that dinner with my mom?"​"I'm sure," I said, putting a warm, reassuring smile on my face. "You said you wanted us to fix things. I meant it when I said I wanted to try."​Lucas let out a breath he’d clearly been holding for weeks. He leaned over the center console, pressing a lingering kiss to my cheek. "Arden, you have no idea how much I needed this."​"Go take our bags inside," I said, opening my door. "I'll grab the wine and groceries from the trunk."​"I can get them—"​"Go," I laughed softly, shooing him off. "Let me unpack the kitchen."​The second he walked up the wooden porch steps with his duffel bag, I pulled out my phone.​Arden: We just arrived. Park near the main office so he doesn't see your car when you walk up.Rita: On

ARDEN ​I kept the footage saved in three separate encrypted locations: my laptop, a secure cloud drive, and a physical flash drive locked inside my desk drawer. It was my insurance policy. If Lucas and Rita dragged their feet through guilt instead of owning what happened, I had precisely what I needed to force the truth out on my own terms. ​Sheer satisfaction wasn't enough, though. I’d been thinking about what came after. ​If Rita was going to stand fully in my place—taking on Lucas, his overbearing mother, his leech of a sister, and every ounce of financial dead weight he brought with him—she needed the same thing that had made all of this possible for me: real money of her own. Arriving all at once, unearned, life-changing. ​That Tuesday evening, I created a clean burner email with no name attached to it. I built a quick, credible-looking profile on an obscure investment forum I’d been quietly seeding with a few scarily accurate penny-stock predictions over the past week. ​I

ARDEN ​I called Lucas on a Tuesday evening, mostly out of pure, conditioned habit. The phone rang six times before dumping me straight to his generic voicemail. A text message came through twenty minutes later. ​Lucas: Sorry, work thing. Talk later? ​I looked at the glowing screen for a second, waiting to feel something. A sting of rejection, a pulse of annoyance, or even just the familiar flare of cold suspicion that used to tighten my throat whenever he pulled away. ​I felt nothing. If anything, I felt lighter, like a heavy coat I had been forced to drag around was finally slipping off my shoulders. ​I set the phone face-down on my glass coffee table. Everything was moving into place with terrifying precision. Rita’s crypto coin was almost ready to hit its peak payout window, close enough now that she had completely stopped hiding how often she checked her balance at her desk. The insurance money from my mother's estate was maturing around the exact same time. The trap was set,

ARDEN​"You could stay," Jett said gently. "If you wanted."​I looked at him for a long moment, sitting beside him on his plush couch, still wearing his oversized shirt, with Bruno's heavy, comforting weight resting warm across both of our laps.​"I want to," I said softly, looking into his dark eyes. "I just don't think it's a good idea yet. I'm barely holding everything together as it is, and I don't want to give myself one more thing to lose control of before I'm actually ready."​"Then don't stay tonight." Jett reached out, his fingers brushing against my temple as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, entirely unhurried. "I'm not going anywhere, Arden."​I stood up, gathered my flour-coated clothes from the bathroom, and changed back into them while he waited in the kitchen. When I walked back out, he was leaning casually against the butcher-block counter with my jacket already folded over his arm.​"Keep the shirt," he said, handing the grey t-shirt over to me, neatly