All Chapters of Reborn as the True Billionaire : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Morana’s POVThe parking garage was empty except for a few cars scattered across the concrete. I’d chosen it because it was neutral ground and because Xavier had no reason to monitor a random garage in Brooklyn. I sat in my car for exactly ten minutes before I got out, checking the mirrors and the shadows and making sure nobody had followed me from the house. The drive had taken forty minutes and I’d taken three different routes, doubling back twice to make sure I was alone. By the time I was certain, my hands were shaking from adrenaline. I understand that this was the moment where everything either moved forward or collapsed completely.Tristan appeared around seven. He was wearing dark jeans and a black sweater like he was trying not to look like himself. The effect didn’t work because Tristan Rothschild couldn’t disappear into a crowd if he tried. He moved through the garage with that swag I don’t like noticing. He saw my car and walked toward it without hesitation, sliding i

Tristan’s POVI didn’t sleep at all after what Morana had brought to my attention. By 3 AM, Reid and I had gone through genetic databases that shouldn’t have been accessibl. We have cross-referenced them against Morana’s blood composition markers. We had a list of seventeen possible matches. Seventeen people whose genetics were compatible enough to stabilize her compound. The problem was that all seventeen of them had no idea they were genetic matches. And none of them had any reason to agree to what would be a lifetime biological partnership with a woman they’d never met. Reid pulled up the files on his screen and I watched the list expand and contract as he filtered by location and age and occupation. I was having trouble with that last part.“There’s one in Portland,” Reid said with a yawn. He was on his fourth coffee and he looked like he wanted to sleep but he kept working anyway because that’s what Reid did. He pushed through. “Thirty-two years old. Marine biologist with

Tristan’s POVThe location she chose was a private apartment in Midtown. Somewhere neutral and enclosed where nobody would think to look for either of us. I arrived first and checked the space thoroughly because paranoia had become professional necessity at this point. The apartment was clean with no surveillance that I could detect. No way for Xavier to know we were here.She arrived soon after wearing a black dress and carrying a manila folder. She looked worse than she had at the lab. Like the days since our last meeting had taken something from her that she couldn’t get back. She sat across from me at the small dining table and didn’t bother with small talk.“I need to be married to take the company,” she said then opened the folder and slid a document across the table. “The board won’t accept me without spousal status. It’s in the charter. My father could waive it but I can’t.”I read the prenup without looking at her. The document was thorough because she’s had good lawyers dra

Morana’s POVI needed to get out of the house before I started thinking too hard about tomorrow. Before my brain did what it always did when I was stressed which was spiral into worst-case scenarios. So I told Xavier I was going to lunch with a friend and I left before he could ask questions or insist on coming with me or do any of the things he did that made me feel like I was suffocating.He didn’t even ask which friend and in reality I don’t even have them anymore. I have cut them off when I got married and didn’t bother making any. I thought Xavier and iris were my besties. The boutique on Madison Avenue was exactly where I needed to be. I’d come here before everything went wrong with Xavier. The owner was a woman named Catherine who had known my mother. I was wearing jeans and an old sweater. My hair was in a messy bun and I had zero makeup on. I looked exactly like someone who didn’t have money which is probably why the salesgirl at the front of the store looked me up and do

Tristan’s POVI was waiting outside City Hall when the Rolls-Royce pulled up. I didn’t recognize the car at first. I just knew it was the kind of vehicle that made people stop and stare because it screamed money in a way that was impossible to ignore. The engine shut off and I watched the door open.I don’t know what I was expecting but THAY wasn’t entirely in my list of things. Morana stepped out of the car and I felt something shift in my chest that I wasn’t prepared for.She was wearing a cream colored dress and it fit her the way clothes were supposed to fit bodies like hers. The slit ran high on her thigh and when she moved, I caught glimpses of her skin as she moved. Her legs were long and lean and there was nothing fragile about the way she moved. She walked like someone who owned the ground she was stepping on.Her hair was twisted up in a way that exposed her elegant neck and shoulders. The makeup made her eyes look sharper and more like the woman I knew men fear in the b