《Reborn as the True Billionaire 》全部章節：第 81 章 - 第 90 章

Morana’s POVMonday morning I wore the Bottega Veneta suit. The deep brown one that made my shoulders look broader and my waist look smaller and my whole existence look like a threat. Heels that clicked against marble with authority I’d spent five years suppressing.I walked into Mortaine Patent at 8am sharp and the lobby went quiet the way buildings quieten when they understood something had permanently changed.The receptionist who last week had looked at me with cautious sympathy stood up so fast her chair scraped back. “Good morning Ms. Mortaine.”“Good morning.” I said and kept walking.The elevator ride to the executive floor gave me exactly enough time to review the restructuring plan I’d drafted on Sunday while Tristan slept and I sat at his kitchen island with Mrs. Thompson’s leftover and my laptop Gerald from the board was already in the corridor when I arrived. He straightened immediately with the expression of a man recalibrating which way the wind was blowing.“Ms. Mort

Morana’s POVI found out I was trending on a Tuesday when Felix called me mid meeting and I declined it and he immediately texted: pick up your phone morana mortaine dot com is trending on twitter I am not joking.I excused myself from the meeting because he won’t pressure me if it’s not serious. I need everything I could to throw off Xavier Lancaster right now. He has been silent but I know he is watching. Getting my position as the CEO isn’t the end of my troubles. Making sure Xavier is off my back is. “What happened?” I asked.“Someone found your 2019 paper on regenerative cellular mechanics” Felix said and I could hear him typing rapidly in the background. “The one you published six months before you disappeared. They wrote a thread about it. How everything you predicted has basically happened in the last three years. The compounds, the market movements, the research directions. All of it.”“Felix—”“Morana it has four hundred thousand impressions. Academics are quoting you. The

Xavier’s POVThe apartment was in Brooklyn Heights. It was rented under a name that didn’t connect to anything. The view of the Manhattan skyline from the window was almost ironic given that I was watching everything I’d built over there slowly fall apart in the press while the internet decided Morana Mortaine was their new obsession.I’d been watching it all week. Every article. Every comment section that buried my PR team’s statement in four minutes flat.I’d paid that firm sixty thousand dollars a month for three years and the internet destroyed their work in four minutes because Morana wore a good suit to her first board meeting and smiled at the right camera. I turned away from the window.The apartment was sparse. A laptop, case files, a whiteboard I’d bought from a office supply store two blocks away. Coffee I made myself because I wasn’t using a phone that could be tracked to order anything.The criminal complaint was moving. But my lawyers were good. Expensive enough to be ex

Morana’s POVI got home close to midnight and stood in the elevator on the way up. I genuinely could not remember if I’d eaten anything since the coffee I’d had at my desk that morning. The answer was probably no.The penthouse was dim when I walked in. Tristan was on the couch and he wasn’t working which was so unusual I stopped in the doorway for a second just to confirm I was seeing it correctly. No laptop. No files. No phone in hand. Just sitting there like a normal human being which he barely resembled on his best days.He looked at me. I probably looked terrible. Sixteen hours of holding everything together had a specific effect on a person’s face.“When’s the last time you slept more than four hours?” He asked.I counted back then got confused somewhere around Tuesday.“When’s the last time you ate a full meal?”“Mrs. Thompson made –”“That’s not an answer.”I dropped my bag and went to the couch and sat down and tipped my head back. I closed my eyes because my neck had been hu

Morana’s POVThe villa was genuinely obscene. It’s perched on the cliffside like someone had decided the Amalfi coast wasn’t dramatic enough and decided to add architecture. The Infinity pool that disappeared into water so blue it looked digitally enhanced. Actual lemon trees just existing decoratively like this was normal. Staff who materialized when needed and vanished when not needed with the invisibility of people who were extraordinarily good at their jobs. I stood on the terrace the first evening and looked at it all and said nothing for a long time.“Too much?” Tristan asked from somewhere behind me.“Absolutely not,” I said.I slept for eleven hours the first night. Didn’t wake up at 3 AM with my brain already running threat assessments. I just went under completely and stayed there until Mediterranean light came through the shutters and landed across the bed in stripes of gold. I lay there for a full minute doing absolutely nothing.It felt extraordinary. Slightly suspicious