All Chapters of My Stepbrother's Secret Obsession : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

✦ POV: JULIAN HART ✦By six forty in the evening, I had changed my shirt three times."It's just a campus art showcase, Julian, not a royal wedding," Leo said from his spot on my small twin bed, watching me struggle with the collar of a dark grey button shirt. "You look fine. Stop stressing.""I'm not stressing," I lied, smoothing my hands down my jeans and checking my reflection in the small bathroom mirror.My phone was still dead, sitting at the bottom of my desk drawer where I had left it yesterday morning. No anxious texts from a billionaire heir who happens to be my step brother threatening to tear down his father's empire just to find me.For the first time in as long as I could remember, my pocket felt light. And strangely, wonderfully quiet.When I stepped out of Oak Hall into the road, the sun was sinking below the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of purple and burnt orange. The campus garden behind the student union was already glowing with string lights strung up b

CHAPTER 54: BROKEN GLASS AND COLD AIR✦ POV: JULIAN HART The space between us shrank until the only thing left was the sharp freezing contrast of his presence.He smelled like rain, expensive cedar, and the faint bitter scent of jet fuel. The dark circles under his eyes told the real story,he hadn't slept hadn't rested and hadn't stopped running since the moment he walked out on his father. But there was no softness in his face. Only a raw dangerous edge that made my skin prickle."You've been busy, Julian," Xavier said, his voice dropping into a low, quiet hum that scraped straight down my spine. "While I was busy ripping Cole Global apart piece by piece in Zurich just to clear a path back to you... you were out here making friends.""I don't owe you an explanation, Xavier," I forced my voice to stay steady, though my heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I stepped back, trying to put an inch of space between us. "You made your choice weeks ago in that estate. You to

CHAPTER 56: BROKEN PROMISESPOV: JULIAN HART The screen of my laptop glowed in the dark room casting sharp pale light across my face.I rubbed my tired eyes, staring at the blinking cursor on the blank academic document. I had tried to lose myself in my seminar notes, tried to drown out the memory of Xavier’s voice under the lights but the words wouldn't come together. My mind felt hollowed out by the heavy confrontation we had just shared on the quad.You think I treat you like a prize?His voice echoed in my head, raw and desperate, completely stripping away the cold, untouchable armor he usually wore.I slammed the laptop shut the sharp snap breaking the heavy silence of the room. I couldn't do this. I couldn't sit here pretending like I hadn't just shattered everything we had built.My phone—the one I had buried at the bottom of the desk drawer—remained dead and buried. I wasn't going to turn it back on. I wasn't going to give him an opening to pull me back into his life. I had m

CHAPTER 58: THE DONOR'S TABLE POV: JULIAN HART The lecture hall was stuffy, smelling of old paper and thirty students struggling to stay awake through a three-hour breakdown of medieval trade tariffs.Usually, Professor Evans's lectures were my favorite part of the week—a quiet sanctuary where business could wash over me and erase whatever chaos was happening outside. But today, every word he spoke just blurred together into white noise.My foot tapped a restless erratic rhythm against the floor.Two rows ahead of me, Marcus was sketching something in the margins of his notebook, his hand moving fluidly across the paper. Every few minutes, he would glance back over his shoulder, flashing a small reassuring grin that made my chest twist with a complicated mix of comfort and guilt.Marcus was safe. He was light, easy and entirely unconnected to the dark, suffocating life that I had before.So why couldn't I shake the memory of the black car parked outside Oak Hall?Why did every shado

POV: JULIAN HART The cool stone of the chapel pillar bit into my back but I barely felt it.Even after telling myself not to go, I couldn't help it.The only thing real was the crushing intoxicating weight of Xavier pressing me against it, his lips demanding an answer to everything we had survived.And yet, my hands stayed flat against his chest holding him back."If your father finds out..." The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them, dripping with the bitter, lingering trauma of the night everything fell apart.Xavier stopped. He pulled back just an inch, his dark eyes searching my face, a heavy frown cutting across his brow."Julian, what are you talking about?" Xavier's voice dropped, laced with confusion and a sudden spike of anxiety. "Richard already knows. That's the whole reason we broke apart. That was the exact secret he used to tear us down, the leverage that forced me to walk away and move to London in the first place.""Exactly," I whispered, the pain of t