My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 121

Another Family Matchmaking

-Katia~

Mother called on a Thursday with the warmth she deployed when she was about to do something I wasn’t going to like.

+25 BONUS

“A spa weekend,” she said. “Just you and me. Girls‘ trip. You’ve been working too hard, Katia; everyone can see it. Two nights at Rosewood. My treat.”

I looked at Sam across the office. Sam looked back.

“Just us?” I said.

“Just us,” Mama said. “Mother and daughter. Long overdue.”

4

I should have said no. I knew I should have said no. I said yes because Dad had called me the week before and said quietly that Mother had been having a difficult few months, and he thought it would mean something if I made the effort, and because, despite everything, I was still capable of making efforts for people who had hurt me when I believed the effort was genuine.

The effort was not genuine.

I arrived at the Rosewood on Friday afternoon to find that the spa weekend had three additional guests.

I discovered this when a man knocked on my door at seven PM holding roses. He was tall and presentable, with the slightly over -prepared look of someone who had been told he was meeting someone important and had dressed accordingly. He introduced himself as Christopher. He said my mother had mentioned I might enjoy dinner.

I looked at Christopher and his roses for a moment.

“Wait here,” I said.

I closed the door. I picked up my phone and called Mama.

She answered on the second ring with a brightness that told me she had been waiting for this call. “Katia! How is the room? Isn’t it lovely?”

“Mother,” I said.

“The spa menu is extraordinary; I’ve already booked us for-”

“Mother.”

She stopped.

“There is a man named Christopher outside my door with roses,” I said. “Would you like to explain that?”

She paused. The pause of someone recalibrating their approach. “He’s a lovely man, Katia. Family money, very established, I thought you might-”

“How many?” I said.

“I’m sorry?”

“How many men did you invite to this spa weekend?”

She took a long pause.

“Three,” she said. “But they’re all very-”

“Goodbye, Mother.”

“Katia, if you’d just-

Forly Matchmaking

Thung up.

I opened the door. Christopher was still there, roses in hand, looking mildly uncertain.

+25 BONUS

“Christopher,” I said pleasantly. “I’m going to be completely honest with you. My mother invited you here without telling me. I’m sure you’re a perfectly decent person and none of this is your fault. But I’m going to ask you to take the roses to the front desk as a gift for the staff and enjoy your weekend independently.” I smiled. “I have a lot of work to do.”

He blinked. Then, to his credit, he laughed. “Fair enough,” he said.

I closed the door.

I called Mama back.

She answered on the first ring this time.

“Mother,” I said. “I am going to say this once, so I need you to listen carefully.‘

“Katia-”

す

“Onoe. I am married. I have a son. I run a billion–dollar company, and I have approximately zero hours in my week for whatever this is.” I kept my voice level. “The next man you send my way at a spa weekend, a charity gala, a family lunch, or anywhere will receive a very polite letter from my legal team and a fruit basket. The letter will be professional. The fruit basket will be excellent. But I want to be clear that the letter comes first.”

There was silence on Mama’s end.

Then, somewhere in the background, I heard Dad laugh.

Not the polite laugh. The genuine one sudden and uncontrolled, the laugh of a man who had been sitting in the same room as this phone call and had not been able to hold it in for a single second longer.

“David,” Mama said sharply.

He laughed harder.

I felt something ease in my chest. Just slightly.

“Goodnight, Mother,” I said.

“This is not-”

“Goodnight.”

I hung up.

I stood in the middle of the Rosewood hotel room for a moment. Then I opened my laptop, ordered room service, and turned the spa weekend into a working weekend.

Sam texted at nine PM: How’s the spa?

I sent back a photo of my laptop open on the Dubai expansion review with a glass of wine beside it.

Her reply: Iconic.

I worked until midnight. The expansion review, the false data package for Daniel Osei, the London infrastructure brief that Davies had submitted on Tuesday and that I had been meaning to annotate for three days. The room was quiet. The hotel was the kind of place that absorbed noise and produced peace, and I appreciated both.

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