My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 178

Seafood Boll

-Delia-

I spent three hours getting ready

Not because I needed three hours. Because Tneeded to be right. I needed to walk into that dining room and remind every single person at that table exactly who I was and what I was doing in this house. I needed to look like the woman Julian Windsor had chosen – even if we both knew that was not entirely the truth.

I chose the red dress. Floor length, backless, the kind of piece that walked into a room before you did. My hair up. Jewellery was understated – I did not need to try too hard when the dress was doing everything.

I looked in the mirror.

Perfect.

My mother and father arrived first. Mama walked in and looked around the estate the way she always looked around the estate – taking inventory, approving, making a mental note of everything that confirmed the Kensingtons had made a correct decision in sending me here.

“You look beautiful,” she said.

2

“I know, thanks, Mother,” I said.

Then Grandma Celeste walked in with Aiden in her hand and Gail behind her.

I watched Aiden walk into the dining room and sit himself down at the table like he had been eating here his entire life. He unfolded his napkin with the precision of a child who had been taught table manners by someone who took them seriously and looked around the table with his clear, direct eyes.

He looked exactly like Julian, but then he wasn’t his son, so not my problem who my sister got knocked out by.

I pressed my lips together and looked at the door.

Julian came in at five past seven. He was dressed

properly dressed, the effortless way he always dressed, the kind of man who could put on a jacket and make every other man in the room look like they had forgotten something. He looked at the table. He looked at me. He said nothing.

Everyone was seated. We were waiting. And then Katia walked in.

I felt it before I saw it. The shift in the room the subtle adjustment of attention that happened when someone entered a space and the space recognised them. She was wearing a dress that I had been trying to find for two years, Two years. I had been in Paris; Milan; and three different vintage dealers in the city, and I had never managed to get my hands on it. She was wearing it like she had not thought about it, like it had simply been the thing that was hanging closest to her this evening.

The fuck.

It looked good on her. I had to admit that. It looked extraordinary on her, and I hated that I had to admit it, and I admitted it anyway in the privacy of my own head because pretending otherwise would have been dishonest.

She always knew how to steal my shine.

“Your dress,” I said as she took her seat. “Is it an original or is it a knock–off?”

She did not answer. She did not even look at me. She sat down and unfolded her napkin and looked at the table setting with the composed attention she brought to everything.

Julian cleared his throat beside me.

“Let’s feast,” he said.

Seafood Boil.

+25 BONUS

I picked up my fork and knife. I reached across and placed food on Julian’s plate arranged as the kitchen had presented it. A gesture. A wife’s gesture.

Julian looked at the plate.

He removed everything I had put there.

Then he did something that made no sense to me. He put on gloves restaurants – and looked toward the kitchen and called for the cook.

I stared at him.

What on earth required gloves?

the lamb, which I knew he preferred,

actual gloves, the kind I had seen people use at certain

The cook came out with a bowl. A large bowl, covered. Julian opened it, and I understood immediately – and so, apparently, did Katia because she reached for her own gloves without being asked.

Seafood boil.

Julian Windsor was eating a seafood boil at his own dinner table. The man who ate at Michelin–starred restaurants and had a kitchen staff of four was sitting at the head of his table in gloves pulling apart shellfish.

And Katia was doing the same.

Like they had done it together before.

–

something between surprise and

I looked at Gail. Gail was watching them with an expression I could not fully read satisfaction, like she was watching something she had been expecting and was quietly pleased to see.

I cleared my throat.

“I did not know you liked messy food, Katia,” I said.

She did not respond.

My mother did. “Table manners, Delia,” Mama said quietly, and I frowned and then put my fork down.

We ate in silence. The lamb was excellent. The sides were excellent. Everything was excellent, and I ate all of it and tasted none of it because I was watching Julian and Katia eat seafood boil at opposite ends of the table and trying to understand when this had become a world I was living in.

Dessert came. We ate. And then Julian

set down his napkin and stood up.

“Katia,” he said. “Could you come with me? There is something I need to discuss with you regarding the London expansion.”

Katia raised an eyebrow.

Julian looked at her steadily.

She wiped her mouth. She stood. She followed him out of the dining room and up the stairs.

I watched them go.

I stroked my steak knife so hard that the sound of it against the plate made everyone at the table look at me.

I stood up.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Delia.” Grandma Celeste’s voice stopped me before I had taken two steps. “Sit down.” I looked at her, and then she continued. ”

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