My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 197

Slapped Twee

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Slapped Twice

-Delia-

I drove to Brooklyn on autopilot.

Not Katia’s Brooklyn. The Kensington family home, where Mama would be awake by five because Mama was always awake by five. The woman ran on a schedule that predated electricity, and she was not going to change it for anyone.

The gate opened when I entered the code. The house was in the kitchen only.

I walked in.

She was at the kitchen table with her tea and her reading glasses. She looked at me–at the redness on my cheek, at my clothes still the same ones from last night, at the bag strap twisted on my shoulder and raised her eyebrow.

“Why are you here this early?” she said. “You left your husband in bed alone?”

“Not you again, Mother!”

It came out louder than I intended. Mama blinked. I pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.

“I have had enough eyebrows raised at me for one night,” I said. “Julian, that assistant of Katia’s, and now you. I cannot take another eyebrow.”

Mama set her tea down. “What happened?”

I told her.

“I got home at midnight,” I said. “Julian came in right behind me. I asked him where he had been. He laughed at me. Asked me when we had started that nonsense.“I paused, then I went on. “I told him that if we were still in the same house, he would answer to me. He said something about being with someone very important. And when I pushed back, I told him he had been sleeping with my sister. I asked him if he had a story prepared for that; I meant to tell our families that he had been fucking

Katia.”

Mother was very still.

“And he said he did,” I said. “He said he would tell them it felt good.”

The kitchen was quiet.

“So I drove to Katia’s penthouse,” I said. “At three in the morning. Sam opened the door and offered me water. When Katia came out, she smiled at me like she had been expecting me.”

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“And?” Mother asked.

“I slapped her,” I said.

Mother closed her eyes.

“She slapped me back harder,” I said. “I lost my balance. Sam caught me.” I paused. “I asked Katia if she was sleeping with Julian. She wouldn’t confirm or deny it. She just kept asking me which answer would make me sleep better at night.” My jaw tightened. “I called Aiden a bastard. She put me on the floor. Told me to get out.”

Mama looked at my cheek. “She hit you twice.”

“The second time I went down,” I said.

Mama picked up her tea. “Men say things when they feel cornered. Perhaps if you had not pressed him at midnight-

“He was not cornered, Mother. He was enjoying it. He smiled when he said it. The real smile. The one I have never once seen him give me in eight months.”

Stopped Twice

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Manja set her cup down.

“There is something I have not told anyone,” Isaid. “Julian has never come to my bed. Not once since we got married. We sleep in separate wings. I have been his wife in name only while he gives everything he refuses to give me to my sister.” I felt the words land in my own chest. “He looks at Katia the way he has never once looked at me. Every family dinner meeting. I think the affair has been going on for months.”

The kitchen was very quiet.

“Why did you not tell me this before?” Mama said.

“Because I kept thinking it would change,” I said. “I kept thinking that if I stayed, if I were present, if I were patient–eventually he would see me. Eventually he would stop looking past me.” I paused. “He never did.”

“Delia.” Mama’s voice was careful. “Has Julian ever given you any reason to believe this marriage was real to him?”

I looked at the table.

The honest answer was no. From the very beginning it had been no. He had told me before the wedding and before I signed our arrangement that he would never touch me, that I was not his type, and that this was an arrangement and nothing more. I had agreed to it because I had believed that love could be built from proximity and patience and the willingness to be present.

I had been wrong.

But I could not say any of that to my mother.

“I believed it was real,” I said. Which was true enough.

Mother looked at me for a long moment.

“That girl,” she said. The cold in her voice was the kind that appeared when Mama had decided something was a problem she was going to manage. “She comes back after six years with a child and a company and immediately sets her eyes on your

husband.”

“The first thing she does,” I said quietly, “is become exactly the woman Julian Windsor wants.”

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

“I want you to go back,” Mama said. “Go back to that house and do not give Katia the satisfaction of seeing you broken. You are a Kensington. You do not run.”

I looked at her.

“And Julian?” I said.

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