My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 206

Breakfast B

Breakfast In Bed

-Julian’s

I had called Seraphina at five in the morning.

+25 BONUS

She had answered on the second ring that was the thing about Seraphina, she was always available when the money was right, and she had never once asked a question she did not want the answer to. I had told her what I needed. She had arrived at the estate forty minutes later wearing her own coat over nothing because had asked her to put on the gown I had left outside the guest room door.

She had done it without asking why.

That was also the thing about Seraphina.

She was standing in the kitchen now, holding the breakfast tray I had asked the cook to prepare two portions, enough for two people, the things I knew Katia would want in the morning—and looking at me with the expression she wore when she was about to present a bill.

She handed me the tray.

“You are going to pay more for that slap, Julian,” she said. Her voice was pleasant. It was always pleasant. “I did not sign up to be slapped by your wife. Two thousand dollars for the slap. I am not playing with you.”

I smiled.

That was the thing about her. Money always talked. There was never any ambiguity, never any drama that could not be resolved with a clear financial arrangement. It was, in its way, the simplest relationship I had.

“Two thousand,” I said. “Done.”

“Thank you,” she adjusted the sleeve of the gown. “Julian.”

“Yes.”

“Why do you keep that Delia woman when you do not even like her?” She tilted her head slightly. “This is not the first time I have asked you.”

“No, “I agreed. “It is not.”

“So?”

“It is a long story,” I said. “But I will sort it out soon.”

୮

She looked at me for a moment. Seraphina had always had the ability to look at a situation and understand more of it than she was meant to without asking any further questions She had been doing it for as long as I had known her.

“Well,” she said. She looked at the tray. “Whoever is going to eat this breakfast is very lucky.”

I smiled at her.

She looked at me with the particular expression that meant she knew everything she needed to know and was choosing not to say it.

I left her standing in the kitchen and went upstairs.

She would find the guest room. I had left it prepared. Seraphina knew how to navigate a house.

The bedroom was quiet.

Katia was still asleep. She had not moved

she was on her side, the duvet pulled up, her hair loose across the pillow. The

morning light was coming through the curtains at an angle that caught the ends of it.

Breakfast in Sed

+25 BONUS

I put food on her plate. She ate. I ate. The bedroom was quiet around us the morning light moving, the city beyond the windows doing its Sunday thing, the house below us quiet in the way it was quiet after a significant evening.

We ate breakfast together.

She did not ask me what any of it meant. She did not ask about the families or Delia or the London expansion that had never been about the London expansion. She ate her food and drank her coffee and sat in my bed in the morning light, and I sat beside her and thought about seven years and how this was what the end of their looked like.

Not a revelation. Not a confrontation.

Just breakfast.

My wife was eating breakfast in my bed on a Sunday morning while the city moved below us and the conversation that still needed to happen sat quietly between us, waiting for its moment.

It could wait a little longer.

She handed me her empty cup.

I refilled it.

She took it back without saying anything.

That was enough for now. Though, I will not tell her I was the man from seven years ago. She will have to earn that part.

t ever in your life slap me, Mrs. Windsor, I bite

lia

d waited until two in the morning

d sat in the armchair in my wing with my coffee going cold and my eyes on the corridor and my ears trained on every sound he house–a door, footsteps, the particular sound of someone leaving. I had told myself I was not waiting. I was simply

1. ke. People were awake at two in the morning all the time for completely unrelated reasons.

l asleep in the armchair at two fifteen.

en I woke up, my neck hurt and my coffee was stone cold and the corridor outside my wing was quiet and empty and the sun

coming through the curtains at an angle that said it was at least eight in the morning.

tup and listened, and there was nothing.

ent downstairs.

an was in the kitchen. Coffee in hand, dressed, the composed, unhurried version of him that appeared every morning ardless of what had happened the night before.

hat time did she leave?” I said.

an looked at me.

look was the one I had learned to dread–not angry, not cold exactly. The look of a man who had decided I was slightly eath the effort of a full response.

would be wise,” he said, “to stop acting like you are my wife when you are a placeholder.” I stared at him, and he went on, “I

think it is about time you went back to your father’s house,” he said. “It is not as though we are married.”

t the words land. I let them land. And then I looked at him.

on’t care,” I said. “As long as you are unable to tell your family we are not married, I am not going anywhere. You want to pup appearances? Fine. So do I.”

an looked at me for a moment.

n he let out a laugh. Not a real laugh–the dry, mocking version, the one that meant he found something faintly absurd.

ore he could say anything else, I heard footsteps on the stairs.

ht footsteps. The particular unhurried rhythm of someone completely comfortable in a space.

babe,” a voice said. “You didn’t tell me we were going to have company at the breakfast table.” I turned and saw red, aphina.

was in a robe–his robe, I recognized it—her hair loose, with the expression of a woman who had woken up in a place she sidered entirely her own and had encountered an unexpected inconvenience. She walked to Julian and kissed him on the ek and smiled at me.

Delia,” she said.

ared at her.

robe. His robe. The kiss. The way she said ‘hi Delia‘ like I was a distant acquaintance she had not expected to run into at eone else’s home.

at the fuck was going on?

en did she get here? What time had my sister left? Had my sister left? Was Katia still in this house and Seraphina was also in

this house and Julian was standing in the kitchen drinking his coffee like this was a completely normal Sunday morning?

“Argh, babe,” Seraphina said, turning back to Julian with a small smile, “let’s not disturb Delia. I bet she doesn’t want to hear about what an alpha you are in bed.” She picked up the breakfast tray from the counter. “Maybe we should take our breakfast upstairs.”

I crossed the kitchen in four steps and slapped her.

The sound of it filled the room.

Seraphina’s head turned with the impact. She stood very still for a moment.

Then she turned back to me, put the tray down, and slapped me so hard I went down.

I hit the kitchen floor and stayed there for a second–not because I was hurt, but because the sheer force of it had taken my legs out from under me, and I needed a moment to process that I had just been put on the floor by a model.

Seraphina looked down at me.

“Don’t ever in your life slap me, Mrs. Windsor,” she said. Her voice was completely calm. The voice of a woman who had done this before and was not remotely bothered by it. “I bite.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify