My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 217

What If I Like Married Men

-Delia-

Julian was not reacting.

That was the problem. That was the entire problem, and it was driving me out of my mind because the whole point of this dinner -the whole carefully constructed, Christopher-sourced, both-families invited point of this dinner – was to make Julian Windsor show his hand. To make him react. To see something on his face that confirmed what I already knew in my bones.

There was nothing.

He was eating his lamb with the calm, unhurried attention of a man who had nowhere to be and nothing on his mind. He was listening to conversations around the table. He was answering when addressed. He was doing every single thing a man at a family dinner was supposed to do, and he was not once not once – looking at Christopher the way a man looked at someone sitting next to his woman.

I watched Christopher lean toward Katía.

I watched Katia smile.

I watched Julian cut his meat.

I wanted to fucking flip the table.

I did not flip the table. I was a Kensington, and Kensingtons did not flip tables at dinner. I sat and I watched and i told myself that the absence of a reaction was itself information-that a man who felt nothing would not need to control himself, and Julian

Windsor was controlling himself very carefully, and that meant something

Or it meant nothing.

I could not tell, and not being able to tell was its own particular torture.

I looked at my food.

The lamb was excellent. I had eaten four bites. Mama had outdone herself with the table–the flowers, the candles, the seating that had looked casual and was absolutely not casual-and Christopher was doing exactly what he had been brought here to do, which was sit next to Katia and be charming and interested and give Julian Windsor something to react to.

Julian was not reacting.

He was drinking his water. He was responding to Dad’s question about something in the financial news. He was being a perfectly pleasant guest at a dinner in a house he had not been to before, and he was completely, serenelf, infuriatingly fine.

I looked at Katia.

Katia was not looking at Julian.

That was also information. The very deliberate way she was not looking at him. The way her attention stayed with Christopher and the conversation and the table and never once drifted across to the man sitting directly across from her.

You only worked that hard at not looking at someone if looking at them was something you very much wanted to do.

Then I saw it. Not Julian and Christopher. Not Julian and Katia.

Julian and Aiden.

They had been doing it the whole evening, and I had not noticed until now because I had been watching the wrong thing. The boy was on Julian’s right–I had assumed Mama had seated him there, but looking at the name cards, I realized that was not right, Aiden’s card was on the other side and Julian had moved him–and they had been in a conversation of their own the entire dinner. Whispered. Close. The private language of two people who had a shorthand the rest of the table was not part of

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Aiden said something I could not hear.

Julian’s mouth moved. Whatever he said tnade Aiden press his lips together in the way he did when he was trying not to laugh.

I looked at them.

When had this happened?

This boy and my husband were leaning toward each other over the dinner table, sharing something that had no room for anyone else in it. Aiden had not looked at Christopher once since the interrogation at the start of the meal.

He was not interested in Christopher. He was sitting on Julian’s right with his napkin on his lap and his back straight and his full attention on the man beside him.

I looked at the tablecloth.

I picked it up.

I put it down.

I picked it up again.

I stopd.

“Murn.” My voice came out steadier than I expected. “Can I have a word?” I said heading to the kitchen. The kitchen was quiet.

“I have a plan,” I said.

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