My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 227

The Run Of My Own Muking

The Ruin Of My Own Making

~Katia

+25 BONUS

The legal documents in my lap were a blur of black ink on heavy white paper. I had been staring at the same paragraph about the forensic metadata of Victor’s fabricated filings for fifteen minutes, but the words refused to arrange themselves into anything coherent. My brain was completely occupied by the physical reality of my own body.

Every muscle in my back, my hips, and my thighs was aching with a deep, throbbing soreness. I could still feel the phantom pressure of the bedroom wall against my spine from three o’clock this morning. I could still hear Julian’s voice, low and vicious, whispering against my ear after he had completely spent himself inside me: Never ever in your fucking life disrespect me because I will destroy that little cunt of yours.

He had meant it. The bruises forming on my hips where his hands had pinned me were proof of it. I had spent the entire morning in court trying to sit straight in my grey suit, trying not to wince every time I had to shrift my weight on the hard wooden bench.

Sam was driving. I could see her eyes in the rearview mirror, flicking toward me every few seconds before returning to the road. She had been doing it since we left the courthouse steps. She wasn’t looking at me like an assistant who had just helped her CEO win a massive, eighteen–month legal war. She was looking at me like a friend who had been watching me slide toward a cliff and was finally done staying quiet.

I couldn’t take the silence anymore. I slammed the folder shut, the loud snap of the cardboard echoing in the cabin of the car. I threw the documents onto the backseat.

“Speak!” I said, my voice sharper than I intended.

Sam didn’t flinch. She kept her hands steady on the steering wheel, her eyes locked on the road ahead. “Are you going to want me to wait for you while you see Aiden, or is Julian going to take you home tonight?”

The directness of the question made my stomach tighten. I tried to keep my face completely blank, to deploy the same managed, corporate mask I had used against Victor Hale’s lawyers an hour ago.

“Why would my sister’s husband take me home, Sam?” I asked, keeping my voice level, cold, and professional.

Sam let out a short, harsh laugh. She didn’t look at me. She just gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Well, I’m glad you still know he’s your sister’s husband, Katia. Because you’ve been sleeping with the man every fucking night you get. So tell me, when is it going to end?”

The words landed like physical blows. I sat back against the passenger seat, the soreness in my thighs registering with a sudden, painful spike. I didn’t try to deny it. There was no point in lying to Sam. Sam had been with me since the very beginning. When my mother had stood in the entrance hall of the Kensington house and thrown me out because I was pregnant and unmarried, Sam had been the one who helped me to the car.

She had lived through the panic, the struggle, and the long, exhausting years of building I* Technologies from absolutely nothing. She knew every single line on my face. She knew when I was lying, and she knew exactly what I looked like when I had been thoroughly thoroughly fucked.

“What do you suggest I do?” I asked, my voice dropping its defensive edge. It was the first time I had openly admitted the truth of what was happening to her, and the admission felt heavy, almost suffocating, in the small space of the car.

“I know he’s not forcing himself on you,” Sam said, her voice rising, thick with frustration and genuine worry. She turned her head briefly to look at me, her eyes sharp. “You can still stop this, Katia. What if your husband suddenly shows up? What is going to happen to this little shitshow you’ve created? Are you going to tell your husband that you suddenly find your sister’s husband’s dick more appealing than his?”

I pressed my lips together, my throat suddenly dry. The mention of Jules—the nameless, faceless man I had married in Las Vegas seven years ago–made my chest ache. The ring was now on my finger every day. The memory of that night was still the one sacred thing I had kept protected through all the years of my mother’s cruelty and the struggle of raising Aiden alone.

The Ruin Of My Own Making

+25 BONUS

“Katia, I know what happened in Vegas was special to you,” Sam continued, her tone pleading now, stripping away the professional distance she usually maintained when we were working. “But are you really willing to risk it all for your sister’s husband? He is a fine man, with clearly a good dick, but what are you going to tell Aiden? That you love his simulator, man? That you’re sleeping with the uncle who has been buying him expensive models and teaching him how to fly? Think, dammit!”

I looked out the window, watching the grey buildings of Brooklyn bhur past as we crossed the bridge toward the Windsor estate. My heart was thundering so loud I was sure Sam could hear it.

“I am your friend,” Sam said, her voice shaking slightly. “And I know Julian has been fucking you, or you’ve been fucking him. But this is incredibly dangerous. The drama that would come with this if the world were fo find out–you will not survive it, Katia. Delia will make absolutely sure of that. She will drag your name, your company, and Arden through the mud until there is nothing left of you.”

She was right. Every single word she was saying was the absolute, unvarnished truth. If Delta found out, she wouldn’t just be angry; she would use the Windsor name and the Kensington money to destroy my name. She would call me a home–wrecker in every publication in the country.

And then there was Jules. The husband I had promised to find. The man Grandma Celeste was actively searching for on my behalf. What would I say to him if he came back? How could I look at the marriage certificate and tell him that I had spent the last several months letting Julian Windsor claim every inch of my body, over and over, until I was too sore to walk?

I looked at Sam. My hands were shaking in my lap, and I clasped them together to stop it.

I knew she was right. I knew the logistics. I knew the risks. But there was a truth sitting in my chest that was far more terrifying than the threat of Delia’s revenge or the public scandal.

How could I tell her that I had now fallen for my sister’s husband?

How could I explain to Sam that it wasn’t just about the physical release anymore? It wasn’t about the control games, or the “tip of his cock” teasing, or the frantic, aggressive sex in the server room or on my desk. It had crossed a line. Last week, when he had driven all the way inside me on his bed, when he had filled me so completely that I had screamed and seen stars, something had broken inside me. And this morning, when he had held me in the dark of my penthouse, slow and deep, his heart thundering against my back, I hadn’t been thinking about Jules. I had been thinking about him. Only him.

I was in love with him. I loved his touch. I loved the terrifying, possessive weight of his body on mine. I loved the way he looked at Aiden, the way he spoke to my son, and the quiet, intense shorthand they had already built between them. I loved the way he commanded me, the way he forced me to drop my corporate armor and just be a woman who belonged to him.

“I can’t just stop, Sam,” I whispered, the words feeling like ash on my tongue.

“Why?” Sam asked, her voice cracking as she turned the car onto the long, private driveway of the Windsor estate. The iron gates were already open, the massive stone mansion looming ahead of us in the grey afternoon light. “Why can’t you stop, Katia? You are the most disciplined woman I know. You built a tech empire from nothing. You survived your mother. You can survive going cold turkey on Julian Windsor’s dick.”

I looked at the house. I could see the light in the dining room window, the place where my son was currently eating pasta that Gail had made for him. My son, who had Julian’s jaw, Julian’s hands, and Julian’s way of looking at the world.

“Because it’s not just that,” I said quietly, looking directly at Sam. “It’s too late.”

Sam stopped the car in the circular driveway. She put it in park, but she didn’t turn off the engine. She turned her entire body to

face me,

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