My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 236

The Claim !The Kiss)

+25 BONUS

The Claim (The Kiss)

~Katia-

The media wall was positioned near the exit to the VIP terrace, a massive step–and–repeat branded with the I* Technologies

and WEG logos.

The press was a wall of noise the rapid clicking of shutter lenses, the bright, blinding flash of bulbs, and the shouting of names from journalists desperate for a quote. I stood slightly to the side, my glass of water still in my hand, watching Delia execute her performance.

She had dragged Julian toward the center of the backdrop. Her hand was locked around his arm, her body angled so close to his that the red fabric of her dress was practically bleeding into his dark suit. She was smiling for the carneras, the wide, bright, rehearsed smile of a Kensington who had been taught from birth that public perception was the only currency that mattered.

Juliar was not smiling.

He stood there like a stone pillar, his jaw set, his eyes completely dark as he stared over the heads of the photographers. He was tolerating it. He was letting her play the wife for exactly three more frames before he walked away, and Delia knew it, her fingers gripping his sleeve with a desperate, white–knuckled tightness.

Then, the noise of the press bank shifted.

It didn’t quiet down; it reached a frantic, screeching peak. The photographers began shifting their lenses, abandoning the shot

of Julian and Delia to capture the woman moving past the security stanchions.

Tessa Sterling didn’t wait for an invitation. She walked straight past the red carpet handlers, her gold gown catching the light with every long, athletic stride. She didn’t look at the cameras. She didn’t look at the reporters shouting her name.

And she didn’t look at Delia.

Tessa walked right past my sister as if she were nothing more than a piece of cheap cardboard scenery. Her eyes were locked entirely on Julian. The certainty in her face was absolute–the look of a woman who had decided years ago that something belonged to her, an had simply arrived to collect the debt.

Delia’s smile from

and stayed on Julian’s arm, but her body went entirely rigid as Tessa stepped onto the branded backdrop, directly into their space.

“Tessa,” Delia began, her voice high and sharp, trying to inject her standard social authority into the air. “We were just-

Tessa didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge the sound of Delia’s voice. She didn’t give her a fraction of a second.

She stopped inches from Julian.

r

In front of the flashing cameras, in front of the fifty journalists, in front of Delia, and in front of me, Tessa reached out. Her hands, strong and calloused from years of gripping a steering wheel at two hundred miles per hour, grabbed Julian by the lapels of his suit.

She pulled him down. And she kissed him.

It wasn’t a polite cheek kiss. It wasn’t a social greeting. She pressed her mouth fully, deeply against his, her lips parting as she claimed him in front of the entire world

A collective gasp went through the media line. The camera flashes went from a steady rhythm to a blinding, continuous strobe, the white light washing over the three of them

Inside my chest, something went completely black.

The cold glass of water in my hand felt like ice against my skin. Seeing her mouth on him seeing another woman’s fingers curled into the fabric of the suit I had watched him take off in my bedroom didn’t make me flinch. It didn’t make me want to cry. It made me want to take the heavy glass in my hand, step forward, and shatter it directly against her jaw.

1/4

The Claim (The Kiss)~

+25 BONUS

I knew the taste of his mouth. I knew the aggressive, possessive weigh! of his tongue. I knew the raw, vicious way he had claimed my body against the wall of my penthouse at three in the morning, whispering that he would destroy me if I ever let another man near me. The lethal, territorial instinct that I had been trying to suppress since Las Vegas flared in my veins like

gasoline.

But I didn’t move.

I stood exactly where I was. I kept my shoulders straight, my chin up, and my face arranged into a flawless, untouchable mask of mild, highly amused disbelief. I looked at the three of them as if I were watching a cheap, entertaining soap opera at a terminal

gate.

“Oh my god!” Delia’s voice broke.

It was a loud, raw screech of pure, public humiliation. Her hand dropped from Julian’s arm, her face turning a violent, blotchy red under the harsh white lights of the cameras. The rehearsed wife was gone, replaced by a screaming, hysterical woman whose public illusion had just been shattered in a fraction of a second.

“Get off him! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Delia screamed, her fingers clawing at the air as she tried to pull Tessa

away

Julian didn’t wait for Delia’s hysterics to finish.

He reacted. He didn’t just step back; he shoved Tessa. Hard.

His large hands clamped around her wrists, twisting them off his lapels, with a sudden, violent torque, and he pushed her back. The force of the shove made Tessa’s heels skid on the slick red carpet, her gold dress swishing as she had to take two quick steps

back to keep her balance.

Julian’s face was a mask of murderous, frozen fury. His chest was heaving, his dark eyes locked onto Tessa with a silent, icy threat that would have frozen water in a desert. The alpha control he had maintained all evening had vanished, replaced by a raw, lethal anger that made the photographers closest to him step back, their fingers freezing on their shutters.

“Touch me again, Tes room. “And I will but

lian said. His voice was low, quiet, and carried a weight that cut straight through the noise of the ther’s company and dismantle it for scrap before the sun comes up tomorrow.”

The threat was absolute. It wasn’t a corporate warning; it was a promise.

Tessa didn’t look frightened. She stood her ground, her fingers slowly tracing her own wrists where his grip had left immediate, dark red marks under the skin. She looked at him with a slow, victorious smile—the smile of a woman who had gotten exactly what she wanted. She had made her claim. She had shown the room, the cameras, and the public that Julian Windsor belonged in her past, and she intended to put him in her future.

“Five years, Julian,” Tessa said quietly, her eyes burning with her own stubborn heat. “You’re still as dramatic as you were in Monaco”

She turned, her gold dress catching the light one last time, and walked away. The crowd parted for her instantly, the press scrambling to follow her as she left the media wall

”

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