My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 271

Just a Misunderstanding

-Katia~

Detective Reeves arrived in eleven minutes.

+15 Bonus

I had not moved from the floor. Sam had helped me to the guest chair and pressed a folded linen napkin. against my lip, her hands still trembling as she held it there. Jude was conscious by the time the NYPL unit came through the doors – conscious, seated against the wall near the window with a Windsor security guard standing over him, his head tilted back, a cloth pressed against the cut at the base of his skull.

He had not spoken since he woke up.

He had looked at me once.

That was all it took.

Reeves walked in ahead of two uniformed officers, his coat open, his expression carrying the professional assessment of a man who had seen the inside of too many offices that looked like this one. He took in the scattered files, the blood on the floor, the fire extinguisher lying on its side near the desk. He took in Jude against the wall and me in the chair with the napkin pressed to my face.

He looked at Sam.

Sam opened her mouth.

“It was a domestic disturbance call,” Reeves said. He pulled out his notebook. “Who wants to start?”

“I do,” Sam said.

“It was a misunderstanding,” I said at the same time.

Reeves looked between us.

Sam turned to look at me.

I met her eyes and held them. The message in my face was not subtle – I had known Sam for fourteen years, and she couldt read everything I was thinking, and right now what I was thinking was not here, not now, not like this.

She pressed her lips together.

Reeves walked closer, stopping a few feet from my chair. He looked at the split lip, the mark on my cheek that was alrakin darkening into something that was going to be very visible for the next several days.

“Ms. Kensington,” he said. “You want to tell me what happened?”

I took the napkin from my face. I folded it carefully in my lap.

1

“My husband arrived unexpectedly,” I said. “We had an argument I got out of hand it was a misunderstanding

The word tasted wrong in my mouth

Reeves looked at Jude against the wall

Jude looked back at Reeves with the calm, composed expression of a man who had already decided to this was going to go Despite the wire mesh jaw, the swollen eye, and the blood in his hair from the fire extinguisher, he managed to project the air of a man who was in complete control of his own narrative

“Detective,” Jude said, his voice slightly impaired but carrying that unhurried British weight even through the damage. “As my wife said. A misunderstanding between husband and wife We are both very sorry for the the unvenience to your department

The word wife landed in the room

Reeves looked at me.

I did not correct it.

+15 Bonu

I was aware of Jude’s eyes on the side of my face. I was aware of the way he had whispered it when Reeves first stepped through the door – leaning forward from where he sat against the wall, his voice low enough that only I could hear it.

Think about Aiden.

That was all he had said.

And those two words had shut every door in my chest simultaneously every instinct toward fight, toward truth, toward standing up and telling Reeves exactly what had happened in this office. Two words that had reduced me to the woman sitting i this chair with a folded napkin in her lap and the wrong words in my mouth.

I was not afraid of Jude Wolfe.

I was afraid of what a man with his resources could do to a custody case involving a six–year–old who was currently living in the Windsor family mansion and carrying the surname of a woman whose marriage was publicly disputed.

So I sat in the chair.

And I used the wrong words.

“It was a misunderstanding,” I said again.

Reeves wrote something in his notebook. He did not look convinced. He was a detective – he had been a detective long enough to know the shape of a statement that was true and the shape of one that was covering something, and the look he gave me said he knew exactly which one he was hearing.

But he also knew that without a complainant, he had nothing to work with.

He closed the notebook.

“We will need statements from both parties before we leave,” he said. “And I would recommend-”

“Of course,” Jude said smoothly.

Reeves looked at Sam.

Sam was looking at me.

“Is there anything you want to add?” Reeves asked her.

“Yes,” Sam said. Her voice was steady. The voice she used when she had decided on something, “It was not a misunderstanding. Mr. Wolfe physically assaulted Ms. Kensington in her own office I witnessed it have the masks at her as evidence, and I have the security camera footage from this floor which will show

“Sam,” I said.

She stopped and looked at me

“It was a misunderstanding,” I said quietly

The silence between us was three seconds long and contained tout teen years of friendship and everything that act with in

Sam’s jaw tightened

She looked away from me and toward the window and sand nothing else

Reeves glanced between us one more time. Then he nodded at the uniformed officers and moved toward Jude to Like his

statement

Just a Morstanding

+15 Bonus

The moment Reeves‘ back was to us, Sam crossed to my chair and crouched down in front of me, her voice dropping to barely a

breath.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify