My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 28

The Invisible Bride

Delia’s POV

The sunlight that spilled across the silk sheets of the East Wing guest suite was too bright, too cold, and entirely too quiet.

I blinked my eyes open, the heavy silence of the Windsor estate pressing against my eardrums like a physical weight. My hand reached for the other side of the king–sized bed, searching for the warmth of a body, the presence of a husband, or even just the messy reality of a shared night.

It was cold. The Egyptian cotton was perfectly smooth, undisturbed by anyone but myself.

Of course it was. I hadn’t spent the night in the master suite; I hadn’t even been invited past the double oak doors of Julian’s private quarters. Julian had been brutal in his honesty before the ceremony. He had sat me down and told me where I stand, his flinty blue eyes devoid of any warmth, and told me exactly what this was: a transaction. He was already married–legally, secretly, and irrevocably. I was a “paper wife,” a public–facing placeholder to settle the Kensington debt. I had no legal rights to his fortune, no claim to his bed, and no future as anything other than a name on a redundant marriage certificate.

I had accepted those terms. I had told myself that being the “public” Mrs. Windsor was enough. I wanted the diamonds, the prestige, and the look on everyone’s face when I walked into the Met Gala on his arm.

I sat up, pushing my tangled hair back, my reflection mocking me from the floor–to–ceiling mirrors. I was the wife of the richest man in the world on paper, yet I was waking up in what was essentially a very expensive guest room. After the “celebration” of our union, Julian had walked me to the entrance of my room, offered a curt nod that was more “landlord” than “husband,” and

disappeared.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand, my heart hammering. I needed the world to see me. If I couldn’t have Julian’s heart or his money, I would have the fame. I expected my lock screen to be a graveyard of missed calls and hundreds of texts from the women who had looked down on the Kensingtons for years. I wanted to see the headlines: The Wedding of the Century. I wanted to see the world finally acknowledging me as the woman who held the Windsor name.

I swiped the screen open.

Nothing.

I checked Vogue. Nothing. I checked Page Six. Nothing. I scrolled through the tabloids, my breath coming in short, jagged gasps. It was as if the wedding had occurred in a vacuum, scrubbed from the digital record before it could even hit the wire. Julian’s security teams hadn’t just protected his privacy, they had enforced a total media blackout. He had made me an invisible wife. He had given me the name to satisfy the contract, but he had denied me the only thing I truly craved: the audience.

“He didn’t even give me the front page,” I hissed, my grip tightening on the phone until my knuckles turned white. “After everything I gave up…”

My thumb hovered over the I*******m icon. If the news wouldn’t cover me, I would cover myself. I had 1.5 million followers, a community I had spent six years painstakingly building with staged charity events and curated lies. I would post a photo of the Windsor ring. That would start the fire.

But when I opened the app, my feed wasn’t full of my wedding. It was full of Katia.

The first thing that hit me wasn’t the image; it was the location tag. South of France. Rage, hot and searing, rose in my throat. had spent my entire life trying to embody European sophistication, carefully curating an image of “old world” class, yet I had never actually set foot in France. My parents had always deemed it “unnecessary” for my education, keeping me close to the New York social circuit to find a husband. And here was Katia, lounging in the French Riviera, looking like she was born for the Mediterranean sun.

I scrolled through the carousel of photos, each one a fresh slap to the face. The cockpit shot, Katia actually piloting a multi- million dollar jet. The boat wake, the kind of freedom I thought I was buying with this marriage.

And then, the third photo.

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