My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 311

.15 Rombs

Ask Your Daughter

Katia

Martha was the first to break the silence, though it took her several seconds to find words at all her mouth opening and closing twice before anything came out of it.

“I don’t understand,” she said, her eyes moving from me to Delia and back again, the same confusion settling deeper into her face the longer the silence stretched on. “What do you mean, would it be cheating? Julian isn’t your husband, Katia. He’s Delia’s. What exactly are you implying?”

“Ask your daughter,” I said.

“I’m asking you,” Martha said, her voice climbing slightly, the careful composure she had spent the evening performing finally beginning to fray at the edges. “You’re the one who said it. You’re the one standing in the middle of your own living room accusing your own sister’s husband of something. The least you can do is explain yourself.”

“I have explained myself,” I said. “I asked a simple question. Is Julian Windsor your daughter’s husband? I would like an answer, and I would like it from her, not from me.”

Martha turned then, slowly, toward Delia, the same expectant brightness in her expression that she had worn at the front door two nights earlier waiting for Julian to produce a gift he never intended to give.

“Delia,” she said. “Tell her. Tell your sister that Julian is your husband, so we can move past whatever this is and finish dinner like a normal family.”

Delia did not answer.

“Delia,” Martha said again, sharper this time, the question beginning to sound less like reassurance and more like a demand.

Still nothing.

David finally found his voice, setting his glass down on the bar cart with a small, careful click, as though the sound itself might be enough to settle a room that had stopped listening to him entirely. “Maybe we should all just sit back down,” he said. “Have dessert. Talk about something else.”

“Nobody wants dessert, David,” Martha snapped, not even looking at him, her attention fixed entirely on her eldest daughter. “I want an answer.”

“I think,” Jude said, stepping forward with the easy, practiced charm he had been performing all evening. though it sat a little thinner on him now than it had an hour ago, “this entire conversation has gotten away from what actually matters here. Katia is clearly upset. Perhaps we should focus on that instead of turning this into an interrogation of Delia’s marriage.”

“Don’t,” I said, and the single word landed sharp enough that Jude actually stopped moving. “Don’t you dare try to redirect this room toward sympathy for me right now. I am not upset, Jude. I am furious, and there is a difference, and I would appreciate you not using my anger as a shield for whatever you’re afraid this conversation is about to uncover.”

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Jude’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing further.

“Why is this so difficult to answer,” Martha said, turning back to Delia, her voice no longer climbing but dropping instead, something genuinely uneasy threading through it now. “It is a simple question, Delia Either he is your husband or he isn’t. You wear his name. You sit at the head of his table. You have spent two years introducing yourself as Mrs. Windsor at every gala this family has ever attended. Surely that is not a difficult thing to confirm.”

“Mother,” Delia said quietly, the first word she had managed since I asked my question, “this is not the place.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” I said. “You decided the place the moment you accused me of wanting your husband in front of everyone in this room. If you wanted privacy, you should have thought of that before you opened your mouth.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually-”

“What?” I said. “Fight back? Ask the question you didn’t want anyone else to ask out loud?”

David had gone entirely still by the window, his eyes fixed on me with an expression that suggested he, too, had begun asking himself questions he had spent two years avoiding, the kind of questions a man only let himself consider once someone else finally said the thing out loud first.

“Delia,” he said, quietly now, none of Martha’s sharpness in it, just something tired and a little lost, “is everything alright between you and Julian? Truly.”

“Of course it is,” Delia said, too quickly, the words tumbling out before she had clearly decided to say

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