My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 374

The Woused Wife

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The Wounded Wife

Delia’s POV

By four o’clock the entire city was screaming my name.

I sat on the edge of the chaise in my father’s formal sitting room with the television muted and every one of my phones lit up like a Christmas tree. Three different news channels ran the same grainy phone video of Julian’s hand connecting with my face on a continuous loop. The handprint on my left cheek had darkened into a deep, ugly red that looked even better under studio lighting. I had refused foundation for every single interview Let them see it. Let them stare.

The headline crawling across the bottom of the screen read: BILLIONAIRE JULIAN WINDSOR ASSAULTS WIFE IN PUBLIC OVER CHILD

I smiled.

Another channel had already upgraded it to: WINDSOR WIFE BREAKS SILENCE “HE HIT ME BECAUSE I QUESTIONED THE BOY HE CLAIMED AS HIS SON”

Perfect!

I had given four exclusive interviews in the last two hours. Soft voice with broken eyes. The exact amount of trembling in my hands that made every female anchor lean forward with sympathy. I told them I had loved him for years. I told them I had stood by him through every scandal, every late night, every cold shoulder.

I told them I only wanted my husband back and answers about the child he had suddenly claimed in public while putting his hands on me. I never raised my voice. I never cursed. I simply looked wounded and expensive and wronged.

The public ate it with both hands.

Social media had already crowned me the victim of the year. Women I had never met were posting black-and-white photos of themselves with the caption “I am Delia.” Hashtags demanding/Julian’s arrest trended within forty minutes. One vicious blogger had started a petition to have him removed from every board he sat on. Another account compiled side-by-side photos of my bruised face and the video of him shouting “my son” while striking me and simply wrote, “A man who hits his wife over a child is not a hero.”

I refreshed the comments under my own post for the hundredth time.

He hit her in front of children. Monster!

Protect Delia Windsor at all costs.

What kind of man slaps his wife and then claims some random boy as his son?

Julian Windsor is finished.

I felt a deep, vicious satisfaction settle in my chest. Julian had always hated the spotlight He avoided cameras the way most mon avoided commitment. He built entire floors of glass in his buildings but refused every interview, every charity gala phisto line, and every red-carpet appearance that wasn’t strictly necessary for business. He preferred to move through the world like a ghost who signed billion-dollat deals in silence. Tonight the ghost was being dragged into the light with both hands around throat, and I was the one bolding the rope.

My phone rang. Unknown number falready knew who it was before I answered.

“Delia ”

Julian’s voice was jce. No greeting No anger. Just that flat, lethal calm that used to make me weak and evity dead

to scream.

I put him on speaker so I could keep scrolling through the frats directed at lom

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“Husband,” I answered sweetly. “Have you seen the news? They’re calling you a wife-beater. It’s trending worldwide.”

“What you have done will not stop me from announcing my real wife tonight.”

The words landed exactly as I expected, cold and final. I laughed, soft and sharp.

“Your real wife is sitting right here with your handprints on her face, Julian. The entire city already knows it. You can stand up whatever little dinner you’ve arranged and say whatever pretty lies you want. No one will believe you. Not after this. Not after you hit me in public and called that boy your son.”

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Silence stretched on the other end. I could almost hear him breathing. Controlled. Dangerous.

“You made a mistake,” he said at last. “You involved the press. You involved my son. You will regret both.”

“Your son?” I repeated, voice dripping mockery. “That little boy is not your son. You have no children. And I am still your wife. The papers are already filed. Legal separation. Extreme cruelty. By morning every judge in this city will know exactly what kind of man you are.”

“You were never my wife.”

The same line again. Always the same line. I stood up so fast the chaise scraped against the floor.

“Keep saying it,” I hissed. “Keep repeating that lie while the world watches the bruises you left on me. Keep pretending while every mother who saw you hit me at that school is ready to testify. You hate the spotlight, Julian. You’ve spent your entire life hiding from it. Well, congratulations. I just dragged you into the center of it, and I am not finished.”

He was quiet for so long I thought he had hung up. Then his voice came back, lower, colder.

“Come to the dinner if you don’t want to humiliate yourself further. Or stay away and watch from the screens like everyone else. Either way, tonight the truth comes out. And when it does, no amount of tears or carefully placed bruises will save you.”

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone for three full seconds, then hurled it across the room. It hit the marble fireplace, and the screen spiderwebbed. I didn’t care. I already had three backups.

My hands were shaking. Not from fear. From pure, undiluted rage.

He still thought he could control the narrative. He still thought he could stand in front of whatever carefully selected audience he had invited and simply declare some other woman his wife, and the world would nod and move on.

He had no idea how thoroughly I had poisoned the well. Every camera in the city was already pointed at him with disgust. Every headline already painted him as the villain who slapped his wife and claimed a child that wasn’t his, in tried to announce another woman tonight, the backlash would bury him.

I walked to the mirror and studied my reflection. The bruises were perfect. Dark enough to photograph well, fresh enough to still look painful. I touched the worst one and kissed for practice. Good. The pain was still real. That would help the performance.

I called my lawyer again.

“Is everything tiled?”

“Yes, The separation papers hit the system twenty minutes ago. I leaked them to the same three joialists. They’re alway running with it.”

“Good. I want a statement ready the second he opens his mouth tonight. Something about how the abused wife was forced to watch fuer husband publicly replace her. Make Il devastating”

“Already drafted.”

1ining up and moved to the closet. The Ivory silk blouse to walter was wrinkled stripped iterand chose a say black dress

The Wounded Wite

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that made the red marks on my face stand out like accusations. Mininal jewelry. No wedding ring. Let them notice its absen Let them write about it.

My father’s butler knocked once and opened the door.

“Miss… the car is ready. And there are seven news vans at the gates. They’re asking if you’ll give another statement before yo leave.”

I smiled at my reflection.

“Tell them I’ll speak to them on the steps. And tell the driver to take the long way. I want every camera in the city to follow me t that dinner.”

I picked up a new phone, checked my makeup one last time, and walked downstairs with my head high and my bruises on full display.

The moment the front doors opened, flashes exploded. Microphones were shoved toward my face. Voices shouted my name from every direction.

“Delia! Delia, is it true Julian is announcing another woman as his wife tonight?”

“Will you confront him at the dinner?”

“How do you feel about the child he claimed in public?”

I stopped on the top step, let the cameras drink in every mark on my face, and spoke in the soft, broken voice that had already won me the city.

“I am still Mrs. Julian Windser,” I said clearly. “I was his wife this morning when he put his hands on me in front of children and called another woman’s son his own. I will still be his wife tonight when he tries to erase me. I am going to that dinner. And I am going to look him in the eye while he lies to the world. That is all I have to say.”

I walked through the flashing lights without another word, climbed into the back of the black town car, and stared straight ahead as the gates opened and the convoy of news vans fell in behind us like a funeral procession.

My phone, the unbroken one, buzzed with a new message from the private investigator.

“Folder delivered. Everything is ready to leak the second you give the word.”

I typed back one word. “Wait.”

Not yet. I wanted to see Julian’s face when he realized the entire city already hated him. I wanted to watch him try to stand up and claim another woman while every screen in New York still showed the video of him striking me and falling that boy his son I wanted the humiliation to be complete and public and irreversible.

The car turned onto the long private road that led to the Windsor estate. I could already see the glow of lights through the trees Guests were arriving. Valets in black gloves. Security at the gates looked overwhelmed by the sudden media presence that had followed me here.

1 checked my reflection in the dark window one last time. The bruises looked even better under the fading evening light My eyes were clear. My mouth was steady. I looked exactly like what I needed to be the wounded wife who had been slipped, publicly discarded, and forced to watch her husband claim a child that wasn’t his, arriving to face the man du hast dope

Julian though he could announce his real wife tonight. He was about to hear that the only wire the city nowego still wearing his handprints on her face

i smoothed roy dress, took on low breath, and waited for the car to stop.

thes

The diret was about to begin And I was going to make sure every single person that cocju remembered my napo long after the night was over.