My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 387

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I did not hire you to be a courier

Delia’s POV

I drove back to the Vesper building with both rejected folders on the passenger seat. The one Julian had pushed toward me without opening. The one Katia had dropped back onto her desk like trash. My hands stayed tight on the wheel the entire way. I kept replaying Katia’s voice in my head even though I tried not

You let this company turn you into their lapdog and their laughing stock.

They saw the desperation.

The only person in this room who traded her body and her dignity for a last name is you.

I parked in the underground garage and sat there for a full minute before I forced myself out of the car. The elevator ride to the top floor felt longer than usual. Every floor that passed made the knot in my stomach pull tighter. I had failed twice in one day. First Julian. Then Katia. There was no version of this conversation with Noah that ended well.

His assistant waved me through without a word. I knocked once and entered.

Noah stood at the window with his back to me. He did not turn around when the door clicked shut.

“Report,” he said.

I set both folders on his desk.

“Julian Windsor declined. He said WEG does not take outside capital and that the offer showed we do not understand how his company works. Katia Windsor also declined. She asked detailed questions about IT technologies that I could not answer. She refused to sign anything.”

Noah turned slowly. His face gave nothing away, but his eyes were cold in a way that made my spine stiffen.

“You went to both of them,” he said, “and you returned with nothing.”

“Yes.”

“You represented this company twice. Both times you looked unprepared. Both times you handed the Windsors a reason to laugh at us before we even launch.”

I kept my voice level. “The proposals were given to me as they were. I delivered them exactly as instructed.”

Noah walked toward the desk and stopped on the opposite side. He looked at the folders the way someone looks at evidence of a mistake they already expected.

“I did not hire you to be a courier,” he said. “I hired you because you claimed to know these people. You claimed you could walk into their offices and leave with results. Instead you walked in and confirmed

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every doubt they already had about this company. And about you.”

Heat crawled up my neck. I forced myself not to look away.

“I can still fix the seating and the run of the gala,” I said. “The event itself is on track.”

Noah’s mouth curved into something that was not a smile.

“The event is the only reason you still have a desk in this building. Do not confuse that with value.”

He picked up Katia’s folder, opened it, and scanned the first page. Then he dropped it again.

“She called you a lapdog,” he said. It was not a question.

My stomach dropped. “How do you know that?”

“I know everything that happens in rooms that matter to this company. She told you that Vesper is using your desperation. That we send you to run errands because you need to stay relevant. Was she wrong?”

I said nothing.

Noah stepped closer until the desk was the only thing between us.

“Answer me.”

“She was trying to get under my skin.”

“That is not what I asked. Was she wrong?”

The words stuck in my throat. I could still hear Katia’s voice, calm and cutting, listing every failure like she was reading from a file.

You still don’t know what you are without a borrowed last name.

That’s the part that is eating you alive.

“No,” I said finally. “She was not wrong about the desperation.”

Noah nodded once, as if I had confirmed something he already knew.

“Good. At least you are not completely delusional.” He walked around the desk and stopped beside my chair. I had to tip my head back to keep looking at him. “Listen carefully, because I will only say this once. You are useful to me for one reason only. You still know the names and the faces and the petty hierarchies of this city’s elite. That knowledge has a short shelf life once people decide you are finished. Right now you are already halfway there. The headlines. The failed marriage that was never real. The public scenes. Every time you walk into a room, people remember the woman who got slapped by Julian Windsor and then cried for the cameras. That is your brand now.”

Each word landed like a small, precise cut.

“I am giving you one final task,” Noah continued. “The gala will be perfect. Every name on that list will attend. Every detail will be clean. And when the Windsors arrive, you will be at the entrance. You will

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smile. You will greet them by name. You will show every camera and every guest that you can stand in the same room as them without breaking. If you cannot do that, if you flinch or make a scene or give the press even one more photograph of you looking damaged, this contract ends that night. And I will make sure the only work you find afterward is answering phones in an office no one important has ever heard of.”

My hands had curled into fists in my lap. I forced them open.

“I understand.”

“Say it clearly.”

“I will make the gala perfect. I will greet the Windsors at the door. I will not make a scene.”

Noah studied me for a long moment. Then he stepped back.

“Get out of my office. Fix whatever still needs fixing. And Delia?”

I paused at the door.

“The next time you walk into a room representing this company, know the material well enough that no one can make you look like an amateur in under five minutes. That performance will not happen again.”

I left without answering.

The elevator doors closed, and the moment I was alone, the full weight of the last hour settled on me. Katia’s voice mixed with Noah’s until I could no longer separate them.

Lapdog.

Laughing stock.

You are nothing without a borrowed last name.

Useful for one reason only.

I walked back to my office on the fourth floor and sat down behind the desk that still did not feel like mine. The guest list glowed on the screen. Windsor, Julian, and Katia. Main table. Center seats. The same placement Noah had ordered days ago. The same placement that now felt like a public execution waiting to happen.

I opened the run-of-show document and stared at the timeline. Entrance protocol. Greeting sequence. My name listed beside the task of receiving the primary guests. I typed nothing for a long time. My fingers stayed still on the keys while the conversation in Noah’s office replayed on a loop.

He had not raised his voice. He had not needed to. Every sentence had been designed to strip away whatever dignity I still pretended to carry. He had taken Katia’s insults and sharpened them into company policy. I was not a colleague. I was not even a proper employee. I was a temporary tool that would be discarded the moment it stopped serving the event.

I thought about the way Julian had looked at me across his desk when I offered him capital his company

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did not need. The mild confusion. The quiet dismissal. Then Katia, standing in her own office, listed my failures like she was reading a grocery list. Neither of them had needed to shout. The truth had been

enough.

My phone buzzed. A message from Adrian: Noah wants the final vendor confirmations on his desk by morning. Do not be late.

I typed a short reply and set the phone face down.

Outside the window the city continued as if nothing had changed. Somewhere across town Katia was probably already home with Julian and their son, living the life I had once performed for cameras. Somewhere in this same building Noah was already moving on to the next item on his list, having filed me under “barely useful.”

pulled the seating chart up again and forced myself to work. Table numbers. Name cards. Dietary notes. Every small task that still belonged to me. I checked the florist confirmation. The security schedule. The media holding area. I rewrote the greeting script three times until the words “Mr. and Mrs. Windsor, welcome” sat on the page without making my stomach turn.

It still made my stomach turn.

By the time the office grew quiet and most of the lights on the other floors had gone dark, I had finished everything Noah had demanded. The documents were clean. The timeline was tight. The entrance plan put me exactly where he wanted me: visible, smiling, and small.

I saved the files, shut down the computer, and sat in the dark for a while longer. Katia’s voice returned one more time, quieter now but no less sharp.

You still don’t know what you are without a borrowed last name.

I had no answer for her. Not in her office. Not in this one.

I stood, gathered my bag, and left the building with the same straight spine I always forced into place when I felt like nothing. The night air hit my face and did nothing to clear the words still sitting in my

head.

A few days until the gala. Few days to smile at the woman who had taken everything and the man who had never wanted me.

Few fucking days to prove I could still be useful to people who already saw me as disposable.

I walked to my car and drove home in silence, carrying both rejected folders and the clear understanding that the only thing keeping me inside Vesper Group was a single event and the thin hope that I could survive it without breaking in public.

Noah had made the terms plain.

Katia had already written the review. I was exactly what they both said I was. And the worst part was that I could no longer argue with either of them.

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