My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 406

The Challenge

Katia

Julian found me in the at the mong may layon yon in Breeding ring in the son ha had been staring at for the better yer often m

TESSA STERLING ISSUES PUBLIC CHALLANA TOCSTVOUS FREE TRASAC

DISAPPEAR TO?

“You have seen it,” asing my tank rather than the ot

“I have seen it,” 1 sad

He came to stand beside me, reading the face sheer sy theolder the goosening to let thought Test ve statement, half wousation and half an, wenterey dont whether the day’s then s

simply grown too comfortable to defend the read

they had one fought as bad as intid

“You are not doing this,” je sad once he finished reading,

I looked at him.

“I did not ask permission,” 1 answered

“Katia,” he said, his voice carrying the calm he word when he was trying very hand to tane yo te months pregnant”

“I am aware of that,” I said. “I am the one carrying the baby”

“Then you understand why racing a speeds that post your own body at ek is not someth it is a reasonable option.”

I set my coffee down and turned to face hum falley

We should be discussing a though

inions about my can life because there is a

“I am pregnant,” I said, “not sick. Not fragile. Not whoring captile of ma baby involved. I told Sam this exact thing seven years ago when I was pregnant with Aiden, and am telling you now Pregnancy does not turn me into someone who needs to be managed.”

“This is not about managing you,” Willan said. “This is about risk. Real, physical ink to you and to our child

“I built 1* Technologies from nothing,” I said, “Do you understand that? kry dollar of sed money cant from rages I wor underground, driving, through circuits most people would never survive, while pregnant with Auden, because it was the candy way 1 knew how to keep us both alive. I have done this before, Juliany, i know exactly what my body can handle, and 1 kasa actity how careful I intend to be behind that whees.”

Judian was quiet for a moment, something working behind his eyes that i recognized as him searching for an argument he had not already lost.

“Tessa does not know who Catwoman is,” he said finally. “If you disappear from public life entirety, if you shanghy lart shar challenge go unanswered, she has nothing. No proof, no confirmation, nothing but speculation that eventually dies down the www it always has before.”

“And if I disappear,” I said, “she keeps incking, she keeps circling closer, becase woman who varies the mothers she i duallenged ipsis exactly like a woman with something to hide I would rather anwes this on was then spend the trad

six months wondering what she might stumble outo white 1 sit at home being caredut. ”

There is a difference between careful and rurkiene, my farve,” faslimes maid

“I krun the differam,” I said. “I have spent years learning exactly where that resit. If thing you to approve of this i alfading, you it is happating “

+15 Bonus

Julian ran a hand through his hair, frustration and something closer to fear moving across his face in equal measure.

“If something happened to you on that track,”he said quietly, “I do not know how I would survive it. I do not know how Aiden would survive it. I am for reang to control you, baby, please. I am trying to imagine a version of my life where I lose you to something I could have stopped, and I cannot make my chest stop hurting just thinking about it.”

Something in me softened at that, the fear underneath his frustration finally visible in a way I could actually respond to rather

than argue against.

“I hear you,” I said, reaching for his hand. “I do. But you rag too, Julian. You always have. You do not stop living your life the moment something becomes precious enough to lose. You find a way to be careful with it instead.”

“That is different,” he said.

“It is not,” I said. “You do not get to have your thrill on the track while asking me to give mine up simply because I happen to be the one carrying our child right now. We both race. We both understand the risk better than anyone else in this city. I am not asking you to be comfortable with this decision. I am asking you to trust that I know my own limits.”

Julian looked at me for a long moment, the fight slowly draining out of his shoulders, replaced by something heavier and more

resigned.

“I hate this,” he said finally.

“I know,” I said.

“If you feel anything wrong, anything at all, you pull over. Immediately. No finishing the race, no proving a point. You stop. Katia, do you understand?”

“I will,” I said.

He pulled me into him then, his arms wrapping around me carefully, his hand resting agst the small curve of my stomach for a long moment before he spoke again, his voice quieter now.

“Tell me when,” he said. “I will be there. Every second of it.”

“I would not do it any other way,” I said.

Outside, the city carried on beneath a sky already beginning to shift toward afternoon, indifferent to the challenge waiting to be answered, indifferent to the risk I had already decided, quietly and completely, that was willing to take.

I opened my laptop again once Julian had gone to shower, pulling up the article a second me, reading through Tessa’s statement more carefully now that the adrenaline of the first argument had settled. She had chosen her words with the precision of someone who understood exactly how to bait a reaction, framing the disappearance of Catwoman and Jules as cowardice rather than the natural consequence of two people quietly building lives away from underground circuits.

She had no idea how right she actually was and no idea how much that truth would have devastated the narrative she was trying

to build

1 began drafting a response in my head, the shape of a public statement that would confirm the challenge accepted without revealing anything that mattered, a location, a date, or terms negotiated through the same anonymous channels that had always governed this world before either Julian or I had names attached to the identities we wore inside it.

Kam called twenty minutes later, her voice sharp with the alarm reserved for moments when she had clearly already read the ae headline I had

Please tell me you are not seriously considering this,” she said, skipping any greeting entirely

“I am seriously considering this,” I natch.

“Matte, you are pregnant

The Challenge

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“I know,” I said. “Everyone keeps reminding me of that fact as though I might have forgotten.”

“Because it matters,” Sam said. “Because racing at those speeds is dangerous even when you are not carrying a baby, and doing it now feels like something you would tell someone else not to do if they came to you with the same plan.”

I considered that for a moment, turning the point over honestly rather than dismissing it outright.

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