My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 407

Husband Duties

-Julian-

I drove to Zane’s place that evening without calling ahead, needing somewhere to think that was not my own house, and found Sam already there when he opened the door, the two of them sitting on his balcony with drinks in hand.

“You saw the challenge,” Zane/said, before I had even fully stepped inside,

“I saw it,” I said.

“And Katia,” Zane asked.

“She wants to race,” I said.

Zane was quiet for a moment, studying my face with the kind of assessment he usually reserved for board decisions rather than personal ones.

“You are here because you want Sam to talk her out of it,” he said finally.

I did not deny it. “Yes,” I answered.

Zane leaned back in his chair, something almost amused crossing his face. “You are late,” he said. “Katia already gave Sam the details this morning. Whatever operation is happening, Sam has already agreed to run it.”

I turned to look at Sam. “You are helping her with this?” I asked.

“I am helping her,” Sare confirmed, unbothered by the accusation in my tone. “Because she asked me to, and because trying to stop Katia Kensington from doing something she has already decided to do is a considerably worse use of my time than simply making sure she does it as safely as possible.”

I sat down heavily in the empty chair across from them, the frustration I had carried in from the car finally settling into something closer to resignation.

“She should not be doing this,” I said. “She is pregnant.”

“She raced while pregnant with Aiden too,” Sam said, her voice gentler now. “I was there for all of it, Julian. I watched her drive circuits that would have terrified most people who were not carrying a child, and she never once made a careless decision behind that wheel. If anything, pregnancy made her more careful, not less. She knows exactly what she is risking, and she glans accordingly every single time.”

“That does not make it safe,” I said.

“Nothing about her life has ever been entirely safe,” Zane said. “That is not new information, Julian. You married a woman who built her entire company out of underground racing winnings. This is not a departure from who she is. It is exactly who she has always been.”

I ran a hand down my face, exhaustion puling at me in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Simply stand there and watch.”

“You race,” Zane said.

I looked at him,

“You beard me,” Zane said, “You race alongside her. Not against her, not to protect her from herself, but because that is what sur actually needs from you right now. Support, not restriction. And you make absolutely certain she wins.”

“Why does winning matter that much?” I asked.

“Because if she wins.” Zane said, “she gets to walk away from that track with her pride intact and no reason to prove anything

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else to Tessa Sterling for the rest of this pregnancy. She stops racing until the baby comes, satisfied, having answered the challenge on her own terms.” He paused, something almost teasing entering his voice now. “And if she loses, my friend, you might spend the next six months finding out exactly how thoroughly a woman can starve her own husband of certain marital privileges out of pure, wounded pride.”

Sam laughed despite herself, covering her mouth with one hand.

“He is not wrong,” she said.

I stared at both of them.

“That is your advice,” I said. “Make sure my pregnant wife wins a street race against a woman actively trying to unmask her secret identity, or risk losing certain privileges in my own marriage.”

“That is exactly my advice,” Zane said, entirely serious despite the humor still lingering around his mouth.

I sat with that for a long moment, the absurdity of the conversation somehow doing more to loosen the knot in my chest than any amount of arguing with Katia herself had managed that morning.

“She will win,” I said finally. “I have never once seen her lose a race she actually wanted.”

“Then there is your answer,” Zane said. “Stop trying to stop her. Start making sure the track is exactly where she needs it to be, and stand beside her while she reminds this entire city why Catwoman built the reputation she built in the first place.”

I thought about Katia standing in our kitchen that morning, calm and certain, refusing to let fear make a decision that belonged entirely to her.

“Alright,” I said. “I will race too.”

“Good man,” Zane said, raising his glass slightly. “Now finish your drink. You look like you need it.”

I did.

We spent the next hour going over logistics instead, Zane pulling up maps of the underground circuit’s usual routes on his phone, Sam cross-referencing them against whatever intel her network had already gathered about the terms Tessa’s team was proposing for the race.

“She wants it public,” Sam said, scrolling through a message thread. “Or as public as this world allows. A locationrevealed only hours before the start, but enough advance notice that word spreads through the right circles. She wants an audience for this.”

“Of course she does,” Zane said. “She thinks a public defeat of Catwoman would finally give her the story she has been chasing for months. Unmask the mystery, or at least prove the mystery was never as untouchable as everyone believe:i.”

“She will be disappointed either way,” I said. “Katia has no intention of losing, and even if she did, nothing about a race reveals an identity Tessa has never managed to confirm through months of investigation.”

“Unless she gets close enough to see something she should not,” Sam said quietly. “A tell. A habit. Something small enough that Katia has stopped thinking about it because it has simply become part of who she is behind that wheel ”

I felt something tighten in my chest at the thought.

“Then we make sure she does not get that chance,” I said. “I will be on the track too Every camera pointed at that race will have two largets to track, not one. That divides Tessa’s attention, whatever she is looking for ”

Zane nodded slowly, approval crossing his face.

“Now you are thinking clearly,” he said. “That is a considerably better use of your energy than trying to talk Katia nut et something she already decided this morning”

“I still do not filer it,” I said.

“You are not required to like it,” Sam said. “You are required to support it. There is a difference, and I think somewhere underneath all that worry, you already know which one actually helps her.”

I thought about that for a long mantent, the frustration I had carried into Zane’s apartment slowly reshaping itself into something more useful, a plan rather than a protest.

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