My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 78

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Alden and Julian Meet Officially

~Katia~

The WEG–I* tech showcase was Sam’s idea, which meant it was well–organized, well–catered, and had a guest list that made sense. Families were invited, a move on the joint communications team’s part to humanize both companies in the coverage, to show the people behind the systems rather than just the systems. It was good strategy. I had approved it three weeks ago and not thought about it again until this morning when Sam reminded me it was today and asked if I was bringing Aiden.

Aiden had been asking about the WEG–I* project for months in the way he asked about things that interested him consistently, specifically, returning to the same questions from different angles until he had assembled a complete enough picture to satisfy himself. He knew about the Invisible Shield architecture because he had read the press release and then asked me to explain the parts the press release simplified. He knew about the Dubai expansion because he had found the board summary in my bag and read it before I realized it was there. He knew, in the way Aiden knew things, more than I had consciously told him.

So yes, he was coming.

He dressed himself in the blazer without being asked, which was how I knew he had decided this was important. He checked his reflection with the brief, satisfied nod of someone who had assessed and approved, and then he was ready before I was, which

was also typical.

The venue was one of WEG’s Manhattan properties, a clean, open space on the fourteenth floor with floor–to–ceiling windows and the kind of layout that accommodated both a professional event and a family afternoon without either feeling compromised, Sam’s nephew was already there when we arrived, running between the interactive displays with the energy of a seven–year–old who had been promised something exciting and was collecting on the promise. Gail waved from across the room where she was talking to someone I didn’t know.

I collected a glass of champagne and let Aiden lead.

He moved through the showcases with the systematic approach he applied to things he was genuinely interested in, not running to the most visually impressive thing first but starting at one end and working through methodically, reading the display cards, asking the staff questions, cross–referencing what they told him with what he already knew, and finding the gaps. The I* team members he encountered looked slightly startled by him and then delighted, which was the standard Aiden effect.

I followed at a distance, champagne in hand, watching him work the room.

I was talking to Davies, who had forgiven me for the Frankfurt timeline and was now slightly too eager to demonstrate that he had forgiven me for the Frankfurt timeline when I saw Aiden change direction.

He had spotted something on the far side of the room.

A racing simulator. Full setup—steering wheel, pedals, and the wraparound screen that put you inside a far on a circuit. It was one of WEG’s display pieces, something from their hospitality portfolio. And beside it, crouching down to adjust something at the base of the unit, was Julian Windsor.

I watched Aiden walk directly toward it.

Davies was still talking. I said something appropriate and moved away and positioned myself at the edge of the room with the champagne glass in both hands and watched.

Aiden reached the simulator and looked at it with the interest he reserved for things that deserved it. Then he looked at the man crouching beside it. Julian had looked up by then, with some awareness, some peripheral sense of being observed — and he and Aiden regarded each other for a moment with the mutual assessment of two people who had not yet decided what the other was.

“What does this do?” Aiden said.

Julian stood up. He was very tall, and Aiden was very small, and the height difference should have been intimidating, but Aiden did not find adults intimidating, only uninformed, and Julian’s expression suggested he recognized Aiden.

“It puts you inside a racing car,” Julian said. “On a circuit.”

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Aiden and Julian Meet Officially

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Aiden looked at the screen. “Which circuit?”

“Silverstone. British Grand Prix layout.”

Aiden considered this with the gravity it deserved. “Is it accurate?”

“Within about four percent. The real thing is faster.”

“How much faster?”

Julian looked at him, that look adults gave Aiden when they realized the question was genuine and required a genuine answer. Depending on the car and the driver, anywhere from twelve to twenty seconds per fap.”

Aiden nodded slowly. Filed it. “Can I try it?”

Julian glanced across the room, a quick, automatic scan, and found me immediately. We made eye contact for a second. I gave him nothing. He looked back at Aiden.

“Come on then,” he said, and crouched down to Aiden’s level to explain the controls.

I gripped the champagne glass tighter.

11

Three minutes. Julian Windsor crouched beside a six–year–old boy and explained a racing simulator with the complete, unhurried patience of someone who had decided this was the only thing happening in the room. He didn’t simplify it in the way adults usually simplified things for Aiden, the way that made Aiden’s expression go politely flat. He explained it properly. The steering input, the brake bias, and the way the throttle is mapped to the rear wheel response. Aiden listened with his full attention and asked two questions that made Julian pause before answering.

Sam appeared at my shoulder.

Without looking at me, she took the champagne glass out of my hand.

I let her have it.

On the simulator screen, Aiden was taking the Silverstone layout with a focus that made one of the WEG engineers nearby stop what they were doing and watch. Julian was standing beside him now, not interfering, just present, watching the screen with his arms folded and the specific quality of attention he gave to things he found genuinely interesting.

Aiden came out of the last corner and hit the finish line, and the simulator produced a lap time.

Julian said something I couldn’t hear from across the room.

Aiden looked up at him and said something back, and Julian laughed.

That was when it happened.

r

The laugh, low, unguarded, the real one that came out when something had caught him off guard in the best way. I had heard it before. Not recently. Not in a boardroom or at a dinner or at any of the professional events where Julian Windsor kept himself carefully managed. Somewhere else. Somewhere I couldn’t locate. A sound that lived at the edge of a memory I had never been able to fully reconstruct, in a city I had tried not to think about too often, on a night that had changed everything.

I stood at the edge of the room and heard Julian Windsor’s unguarded laugh and felt something move through me that I didn’t have a name for yet.

Sam was very still beside me.

“Kat,” she said quietly.

“I know,” I said.

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