My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 93

~Katia~

The bag was packed by six.

Three business suits. Two gowns, one for the WEG welcome dinner and one for the race weekend gala. Shoes. The Dubai heat requiring different fabric than New York, which Sam had accounted for and I had ignored until last night when I repacked everything myself anyway, which was a habit Sam had long since stopped arguing with.

And at the bottom of the second bag, beneath the false lining that Sam had installed eighteen months ago when we started travelling for events: the race suit. Carbon fibre, matte black, custom–fitted to a body that had been driving competitively since eighteen. Helmet in its case. Gloves. The small encrypted device that connected to the circuit’s timing system.

Sam had packed the suit herself. She hadn’t said a word about it. She had folded it with the same efficient care she gave to everything, placed it under the lining, pressed it flat and moved on, which was the Sam method and which I had always found deeply reassuring.

Aiden had been up before six; I had heard his feet on the hallway floor while I was still packing, the particular light–footed sound of a child moving through a dark house with the careful consideration of someone who had decided not to wake anyone up but was awake himself. By the time I came to the kitchen, he was already on his stool, still in his pyjamas, having assembled his waffle ingredients on the counter with the organised patience of someone prepared to wait for the proper equipment to become available.

We made waffles together. The good syrup. He ate with the focused quiet of someone who was thinking about something and had decided to let it settle before he spoke.

I waited.

“How long will you be gone?” he said finally.

“Five days,” I said. “You’ll be at Gail’s. She’s already cleared her schedule.”

He nodded. He already knew this; we had talked about it three times this week. He was asking again not because he needed the information but because saying it out loud made it more manageable.

“And you’ll call,” he said.

“Every morning and every night,” I said. “Same as always.”

He took another bite of waffle. “And if something happens—”

“Sam calls Gail immediately. Gail calls you. I am on the next flight home.” I said it the way I always said ✯ — completely, without softening. Aiden didn’t need softness. He needed completeness. “Nothing is going to happen. But if it does, those are the steps.”

He nodded. Filed it. Settled.

“Okay,” he said.

Gail arrived at eight thirty with the energy of someone who had been looking forward to five days with Aiden and was not concealing it. She had a bag of her own – enough for the full stay, because she would be moving into the penthouse while we were gone rather than shuttling Aiden back and forth to her apartment. That had been her idea, not mine. She had said, ‘He sleeps better in his own bed, and I sleep better knowing that.‘ I had not argued because she was right on both counts and because Gail moving in for five days meant Aiden would wake up every morning in his own room with his own things and his own routine intact, which was the closest thing to normal I could give him while I was on the other side of the world.

They had already planned their itinerary – I had not asked for details and had received them anyway: a two–minute briefing from Aiden covering the aquarium, a science museum, and a remote control car track in Brooklyn that Į suspected was entirely Gail’s idea.

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At the door, Aiden hugged me with the full–body commitment he gave hugs when they mattered. I held him a moment longer than frecessary, and he let me, which was one of the ways he showed me he understood things without saying them.

“Win,” he said into my shoulder.

I pulled back and looked at him. “It’s a business trip.”

He looked back at me with those clear, direct eyes. “Win,” he said again.

I kissed his forehead. “I’ll call tonight.”

The WEG jet was waiting at Teterboro.

I had known it would be a Windsor aircraft — it had been in the travel itinerary Sam received from WÈG’s events coordination three weeks ago. A private jet for the I* Technologies team, departure confirmed, fully covered as part of the partnership arrangement. The Windsor way of doing things – making the gesture so complete that declining it would have been the awkward choice.

What I had chosen not to think about was whether Julian would be on the same flight.

He was.

Already seated at the front when we boarded, laptop open, coffee beside him, was the composed, focused stillness of a man who had been working since before the car arrived. He looked up when we came through the door. His eyes found me the way they always found me – immediately, without scanning.

“Ms Kensington,” he said. “Sam.”

“Mr Windsor,” I said.

Sam moved toward the rear of the cabin with the purposeful efficiency of a woman who had decided where she was sitting and was implementing it before anyone could suggest otherwise. Zane was behind Julian. He looked at me with the expression he wore when he was trying not to have an expression.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning, Zane.”

I took the seat across the aisle from Julian. Not beside him — across. The correct professional distance. He looked at that choice for exactly half a second, then returned to his laptop. He had noted it. He had filed it. He was not going to comment on it.

The jet taxied. The engines built. New York fell away beneath the windows – clean and efficient, the way things always moved when money removed the friction. I opened the Dubai expansion brief. I was absolutely reading it.

Across the aisle Julian was absolutely reading whatever was on his screen.

The cabin was quiet. Outside the window the Atlantic opened below us, and the sky went on forever, and Dubai was seven hours

away.

Six minutes into the flight Julian said, without looking up: “The phase one deployment. Your team moved the Amsterdam node.

“Davies confirmed it yesterday,” I said, also without looking up. “It aligns with Frankfurt now.”

“Good.”

Silence, then, four minutes later: “The circuit layout for the 24 Hour Race,” he said. “They’ve changed the back straight configuration. Have you seen the updated map?”

I looked up. He was still looking at his screen. His face gave nothing.

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