Chapter 30

[ 1,051 words ]

Julian’s POV

The silence of my study at the Windsor estate was the only thing I tolerated on a Sunday morning.

The wedding, the transactional union to Delia, was over. It had been an affair, a necessary piece of theater to satisfy the Kensington merger and my grandmother’s archaic demands. Delia was tucked away in her room, presumably basking in a title that carried no legal weight. I had been clear with her before we even reached the altar: I was already married. Legally. Secretly. This “marriage” was a placeholder to keep the Windsor Empire stable and the Kensingtons from collapsing into bankruptcy.

I sat behind my desk, the glow of four monitors illuminating the sharp, cold angles of my face. I wasn’t thinking about my “bride.” I was thinking about the G650 that had slipped out of Teterboro five days ago. My “Phantom Model” alert pulsed on my central screen.

Katia Kensington has posted for the first time in six years.

I followed her the time Zane and I were curious what the IG Technologies CEO looked like. I clicked the screen, and my jaw tightened as the images loaded.

The first was a panoramic shot of the Mediterranean. The second was the cockpit of a Gulfstream G650, a machine that Katia owned outright. Ever since she walked into my boardroom to pitch IG Technologies, I’d known she was the only person in that family with a spine. She wasn’t the “defective” daughter the Kensingtons had described; she was the architect of the military-grade AI and cybersecurity logistics I had just signed a contract for. She had been in France for nearly a week, enjoying the sun and the speed of her own empire, while I was forced to stand at an altar with her sister to fix the “shame” her family claimed she had left behind. She should have been mine. I know I don’t have the right to claim her, but ever since she walked into that boardroom, the thought of her makes my cock twitch. My cock shouldn’t react to her. I mean, I made a mistake too 6 years ago; I got married to a ghost.

Then I scrolled to the third photo.

It was a high-contrast, black-and-white close-up of two hands. Katia’s long, elegant fingers were intertwined with the much smaller, softer hand of a child.

I leaned back, my eyes narrowing into slits. There he was. The “mistake.” The reason the original contract—the one my grandmother had intended for Katia—had been shredded six years ago. The Kensingtons had been frantic when they found out their “prize” was pregnant by some nameless stranger. They had hidden her away and substituted her with Delia to keep the Windsor gold flowing. To me, that child was the physical proof of why I was currently tied to Delia, a woman who remained a stranger even while sitting across from me at dinner.

The door to my study opened. I didn’t need to look up to know it was Gail. My sister was the only person alive who ignored the ’Do Not Disturb’ light.

“Have you seen it?” she asked, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. She walked across the Persian rug, her own phone clutched in her hand. Unlike everyone else, Gail didn’t look shocked; she looked vindicated.

“I’ve seen it, Gail,” I said, my gaze returning to the monitors. “She’s in France. She’s flaunting the child. It’s a move to reclaim her relevance on the day her family expected her to be forgotten p>

Gail laughed, a short, mocking sound. She sat on the edge of my desk, zooming in on the third photo—the tiny hand. “Reclaim relevance? Julian, Katia has more relevance in her pinky finger than the rest of the Kensingtons combined. She doesn’t need a headline. She is the headline p>

“She’s a liability,” I corrected coldly. “One that cost us six years of clean planning p>

“She’s a genius,” Gail countered, her eyes flashing. She and Katia had been inseparable at Harvard; she knew the woman behind the ’Savage’ mask better than anyone. “You’re just mad because she outran you. Look at the shape of that child’s hand, Julian. Look at the way the fingers taper at the knuckles p>

“It’s a hand, Gail. Children’s hands are all identical at that age p>

“No, they aren’t,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “This hand looks like it belongs in a Windsor family portrait. It looks exactly like yours did in the nursery photos p>

I felt a sharp, cynical laugh bubble in my throat. “That’s impossible. I met Katia Kensington in a boardroom weeks ago for a business deal. We have never shared a room outside of family events, which was when I got engaged to her sister. The Kensingtons were very clear—she got herself into trouble with a stranger. That boy is the product of a lapse in judgment, nothing more p>

Gail looked at me with a pity that grated on my nerves. “The Kensingtons are liars, Julian. They would say anything to keep you from canceling the merger. What if the ’stranger’ wasn’t a stranger at all p>

“I think I would remember sleeping with a woman like Katia, Gail,” I snapped, the irritation finally breaking through my cold facade. “The timeline is irrelevant. She was discarded. Delia is the wife on record. The deal is closed p>

“Is it?” Gail picked up her phone, her thumb scrolling through the thousands of comments already flooding the post. Katia’s count was ticking toward 6 million. “The world doesn’t care about your deal. They are obsessed with this child. They’re calling him an heir, Julian. They’re wondering who could be powerful enough to father a child with a woman who pilots her own jets p>

I stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. “Shut it down. I won’t have my reputation dragged through the mud because Katia decided to play ’Pilot and Mother’ in the South of France on my wedding day p>

“You can’t scrub the world’s curiosity,” Gail said, turning toward the door. “And you can’t scrub the truth if it’s written in his DNA. You should find her, Julian. Not for the contract. But to look that child in the face p>

She left as quietly as she had entered, leaving me in the suffocating silence of the study.

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