Chapter 191

[ 1,100 words ]

Delia’s POV

I heard the front door at midnight.

I had just gotten back myself, coat still on, bag still on my shoulder, when the door opened behind me. I had barely stepped inside when I heard his key in the lock.

I moved to the stairs immediately.

I had been out all evening. I did not know where Julian had been, and he did not know where I had been, and that was the absurdity of this arrangement, two people living in the same enormous house who had no idea what the other was doing on any given night.

I had come home at midnight expecting an empty entrance hall, and instead I was getting Julian Windsor walking through the front door looking like a man who had spent his evening doing exactly what he wanted and felt perfectly good about it.

He was in the entrance hall. Jacket on, keys in hand, he had the look of a man who had been somewhere that had cost him nothing emotionally and was perfectly content about it. He saw me at the top of the stairs, and his expression did not change.

I put my hands on my waist.

One foot tapping.

“It’s twelve AM,” I said. “Where have you been p>

Julian looked up at me.

For a moment, just a moment, something moved in his expression that was almost amusement. Not warm amusement. The cold kind. The kind that happened when something was so absurd it bypassed irritation entirely.

“Playing wife suits you,” he said. “But when the fuck did we start that nonsense p>

I almost stumbled on the step. One year. One fucking year of being ignored and walked past and treated like furniture, and now he was standing in the entrance hall at midnight asking me when we had started that nonsense.

I steadied myself.

“Well, Mr. Windsor,” I said. “It started today. I am your wife. Whether arrangement or whatever you want to call it—if we are still together in this house, you answer to me.” I held his gaze from the top of the stairs. “Where the fuck have you been, Julian p>

He raised one eyebrow.

“If you had been in this house between seven thirty and eleven twenty-five PM,” he said, “you would have known that I was here. And that I left with someone very important to me.” He looked at me the way he always looked at me — through me, past me, at something on the other side of me that was more interesting. “Not that you deserve any of this. But you asked p>

Someone important.

The words settled in my chest like a stone.

“And who is this someone important?” I said.

He almost smiled. Not quite. Just the suggestion of it at the corner of his mouth—the amusement of a man who was not going to tell me and was enjoying not telling me.

“Stop doing this wife-duty shit,” he said. He was already moving toward the staircase—not toward me, toward his wing. “It doesn’t suit you.” He passed the bottom of the stairs without looking up. “You are for the streets, Delia p>

I gripped the banister hard enough that my knuckles hurt.

“I am a Kensington,” I said. “I am standing in your house at midnight asking you where you have been, and you are telling me I am for the streets. That is who you are, Julian. You bring a woman into your home, put her in a wing, and treat her like she is invisible p>

He stopped walking.

“You knew what this was,” he said. His voice was still completely even. “You agreed to it. You signed it with your own hand, and you moved in here with your eyes open.” He looked at me over his shoulder. “Do not stand at the top of my stairs at midnight performing outrage about an arrangement you chose p>

I said nothing.

He continued toward his wing.

He stopped a few feet past the staircase. His back was to me. He did not turn around fully — just enough.

“Oh,” he said. “And Delia.” His voice was completely conversational. The voice he used for things he had already decided. “My real wife will be coming home soon. Don’t get too comfortable.” A pause and then he went on. “If I were you, I’d be preparing a story for the family about how our marriage didn’t work. Considering Hale has been fucking you—I’m sure you’ll find something convincing to say p>

The entrance hall was very quiet.

I felt my face go hot.

“Well,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. “You have been fucking my sister too.” I looked at the back of his head. “Do you have a story prepared for that, Julian? For the family p>

He turned then.

He looked up at me.

And he smiled. He fucking smiled!

Not the managed smile. Not the cold professional version. Something older than both of those — the slow, private smile of a man who had been asked a question he was genuinely pleased to answer.

“I do, actually,” he said. He looked at me for one more second. “I’ll tell them it felt good,” he said.

He turned and walked to his wing.

The door closed.

I stood at the top of the stairs.

The entrance hall was completely quiet. My coat was still on. My bag was still on my shoulder. I had walked into this house at midnight expecting nothing and had somehow ended up in the middle of the worst conversation of the last year, and the man at the center of it had walked away smiling.

He had smiled.

That was the part I could not get past. Not the words — the words were cruel enough — but the smile. The real one. The one that arrived only when something genuinely pleased him. I had lived in this house for one year, and I had never once produced that smile.

My sister had.

I took off my coat. I set it on the banister. I walked to my wing slowly because my legs felt strange and the house felt strange and everything about the last five minutes felt like something that had happened to someone else.

I paced.

End to end. Wall to wall. The full length of it.

It felt good.

He had said it with that smile. The one I had never seen. The one that was never for me.

So he had slept with her.

My sister.

I paced until two in the morning and could not sleep.

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