Chapter 217

[ 976 words ]

Katia’s POV

I thought about Delia. About the sister I had grown up with, who had wanted everything I had and had not wanted it until I had it. Who had stood in my bedroom on the morning of my Vegas trip and said if you don’t want him I’ll marry him. Who was apparently sleeping with the man trying to destroy my company while living in the house of the man who was sleeping in my bed.

This was—

This was a lot.

My phone rang.

I looked at the screen.

Martha.

“My mother,” I said.

Sam looked at the ceiling. “Maybe she knows you are sleeping with your brother-in-law p>

“That is not funny,” I said.

“It is a little funny,” Sam said.

I answered the phone.

“Katy.” Martha’s voice was warm. Too warm. The warmth that Martha produced when she wanted something and had decided that warmth was the right tool for getting it. “How are you, my love p>

“Fine,” I said.

“Good, good.” A pause. “I am calling because I wanted to invite you to a family dinner tomorrow evening. Here at the house. Both families—the Windsors have been invited as well.” Another pause, softer. “And I wanted to say, Katy, I have been meaning to apologize for the magazine situation. The interview I gave. I should not have—it was not the right thing to do, and I am sorry p>

I sat with that.

Martha Kensington apologizing. Voluntarily. Over the phone.

I knew it was not real. I knew it was the opening move of something Martha had arranged, and I did not know yet what the something was. But Martha was my mother, and the dinner was a family dinner, and I had spent six years staying away and one year being careful, and I was tired of being careful.

“I will be there,” I said.

“Wonderful,” Martha said. The warmth immediately settled back into its usual register—satisfied, moving on. “Seven o’clock. I will see you tomorrow, Katy p>

“See you tomorrow,” I said.

I put the phone down.

Sam was looking at me.

“You agreed,” Sam said.

“I did,” I said.

“Why p>

I thought about it. The honest answer was that I did not entirely know. Something about Martha’s voice. Something about the fact that it had been a week of Julian Windsor and seafood boils and cockpits and mornings, and I had not once sat at a table with people who had known me before any of this.

“I just did,” I said.

Sam looked at me for a long moment.

“I would not be surprised,” Sam said, “if there were matchmaking involved. That mother of yours does not know when to stop p>

I looked at my desk.

“No,” I said. “She does not p>

I picked up the contract again.

The liability clause was still there. Still perfectly straightforward. I read it four times before I actually understood it.

Julian’s POV

I knew what this was the moment I walked through the door.

Martha Kensington had arranged the seating like a military operation. I clocked it in four seconds – the table, the chairs, and the name cards that were trying very hard to look casual but were not casual at all. Katia was seated in the middle of the left side. And next to her, in the chair that should have been mine based on any reasonable reading of the room, was a man I had never seen before.

Tall. Well dressed. The kind of jaw that suggested he was aware of it. He was already at the table when we arrived, which meant Martha had briefed him, and he had arrived early to establish himself, which meant this had been planned with considerably more care than a family dinner warranted.

I sat across from them.

I smiled at Martha.

Martha smiled back.

We understood each other completely.

His name was Christopher.

I found this out because he stood when Katia sat down—stood, actually stood, the full gentleman’s performance—and said, “Katia. Wonderful to see you again p>

Again?

I set my water glass down.

Again. I scoffed. My little kitten had met this man.

They had met before. At some point, in some room, on some occasion that Katia had never once mentioned to me, this man with his jaw and his charter jet and his Meridian Capital fund had been in the same space as my wife, and she had not told me about it. Not once. Not in a week of mornings and coffee and cockpits and every conversation we had managed to have in the in-between spaces of everything else.

She had not told me.

Katia smiled at him. “Christopher. Good to see you p>

She did not look at me.

I did not look at her.

I picked up my water glass again and drank from it and looked at the centrepiece and thought very carefully about nothing at all.

I will deal with that later. I know how to punish her; besides that, Kitty, that kitty is still swollen from last night.

Grandma was watching me from the end of the table.

I looked at the centerpiece.

Aiden was seated on my right.

This had not been part of Martha’s seating plan—I had moved him there quietly before anyone sat down, which Gail had noticed and had said nothing about, which is why Gail is my favorite person in this room at present.

Aiden had his napkin on his lap and his back straight and his eyes on Christopher with the focused, assessing attention he gave things he had not yet categorized.

“Dad,” he whispered, which I was grateful for because if the Kensingtons heard him calling me Dad, they would put two and two and it would give them four.

“Yes,” I said.

“Who is that man next to Mummy p>

“His name is Christopher,” I said.

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