Chapter 328

[ 1,066 words ]

Katia’s POV

“Does he ever ask about your day?” I said. “Not the performance of it. The real version. Does he ask what made you laugh, what made you angry, or what you actually want out of any of this p>

Delia did not answer.

“Does he know your middle name without being told?” I said. “Does he know which side of the bed you prefer, or did you simply learn to sleep on whichever side he left for you? If of course you’ve shared a bed before, do you even know the color of his room? Because Jude already knows all of that about me, Delia, after a few short months. What does that tell you about two years p>

“Stop it,” Delia said, her voice breaking properly now, the polished version of her finally giving way entirely. “Just stop p>

“I will,” I said, “the moment you stop pretending you have something I’m trying to take from you p>

Martha looked at her daughter as though seeing her for the first time in years, her own composure entirely gone now, replaced by something raw and uncertain.

“I don’t understand what is happening at this dinner,” she said, almost to herself.

“Neither do I, apparently,” David said, “which is the part that concerns me most p>

I let my gaze move slowly around the room, past Martha’s uncertainty, past David’s sudden, unfamiliar attentiveness, past Delia standing stripped of every performance she had been giving for two years, past Jude near the bar cart with his easy charm finally abandoning him entirely, and landed, last, on Julian, who watched me with an expression I could not fully read, something that looked almost like he already knew exactly where I was taking this and was simply waiting to see if I would actually do it.

“Would it be cheating?” I said again, quieter this time, the question no longer aimed at any one person in particular but simply hanging there, open, unanswered, waiting for someone in that room to find the courage to claim it.

Nobody did.

Nobody answered me, and I had given this room more than enough chances to answer me honestly.

“Fine,” I said. “Since nobody in this family wants to claim an answer, I’ll give you one myself p>

“Katia,” Martha said, a warning this time, the kind of warning a mother gives when she already senses the floor is about to disappear from under her entire family.

“I’m sleeping with Julian,” I said.

The words landed flat and final in the middle of the room, and for a moment nobody moved at all, as though the sentence itself had frozen the air around it.

“You’re lying,” Delia said, the first thing out of her mouth, fast and brittle.

“I’m not,” I said. “I’ve been fucking your husband for months or should I say years. London. The island before that. The hotel two streets from this very building the week you told everyone you and Julian were taking a quiet weekend together, except he wasn’t with you that weekend, was he p>

Delia’s face had gone an entirely different shade of pale now, something past embarrassment, something closer to genuine fear.

“You’re making this up to humiliate me,” she said. “You’ve always resented that I married him. This is just you finally saying it out loud p>

“I don’t need to make anything up,” I said. “I have a hotel record with both our names on it. I have a driver who can confirm exactly whose car picked me up outside that hotel at midnight. I have months of a man who actually looks at me when I walk into a room, instead of looking past me the way your husband apparently looks past you p>

“Stop,” Delia said.

“Why?” I asked. “You didn’t stop when you stood in my home and accused me of wanting something that isn’t mine. You don’t get to ask for mercy now that the conversation has turned toward something true. France, the hand on Instagram, was it yours? Did your husband not leave you on your honeymoon to spend time with me instead of you? Do you know anything about your husband? Oh, wait, did you even have a honeymoon, or did you spend it doing damage control p>

Martha had both hands pressed against her mouth now, her eyes wide, moving rapidly between her two daughters as though physically trying to keep up with a conversation that had outpaced her completely.

“This cannot be happening,” she said, mostly to herself. “Not in my own family. Not at a dinner; I came expecting gifts and good company p>

“That’s the thing about this family, Mother,” I said, not even looking at her. “You came expecting gifts. You always come expecting gifts. You never once came expecting honesty, because nobody in this house has offered you any in years, least of all her p>

David set his glass down entirely, both hands now braced against the bar cart as though he needed something solid to hold himself upright.

“Delia,” he said quietly. “Is any of this true?” “

“Of course it isn’t,” Delia said, though her voice cracked badly on the last word, betraying her even as she said it.

“Then deny it properly,” I said. “Look me in the eye and tell this entire room that Julian has never once touched me. That he’s never looked at me the way a husband looks at a woman he actually wants. Say it, Delia, and I will apologize to you in front of everyone, and we can finish this dinner like nothing happened p>

Delia opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing,” Delia said, finding her voice again, though it shook now in a way it had not shaken before. “You’re not just humiliating me. You’re destroying everything. My marriage. My place in this family. Everything I’ve built for two years p>

“You built two years on a man who never once chose you,” I said. “I’m simply the one finally saying that out loud instead of letting you keep performing a marriage that was hollow the entire time p>

“How dare you,” Delia said, her voice rising sharply now, something desperate threading through the anger. “How dare you stand there and act like the victim when you’re the one who’s been sneaking around with my husband? You’re the homewrecker here, not me p>

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