Chapter 128

[ 1,077 words ]

Delia’s POV

I had made it to the bathroom before the shaking started.

Not visible shaking. I had more control than that. It was internal — the tremor of someone who had just stood in front of a camera and a recorder and a photographer and completely, publicly, humiliatingly failed to answer a question they should never have been asked. I stood at the bathroom mirror in the VIP lounge and looked at my own face and breathed slowly and told myself it was containable.

Thirty thousand shares said otherwise.

I had checked my phone on the way to the bathroom. The clip was everywhere. The racing community had found it, and they were not kind people when someone faked their way into their world. The comments were vicious. Borrowed suit. Zero knowledge. Doesn’t even know the car. Someone had made a compilation of every racing-adjacent thing I had said in the last forty-eight hours and set it to circus music.

Circus music.

I put my phone away and looked at the mirror and told myself to get it together.

I was still Julian Windsor’s wife. That was still real. That was still something nobody could take away from me.

I walked back out into the lounge with my head up.

Riya Mehta was waiting.

Not for me specifically — or at least that was how it looked. She was standing near the hospitality table with her recorder, talking to a colleague, perfectly positioned. When she saw me, she smiled with the professional warmth she had been using all morning and walked over.

I should have kept walking.

“Mrs Windsor, just a few more questions if you have a moment p>

Against my better judgement, I stopped.

“Of course,” I said.

“Wonderful.” She raised the recorder. “Following this morning’s conversation — and given the questions being raised online — I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond.” She paused. “Can you confirm that you are in fact married to Julian Windsor? There are some people asking questions p>

I stared at her. “I’m sorry p>

“It’s just—there was never a press release. No official announcement. No public record. Which is unusual for someone of Mr Windsor’s profile.” She kept her voice light. Professional. Genuinely apologetic. “Given what happened this morning with the Catwoman claim, some people are asking whether that relationship is also p>

“I am Julian Windsor’s wife,” I said. My voice was completely level. “That is not a claim. That is a fact p>

“Of course. Do you have documentation? A marriage certificate? Wedding photographs? Anything we could use to p>

“This is insulting,” I said.

“I understand,” Riya said. “And I’m sorry for the intrusion. But you have to understand — after this morning, I can’t simply take your word for it. You told me you were Catwoman. You gave me a detailed account. And that turned out to be—” she paused, choosing the word, “inaccurate.” Another pause. “So when you tell me you’re Julian Windsor’s wife, you have to understand why I’m asking for something to back it up p>

The lounge had gone very quiet around us.

I became aware of people watching. Not obviously — this was a room full of professionals who knew how to look at something without appearing to look at it. But they were watching. Every single one of them.

“Julian Windsor is royalty in the industry; he’s a big shot,” Riya continued. Her voice was still light. Still professional. Still absolutely devastating. “A man like that gets married — the world knows about it. There would be press. Announcements. A photograph at minimum. And yet—” She glanced around the lounge. “Nobody here seems to know you. Nobody in his professional circle mentions you. You arrived in Dubai alone, without his team, without any acknowledgement from his office.” She looked at me directly. “Who exactly are you, Mrs Windsor p>

The words landed in the quiet lounge like something dropped from a great height.

I felt the heat in my face. I controlled it. I controlled everything — my posture, my expression, my breathing. I was a Kensington. I had been trained for rooms like this. I did not fall apart in public.

“I don’t have to prove my marriage to a journalist,” I said crisply. “This conversation is over p>

I turned and walked away.

The photographer got three shots of my back.

Julian found me in the corridor outside the lounge twenty minutes later.

I heard his footsteps before I saw him. I knew his walk — the unhurried, deliberate pace of a man who never moved faster than he needed to. I was standing at the window looking at the race track below, arms crossed, composing myself for the flight back to New York that I was already planning in my head.

He stopped beside me.

He did not look at me. He looked at the track.

Then he leaned in. Close enough that his voice was only for me, low and absolutely controlled, the specific register he used when he was saying something he meant completely and permanently.

“I told you not to fuck with me,” he said. “The press does not need to know anything about our arrangement. That is the one rule. The only rule.” Something changed in his face, more like disgust. “And here you are. In Dubai. Uninvited. Claiming to be my wife in front of cameras and claiming to be Catwoman in the same breath.” He paused. “You have no shame, Delia p>

I said nothing.

“I think we need to revisit our arrangement,” he said. “Because you are getting comfortable. And ’comfortable’ was never part of what we agreed p>

He straightened up.

He walked back toward the lounge without looking back.

I stood at the window for a long time after he was gone.

My reflection looked back at me from the glass — composed, perfect, the image of a woman who had everything under control.

I had never felt less in control in my life.

But Julian Windsor had made a mistake today. A small one. He had come to me. He had delivered his warning personally, quietly, in a private corridor, which meant it had gotten under his skin enough that he needed to say it directly.

Men who didn’t care didn’t deliver personal warnings.

They just cut you off.

I filed that away.

Then I took out my phone and booked the first flight back to New York.

I had work to do.

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