Chapter 196

[ 1,179 words ]

Julian’s POV

Aiden held my hand all the way to the school gate.

He had talked the entire drive – about the aerospace book, about a boy in his class named Marcus who had got the thrust-to-weight ratio completely wrong during show and tell, and about whether I knew how to make pancakes because Gigi’s pancakes were excellent but Mummy’s were better.

I told him I knew how to make pancakes.

He looked at me with the assessing expression he used when he was deciding whether to believe something.

“I will test you,” he said.

“Fair enough,” I said.

At the gate he stopped and turned and looked at me with the direct, clear eyes that I was beginning to understand would never let anything pass.

“You will come back?” he said.

“I will come back,” I said.

“You promise p>

“I promise p>

He looked at me for one more second. Then he nodded — the decisive nod of someone who had received a satisfactory answer — and turned and walked through the gate without looking back.

I watched him go. Then I got back in the car and drove to the Windsor estate.

Grandma was in the kitchen making cookies when I walked in.

The smell of them hit me at the door. She had her apron on and her reading glasses pushed up on her head, and she looked up when I came in with the expression she always wore when she was expecting someone and was mildly pleased they had arrived on time.

“Sit down,” I said. “I need to talk to you and Gail p>

She looked at me for a moment. Then she untied her apron and called for Gail.

We sat at the kitchen table. The three of us. The cookies cooling on the rack behind Grandma.

I looked at them both.

“The reason I called this meeting,” I said, “is to make myself clear. How I bring my wife home is my business. I do not want either of you interfering p>

Grandma and Gail exchanged a look.

“Katia Windsor,” I said. “My wife. She has kept me away from my son p>

“Julian—” Grandma started.

“She did not know,” Gail said. “She did not know you were her husband p>

“She came back to Brooklyn last year,” I said. “She has been in the city for over a year. She never wore the ring.” I looked at Gail directly. “If she had worn that ring at Harvard, you would have recognised it. You grew up looking at that ring. You would have known she was your sister-in-law and not just your friend. If she had worn it when she came back to Brooklyn before the WEG and IG partnership, I would have found her immediately.” I paused. “She chose not to wear it. For seven years she chose not to wear it p>

“Julian,” Grandma said quietly. “That girl has been through a great deal. She told me herself she was afraid to wear the ring. Afraid of losing it. She did not know who gave it to her or what it meant or where to begin looking. She described it to me in detail — she has been carrying it carefully for six years because it was the only thing she had left from that night p>

I looked at her. “She told you about the ring p>

“I invited her for lunch,” Grandma said. “She still does not know you are her husband p>

“Oh, she suspects,” I said. “She walked into my office wearing the ring and asked me directly if I was the man from Vegas seven years ago. She sat across from my desk with the Windsor fire stone on her hand and asked me.” I paused. “I denied it p>

Gail stared at me.

“She came back last year,” I said. “One year she has been here. That is a year she could have been wearing that ring publicly. A year ago, someone could have recognised it. Instead, she kept it in a box and wore it occasionally, and now another year has been added to six, and it is seven years, and Aiden is six and will be seven soon.” I looked at the table. “Seven years of my son’s life. Six I can understand. She did not know. She was young and alone, and I accept that. But the whole of last year — when she was back, when she was in my boardroom, when she was in this house at my grandmother’s table — that year I cannot accept p>

“You cannot punish her for something she did not do deliberately,” Grandma said.

“I am not punishing her,” I said. “I am making a decision. No one is telling Katia that I am her husband. I will tell her when I see fit. On my terms. Not before p>

“Julian—” Gail said.

“And Aiden stays here,” I said. “In this house. He goes to school. He goes shopping. He goes on holiday. But he does not go back to that Brooklyn penthouse. When Katia comes here trying to take him, you two are going to make up a story. My son will not leave this house to go back to hers p>

Gail’s mouth fell open.

“Julian, you cannot—” she started.

“Six years she had him to herself,” I said. “She had six years. I am taking some of that time back. I kept away from him because I did not know he existed. She has had him his entire life.” I looked at both of them. “If either of you tells Katia the truth before I am ready or helps her take Aiden out of this house, I will fly out of this country with my son. Both of you will never see him again. Including her p>

The kitchen was completely quiet.

Grandma looked at me for a long time. Her expression was not angry. It was the expression she wore when she was seeing through something to what was underneath it.

“You would not do that,” she said.

“Would you like to find out?” I said.

No one answered.

Gail looked at Grandma. Grandma looked at Gail. Something passed between them — the communication of two people who understood that the man across the table was serious enough to mean what he was saying and hurt enough to do something he might regret.

“Fine,” Grandma said finally. Quietly. “Fine, Julian p>

Gail looked at the table. “Fine,” she said.

I stood up.

“Thank you,” I said.

I walked out of the kitchen.

In the corridor I stopped and leaned against the wall for a moment. My hands were not entirely steady. I had said things in that kitchen that I had not planned to say—things that had come from somewhere below planning, from six years of searching and one year of standing in the same rooms as my wife and son without being able to say what they were to me.

I breathed.

I pushed off the wall.

I had a wife to find.

And a conversation I had been running from long enough.

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