Chapter 204

[ 1,066 words ]

Delia’s POV

I had waited until two in the morning.

I had sat in the armchair in my wing with my coffee going cold and my eyes on the corridor and my ears trained on every sound in the house—a door, footsteps, the particular sound of someone leaving. I had told myself I was not waiting. I was simply awake. People were awake at two in the morning all the time for completely unrelated reasons.

I fell asleep in the armchair at two fifteen.

When I woke up, my neck hurt and my coffee was stone cold and the corridor outside my wing was quiet and empty and the sun was coming through the curtains at an angle that said it was at least eight in the morning.

I sat up and listened, and there was nothing.

I went downstairs.

Julian was in the kitchen. Coffee in hand, dressed, the composed, unhurried version of him that appeared every morning regardless of what had happened the night before.

“What time did she leave?” I said.

Julian looked at me.

The look was the one I had learned to dread—not angry, not cold exactly. The look of a man who had decided I was slightly beneath the effort of a full response.

“It would be wise,” he said, “to stop acting like you are my wife when you are a placeholder.” I stared at him, and he went on, “I also think it is about time you went back to your father’s house,” he said. “It is not as though we are married p>

I felt the words land. I let them land. And then I looked at him.

“I don’t care,” I said. “As long as you are unable to tell your family we are not married, I am not going anywhere. You want to keep up appearances? Fine. So do I p>

Julian looked at me for a moment.

Then he let out a laugh. Not a real laugh—the dry, mocking version, the one that meant he found something faintly absurd.

Before he could say anything else, I heard footsteps on the stairs.

Light footsteps. The particular unhurried rhythm of someone completely comfortable in a space.

“Oh babe,” a voice said. “You didn’t tell me we were going to have company at the breakfast table.” I turned and saw red, Seraphina.

She was in a robe—his robe, I recognized it—her hair loose, with the expression of a woman who had woken up in a place she considered entirely her own and had encountered an unexpected inconvenience. She walked to Julian and kissed him on the cheek and smiled at me.

“Hi, Delia,” she said.

I stared at her.

The robe. His robe. The kiss. The way she said ’hi Delia’ like I was a distant acquaintance she had not expected to run into at someone else’s home.

What the fuck was going on?

When did she get here? What time had my sister left? Had my sister left? Was Katia still in this house and Seraphina was also in this house and Julian was standing in the kitchen drinking his coffee like this was a completely normal Sunday morning?

“Argh, babe,” Seraphina said, turning back to Julian with a small smile, “let’s not disturb Delia. I bet she doesn’t want to hear about what an alpha you are in bed.” She picked up the breakfast tray from the counter. “Maybe we should take our breakfast upstairs p>

I crossed the kitchen in four steps and slapped her.

The sound of it filled the room.

Seraphina’s head turned with the impact. She stood very still for a moment.

Then she turned back to me, put the tray down, and slapped me so hard I went down.

I hit the kitchen floor and stayed there for a second—not because I was hurt, but because the sheer force of it had taken my legs out from under me, and I needed a moment to process that I had just been put on the floor by a model.

Seraphina looked down at me.

“Don’t ever in your life slap me, Mrs. Windsor,” she said. Her voice was completely calm. The voice of a woman who had done this before and was not remotely bothered by it. “I bite p>

She picked up the breakfast tray.

She walked out of the kitchen.

I heard her footsteps going up the stairs.

I sat on the kitchen floor.

Julian had not moved. He had not intervened. He had not said a word during any of it. He finished his coffee, rinsed the cup, placed it on the rack, and walked out of the kitchen.

I sat on the floor alone.

I looked at the ceiling.

This week. This one week.

I had been slapped by my sister in her Brooklyn penthouse at three in the morning. I had been put on the floor by a model in my own kitchen on a Sunday morning. I had sat at a dinner table and watched my husband eat a seafood boil with the woman I suspected he was sleeping with. I had been told to go to Victor Hale by the man I lived with. I had waited until two in the morning for a woman to leave, and she had apparently never left or had left without me noticing, or something far worse than either of those things had happened.

And now Seraphina.

His robe. She had been wearing his robe. Which meant she had been here last night. Which meant while I was sitting in my armchair at two in the morning waiting and listening, Seraphina had been somewhere in this house.

I pressed my hand flat against the kitchen floor.

Where was Katia? Was Katia still here? Was Julian managing two women in this house simultaneously on a Saturday night while I sat in an armchair in my wing telling myself I was simply awake for unrelated reasons?

I stopped that thought.

I looked at the ceiling.

Slapped by a what? I laughed.

A model. I had been put on the floor by a model in my own kitchen.

I sat on the kitchen floor and laughed. Not because anything was funny. Because the alternative was something I was not going to do here.

I got up.

I smoothed my robe.

I went upstairs.

I was a Kensington.

And I was going to need a plan.

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