Chapter 389

[ 1,079 words ]

Katia’s POV

The room settled into a heavy quiet after Grandma Celeste finished telling us everything about Elliot, everyone processing in their own way, Gail’s jaw still tight, her hands folded in her lap in a way that told me she was holding herself together more carefully than she wanted any of us to notice.

I felt Julian’s hand find mine on the sofa, giving it a small squeeze that I understood immediately as a question. I looked at him, and something passed between us, an agreement reached without either of us saying a word out loud.

“There is one more thing,” Julian said.

Gail looked up, wary, clearly bracing for another piece of difficult news after everything she had just absorbed about an uncle she had never known existed.

“Nothing bad,” I said quickly, before the tension in the room could tighten further. “Actually the opposite p>

Julian looked at me, and I nodded, giving him the go-ahead.

“Katia is pregnant,” Julian said.

The shift in the room was immediate, Grandma Celeste’s hand coming up to her chest, Gail’s mouth falling open before curving into the first real smile I had seen from her all evening.

“Pregnant,” Gail said. “You are pregnant p>

“About two months along,” I said, unable to hold back my own smile despite everything heavy that had just been discussed in this same room only minutes earlier. “We wanted to tell you both properly. No more secrets, remember p>

Grandma Celeste rose from her chair, crossing the room to pull me into an embrace that surprised me with its warmth, given everything else weighing on her tonight.

“This is wonderful news,” she said, her voice thick with an emotion that seemed to carry both joy and something more complicated underneath it, perhaps the relief of good news arriving in the middle of something so dark, perhaps simply the pure, uncomplicated happiness of learning her family was growing even as it faced a threat none of us had fully understood until tonight.

“Congratulations,” Gail said, standing to hug me as well, her earlier anger softening, at least for the moment, into something gentler. “Aiden must be thrilled p>

“He has already appointed himself head of household security for the baby,” Julian said, and the small laugh that rippled through the room felt like the first real release of tension since the conversation about Elliot had begun.

“A sibling,” Grandma Celeste said, sitting back down slowly, her hand still resting over her heart. “After everything this family has weathered, after everything I have just told you both tonight, there is still this. New life, coming into a family that needs exactly this kind of reminder right now p>

“We wanted you both to know,” I said, “before anything else happens. Before whatever comes next with Elliot. We wanted this to be something good that belonged only to the four of us tonight, before the rest of it takes over again p>

Grandma Celeste reached for my hand, holding it gently.

“Thank you,” she said. “For trusting us with this, especially tonight, of all nights p>

For a while the four of us simply talked, quieter conversation now, questions tumbling over each other faster than any of us could properly answer, Gail wanting to know how far along I was, whether we had picked names yet even though it was far too early, whether Aiden had a preference for a brother or a sister. Grandma Celeste kept reaching over to pat my hand every few minutes, as though she needed the physical confirmation that the news was real each time the conversation moved on to something else.

“A summer baby,” Gail said, doing the math out loud. “That works out perfectly. We can do the christening at the estate,the gardens are always beautiful that time of year p>

“We have not even reached three months,” I said, laughing. “Let us survive the next several weeks before we start planning a christening p>

“I am simply excited,” Gail said, unbothered by the correction. “Let me have this p>

Grandma Celeste’s smile faded slightly, something more serious moving behind her eyes as the conversation settled.

“There is something else we need to discuss,” she said, “now that everything else has been said tonight. Delia p>

The room quieted.

“Delia does not know Katia is your real wife,” Grandma continued. “Whatever she believes about the two of you, whatever she has managed to convince herself is or is not true, that is not something I can speak to with any certainty. What I can tell you is that this cannot continue. You need to sort this out with her, Julian. Properly. Before it becomes something none of us can contain p>

“We are aware,” Julian said.

“I do not think that can continue much longer,” Grandma said. “Especially not with a child coming. It is high time this entire family knew the truth, all of it, not just the pieces each of us has been carrying separately for months p>

“She is not going to take it well,” Gail said quietly. “Finding out Katia was your wife the whole time. That is going to break something in her, whatever is left of the version of herself she has spent two years building p>

“Perhaps,” Grandma Celeste said. “But continuing to let her believe a lie protects nobody, least of all her. She deserves the truth as much as anyone else in this family does, however painful it turns out to be to hear it p>

Julian was quiet for a long moment, his hand still resting over mine.

“I do not know how to tell her,” he said finally. “Not in a way that does not feel cruel, given everything else she has already lost this year p>

“There may not be a version of this conversation that does not feel cruel to her,” Grandma Celeste said gently. “But there is a difference between cruelty and honesty, Julian, even when the two end up feeling similar in the moment. She has been living inside a story none of us wrote for her. It is time she finally knows the truth of the one she is actually standing in p>

I looked around the room at the three of them, at this family I had somehow become woven into so completely despite everything complicated in how it happened, and felt, underneath the fear of what Elliot might still do, a quiet certainty that whatever came next, we would face it together now, with nothing left hidden between us.

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