Chapter 448
[ 1,101 words ]
Delia’s POV
Elliot laughed under his breath. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the roses that were still in vases from the night before, the two coffee mugs on the counter, and the evidence of a life that had started to look shared. His gaze came back to me and stayed there, deliberate and ugly.
“Look at her,” he said to Noah, as if I wasn’t standing three feet away. “Bare legs. Your shirt. Hair like she just rolled out of someone’s bed. This is what you chose to defend? I picked her because she was useful and desperate. Nothing more. She spent two years clinging to Julian like a barnacle and still couldn’t make him touch her. And now she is here playing house with you like that history never happened p>
I felt the blood drain from my face. He was saying it out loud. All of it. The years of smiling for cameras beside a man who barely looked at me. The nights I had gone to bed alone while the city whispered that I was a temporary decoration. Elliot was peeling it open in front of his own son like it was entertainment.
Noah’s jaw flexed.
“Watch your fucking mouth p>
“Or what?” Elliot asked mildly. “You will hit me over her? Over this?” He waved a hand in my direction like I was an object that had started to smell. “She is not worth the energy. I got what I needed from the arrangement. The connection. The access. This thing—” he paused, looking me up and down with open contempt, “—is not worth being a Vesper wife p>
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
I finally found my voice. It came out thinner than I wanted, but it came.
“Exactly who are you angry at?” I asked. “You walk into my home and start barking orders. Do I look like your dog p>
Elliot turned his head slowly toward me. The mild amusement was gone. What replaced it was colder.
He moved faster than I expected.
The slap cracked across my cheek hard enough to snap my head to the side. Pain bloomed hot and sharp. My eyes watered instantly. I staggered back a step, one hand flying up to my face, the taste of copper already in my mouth where my teeth had cut the inside of my cheek.
Noah roared.
He closed the distance in two strides and punched Elliot square in the face. The sound was solid and ugly. Elliot staggered, hand flying to his mouth. When he pulled it away, there was blood on his fingers.
“You don’t get to lay your hands on my wife,” Noah snarled. His chest was heaving. His fists were still clenched. “You don’t touch her. You don’t speak to her like that. You don’t walk into this house and treat her like garbage p>
Elliot straightened slowly. He touched the corner of his mouth again, looked at the blood, and then he laughed. The sound was short and sharp and completely without humor.
“Wife?” he said. He laughed again, harder this time. “You call this reject a wife p>
He turned back to me. His eyes were bright with something mean and satisfied.
“Tell me, Delia. Just who fucks better between my son and Julian p>
The question hung in the air like smoke.
I stared at him. My cheek was still throbbing. My ears were ringing. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Because the truth was simple and humiliating in a way he would never understand: Julian had never touched me. Not once. Not in two years of public marriage and private distance. He had looked through me more often than he had looked at me. There had been no comparison to make. No nights to measure. No preference to confess.
But Elliot had already decided the story he wanted. He looked at my silence and smiled like he had won something.
“See?” he said, glancing back at Noah. “She can’t even answer. Because probably Julian was better. Divorce this useless thing and throw her out. Then you have to tell me what you have learned about the Windsors p>
Noah’s POV
I stared at my father standing in the middle of my living room like he still owned the air in it.
“Get out,” I said. My voice came out low and flat. “Leave. Now p>
Father wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at me like I was a mild inconvenience.
“You don’t get to order me p>
“I do in this house.” I stepped closer. “You told me to marry her. I did. But I did not marry her so I could divorce her the second you decided she was no longer useful. She is my wife. She stays. You leave p>
For a second something ugly flickered across his face. Then he simply turned, walked to the door, and left. The door shut hard behind him.
Silence dropped over the room.
Delia stood a few feet away, one hand still pressed to her cheek where he had hit her. The skin was already pink and starting to darken. Her eyes were wide and wet, but she wasn’t crying. She was just looking at me like she wasn’t sure what version of me she was seeing.
I crossed the space between us. She didn’t move until I was right in front of her. Then she stepped in and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her forehead into my chest. I felt the full weight of her lean into me, like her legs had decided they were done holding her up on their own.
I put my arms around her carefully. One hand on the back of her head. The other flat between her shoulder blades. I could feel her shaking, small tremors she was trying to keep under control.
“I’m sorry,” I said into her hair. “For him. For every fǔcking word that came out of his mouth. For the fact that he thought he could walk in here and put his hands on you. I’m sorry p>
She didn’t answer with words. She just held on tighter for a few seconds, then tipped her face up. The kiss she gave me was slow at first, almost careful, like she was checking that I was still here, still choosing this, still solid after everything he had just tried to tear apart. I kissed her back the same way, tasting the salt of unshed tears at the corner of her mouth.
Then something in her shifted.
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