LOGINKatia’s POVI got to the office early the next day. The place felt quieter than usual even though people were already at their desks working. I sat down at my desk and tried to go through some reports, but my mind kept drifting. Last night still sat heavy on me. Kicking Julian out of the house had been one of the hardest things I had done in a while. I kept thinking about the look on his face when I told him to leave. Part of me regretted it. Another part of me felt it was necessary after everything I had learned.I stared at the screen, but the numbers were just dancing lines. I was the boss, the one who held the reins of this entire operation, yet I felt like a novice trying to balance a spinning plate. I needed to act like I wasn't falling apart. I needed to look like a woman who had never known a single doubt.Sam walked in a little while later carrying her tablet and a coffee. She closed the door behind her and sat down in the chair across from my desk. She looked at me with that
Delia's POVThe morning sun hit my face, but I felt no warmth. I sat up in the stiff sheets of my childhood bed, my head throbbing with the memories of the night before. I did not bother with coffee or breakfast. I walked downstairs to find Martha and David sitting at the breakfast table, their faces tight with concern and pity."Delia, sit and have something to eat," Martha said, her voice soft."I need to go back," I cut her off. I did not listen to their protests. I grabbed the keys to Martha’s car from the hook by the door and walked out into the biting morning air. I drove toward Manhattan, my knuckles white against the steering wheel. Every mile brought more fury, more desperation. I had to fix this. I had to reclaim what was mine.When I arrived at the mansion, my stomach dropped. Workers were hauling bags out of the front door, tossing them onto the lawn like trash. They were my things. Every silk dress, every pair of heels, every piece of jewelry I had carefully curated for t
~ Delia POV ~The taxi stopped outside my parents' house at four minutes past midnight, and I sat in the back seat staring at the lit windows of the front room like a woman who had run out of every other option and arrived here last, which was exactly what I was.I had nothing with me.Not a bag, not a change of clothes, not even my phone charger, because I hadn't been given the time to pack any of it. Katia had told us both to leave, standing in the middle of that house like she owned it, like two years of my life in those rooms meant absolutely nothing, and Julian had looked at her and then looked at me and then picked up his jacket from the back of the chair and walked out the front door without a single word. No argument. No fight. Not even a backwards glance in my direction.He just left.And I had stood there watching the door close behind him, and something in me refused to accept it, refused to pick up my things and follow him out like a woman who had already decided she had l
JulianI drove across the city in a daze, the neon lights of Manhattan blurring into long streaks of color against my windshield. My mind kept returning to the look on Katia’s face in the dining room, the ice, the way she had stood there with her hand on her stomach, and the finality in her voice when she ordered me out. I pulled into Zane’s driveway and slammed my car door, my legs feeling heavy as I walked up to his front door. I pounded on the wood until he finally cracked it open, blinking sleepily at me with a half-empty glass in his hand."I’ve been kicked out," I said, my voice sounding rough to my own ears.Zane leaned against the doorframe, not even blinking at the sight of me standing on his porch at nearly midnight. "Kicked out where? It’s your mansion, Julian. The deed has your name on it, unless the city decided to rezone it as a public park while I was sleeping. Did you get into a fight with the staff?""My own house," I repeated, ignoring the sarcasm. "Katia showed up
KatiaThe clock on my dashboard read exactly 8:30 PM when I pulled into the circular driveway. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely keep the car straight. I sat there for a minute, staring at the mansion, heart hammering in my chest. I finally turned the engine off, got out, and dragged the single leather suitcase from the trunk. It was light. Sam had packed it fast. Just some clothes, toiletries, and the prenatal vitamins I’d been hiding.I walked up the stone steps. My heels clicked way too loud. I felt sick. I raised my hand and knocked. Hard.The door opened. Maria stood there. Her eyes went wide when she saw me and the suitcase.“Ms. Kensington…” she whispered, voice tight.I didn’t wait. I pushed past her into the foyer, suitcase wheels dragging behind me. Delia’s floral perfume was everywhere. It made me want to gag. Then I smelled coffee. Good. They were home.I followed the light into the dining room.The scene was pathetic. Julian sat at the far end near the sideboard
~ Katia POV ~I sat in the car for longer than I meant to.The engine was off, the driveway stretching out in front of me, the Windsor mansion sitting in the rearview mirror like a question I had just spent the last hour answering, and I stared at the steering wheel and let everything Grandma Celeste had told me rearrange itself inside my chest into something I could actually use.Twenty-five percent of Windsor Empire Group.Every property. Every deed. Both names.A savings account opened seven years ago under the name Kat.I thought about the version of Julian I had constructed in my head over the past two years, the cold, unknowable man who kept everyone at arm's length and gave nothing away, who had looked at me across rooms and said less than he meant and more than he admitted, and I tried to square that version against a man who had been quietly putting my name on everything he owned since before I even knew his.I couldn't square it. The two versions of him refused to sit in the
~Delia~I booked the flight to Dubai myself.Julian didn't know. Nobody knew. I used my personal card, packed a bag while the housekeeper was out, and was in the air before anyone thought to check where I was. Let them wonder. Let them scramble. I had spent eight months being the woman who waited i
~Julian~The car collected her at four thirty.She was already in the lobby when I arrived. Light jacket, hair down, and that look of a woman who was awake and functional but had reserved judgement on whether the hour warranted it."Four thirty," she said."Sunrise doesn't negotiate," I said.She l
~Katia~The message came through at nine in the morning.Not a call, a text, which was how Julian communicated when he had already decided something and was informing rather than asking. Three words and a time.Pier 7. Noon.I showed it to Sam.She read it. She handed the phone back. She said nothi
~Katia~My mother called at seven fifteen on a Saturday morning.I was already up; I was always already up, had been since Aiden was born, my body having decided at some point in his first year that sleeping past six was a luxury it could no longer afford and had not reversed that decision since. I







