Lahat ng Kabanata ng My Accidental Billionaire Husband : Kabanata 241 - Kabanata 250

~Katia~My body was a map of aches.I woke up slowly, the cold morning light cutting through the heavy drapes of my bedroom to cast long, slate-grey shadows across the floor. As I tried to sit up, a sharp, direct wave of soreness radiated from my hips down through my thighs. The skin on my waist carried the dark, deep-purple prints of Julian’s fingers from three in the morning, a physical reminder of the relentless, unyielding way he had claimed me. My throat was dry, the taste of our collision still heavy in my mouth.I pulled a silk robe over my shoulders, tying the belt tight around my waist, trying to rebuild the corporate armor that Julian had systematically stripped away.Below, on the street, the distant hum of the media circus was a continuous, parasitic buzz. The paparazzi had been stationed at the lobby gates since Jude Wolfe’s broadcast, their lenses pointed toward my penthouse like a firing squad. I walked into the kitchen, my hands trembling slightly as I poured a glass o

~Jude~The mirror in the private suite of Mount Sinai Hospital was lying to me.It had to be. There was simply no other logical explanation. The reflection staring back at me did not belong to Jude Wolfe—the dashing, immaculate, thrice-crowned darling of the British motorsport press. It belonged to a genetically compromised turnip.My left eye was swollen into a dark, plum-colored slit. My nose, which had previously possessed a rather splendid, aristocratic bridge, was currently packed with several yards of medical gauze and taped down like a poorly wrapped parcel. My jaw was wired so tightly that even thinking about the word "biscuit" sent a sharp, agonizing throb directly into my temples."Uncivilized," I muttered, the word coming out as a pathetic, wet whistle through my teeth.I winced, instantly regretting the vocal effort. The nurse had offered me a PCA pump containing a rather generous amount of liquid morphine, but the drugs did absolutely nothing to soothe the wounded dignity

Katia She wasn’t in her elegant luncheon attire today. She wore a rumpled, dark trench coat over her clothes, her hair wild and messy from the wind, her face completely flushed and blotchy under her smeared makeup. She had tracked Julian’s car. She had figured out that he had taken me here, to his grandmother’s house, and the desperation in her eyes was the look of a woman who had realized her entire social empire was slipping through her fingers.She walked into the foyer, her heels clicking violently against the stone floor as she stopped ten feet from where Julian and I stood. She looked at Julian’s taped hands, then at the crushed gold card on the table, and then her eyes locked onto me.The jealousy in her chest was a screaming, hysterical monster.“What is she doing here?” Delia screeched, her voice rising to a high, raw register that echoed off the high-vaulted arches of the lobby. “Julian, she is a suspected murderer! Her name is on the front page of every tabloid in the coun

~Sam~Zane was a problem.Not in the way that Julian Windsor was a problem — Julian was a walking natural disaster with taped knuckles and a marriage certificate nobody knew about, and that was Katia's problem to survive. Zane was a different category of problem. He was the kind of problem that showed up at your door at eleven PM with good wine and better conversation and then stayed until four in the morning and made you forget why having boundaries was a reasonable life choice.We had been doing this for three months.Three months of what I had decided—clearly, firmly, with the full authority of a woman who managed a billion-dollar company's operations and knew how to make decisions—was just sex. Uncomplicated. Enjoyable. The kind of thing two consenting adults did when they worked in close proximity and found each other attractive and had enough self-awareness to keep it entirely out of the office.Except Zane had apparently not received that memo.He was sitting on the edge of my

~Delia~I had chosen Maison Noir because nobody I knew ate there on Tuesdays.That was the entire reason. I needed a meal that was not inside Julian’s mansion; I needed a table where nobody was going to look at me with the quiet assessment of a Windsor security team member, and I needed forty-five minutes of not being invisible in my own home. Maison Noir was dark, expensive, and discreet. The kind of restaurant that attracted people who did not want to be seen.Which was why I was surprised when Tessa Sterling sat down across from me uninvited.She did not ask. She simply arrived at my table with the casual authority of a woman who had never once in her life waited for permission to occupy a space. She was in a dark blazer, her hair down, no racing gear, no corporate performance. She looked like a woman who had decided to be off duty and was still more intimidating than most people at full capacity.She picked up the menu.“The duck here is good,” she said.I stared at her.“You thre