Chapter 309: Yes I was jealous
Yvette had not left yet.
She was still near the door, one hand resting on the handle, and she turned back to look at Julian with an expression that was searching for something, an acknowledgment, a softening, some small signal that the door was not entirely closed.
She had known Julian a long time. She understood, or thought she understood, the particular way he felt responsibility for people. She was counting on it.
She found him looking at Amara.
Not at her. Not at the door. Not on the floor in the thoughtful way of a man working through a difficult moment.
He was looking at his wife’s retreating figure with a smile on his face that had absolutely nothing diplomatic or performative about it. It was the smile of a man who was privately, deeply delighted, and could not quite contain it, and was not particularly trying to.
Yvette looked at that smile for a moment.
And then, in the way that certain truths arrive, not loudly, not with ceremony, but simply and completely, she understood.
She left without saying anything further. The door clicked shut behind her, a small, quiet sound, and that was all.
Amara was lifting Justina from her bassinet when Julian appeared in the doorway of the inner room, leaning against the frame with his arms folded and the smile still sitting comfortably on his face.
"You know," he said conversationally, "you could have just asked her to leave."
"I did ask her to leave."
"After."
Amara adjusted Justina against her shoulder and did not look at him. "I don’t know what you mean."
"Mm." He pushed off the doorframe and walked into the room. "I’m only saying. There were options available to you, and you chose a specific one."
"I chose the appropriate one."
"You chose the one where you looked her in the eye and told her to keep her hands to herself." He stopped a few feet away. "Which was the appropriate one. I’m not disagreeing. I’m just," the smile widened slightly, "observing."
Amara turned to look at him now, and her expression was composed and dignified in the way of someone who has decided that composure is the position they are taking and they are committed to it.
"I am only calm right now," she said, with great deliberateness, "and not doing something significantly less elegant, because that woman and I have no real history. She was never truly a rival. She was never truly anything." A small pause. "But I did not like the way she was looking at you. I want to be clear about that. I did not like it at all."
Julian looked at her.
"Is that you being jealous?"
"What?" Amara’s chin lifted slightly. "No. Absolutely not. Not over Yvette." She said the name with a particular intonation that communicated volumes. "Please."
Julian said nothing. He just looked at her, the smile patient and unhurried.
The silence stretched for approximately four seconds.
"Okay," Amara said. "Yes. Fine. I was jealous." She shifted Justina slightly against her shoulder. "What? I am your wife. I am the mother of your children. Am I not allowed to be jealous? Is that not permitted? Is there a rule?"
"No rule," Julian said.
"Then stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you’re enjoying yourself."
"I’m not enjoying myself," he said, and crossed the remaining distance between them, and cupped her face in both hands, and kissed her cheek. Then the other cheek. Then the first one again.
"Julian," Another kiss. Her temple this time. "Julian."
"You looked cute," he said simply, against her hair. "That’s all. You looked really, really cute."
Amara made a sound that was trying to be exasperated and was not quite getting there. She turned her face away in the dignified manner of someone who is smiling and would prefer not to be. Justina, unbothered by all of this, made a small contented sound against her mother’s shoulder.
They stood there for a moment in the particular warmth of it, the baby between them, the house quiet, the day folding itself into evening outside the windows.
Then Amara’s voice shifted. Something in it changed, going quieter, losing the lightness.
"It must have been really hard," she said.
Julian stilled. "What was?"
She looked up at him, and her eyes were soft now in a different way, not the warmth of the moment before but something more careful. More serious.
"Seeing Seb in our lives," she said quietly. "Over and over again. Having to deal with all of that for so long." She searched his face. "I’m so sorry, Julian. I’m sorry I let it go on as long as I did."
Julian looked at her.
Something moved across his expression not pain exactly, but the shadow of it, the way a cloud moves over ground without landing. He reached up and took her face in his hands again, more gently this time, and made sure she was looking at him properly.
"Hey," he said. "Stop. Don’t do that."
"I just,"
"Seb is a different story entirely," he said. "And he is not important enough for us to spend a single breath of energy on." His thumbs moved slightly against her face. "You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Do you understand me?"
Amara looked at him for a long moment.
"So will you kiss me now?" Julian said, and his voice dropped into something warmer, the seriousness giving way to something that was almost a plea and was definitely a smile, "or do I have to keep begging? Because I will. I have no pride about this."
Amara laughed.
It came out fully, without the careful management she applied to most things, and it lit her face up from the inside the way it always had since the first time he had seen it, and she reached up with her free hand and looped it around the back of his neck.
"You are so dramatic," she said.
"Completely," he agreed, and closed the distance.
Their love had only grown stronger with time. Every passing day, Julian seemed to fall even deeper in love with his wife. It wasn’t just in the grand gestures, it was in the little things that spoke the loudest.
The way his eyes instinctively sought her out in every room. The warmth in his gaze whenever she smiled. The quiet, unwavering attention he gave her, as though the rest of the world faded away whenever she was near.
Every look, every touch, every unspoken gesture carried the same message, she was his greatest love, and his devotion to her was absolute.y
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