My Father’s Wife Chapter 10

My Father’s Wife Chapter 10

Clara’s POV

By October, Astoria had stopped feeling temporary.

I had left Greenwich with two suitcases, my documents, and the checking account Arthur had never bothered to monitor. The black card stayed behind on his desk.

The lawyers handled the rest.

Arthur sent numbers. I sent signatures.

I found a job connected to my art history degree, assisting with catalog prep for a small auction company that handled estate collections, private previews, and gallery shows no one outside that world cared about.

It was not glamorous.

It was mine.

That morning, I was heading to a preview event in Chelsea with a canvas tote over one shoulder and a coffee cooling in my hand.

The sidewalk outside the venue was crowded with clients, assistants, and men in expensive coats pretending not to check the price tags before they walked in.

I saw Julian near the entrance.

For a second, I thought I had mistaken him for someone else.

Then he turned.

It was him.

Dark jacket, faded T-shirt, hair still a little messy, standing there like the last few months had not happened.

I looked away first and kept walking.

There had been men since Greenwich.

A bartender in Queens. A photographer from a preview party. One guy from Brooklyn who had kissed me against a brick wall and made me forget my own name for ten minutes.

So no, seeing Julian Vance should not have mattered.

Then I felt his eyes on me.

I didn’t have to look to know.

His gaze moved the way his hands used to move. Slow, arrogant, too sure of itself. Down my face, over my coat, past the hem of my skirt, then back up like he had every right to remember what was underneath.

My fingers tightened around the coffee cup.

The street noise faded for one short, stupid second.

I remembered the Cape house.

The laundry room.

His mouth against mine.

The heat of his body pinning me to the dryer while the ocean crashed outside.

I hated that my body remembered faster than I did.

“Clara.”

His voice stopped me at the door.

I turned.

Julian walked over with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at me like he had found something amusing in a place he had not expected to find it.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.

I looked straight at him.

“Now you do.”