She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 102

(Chase)

Sonia’s manicured fingers are clamped around my bicep like a tourniquet.

She’s smiling for the press, feeding them the exact narrative they want.

The Warren Heir and His Devoted Flame.

My stomach drops, forming a cold, heavy knot.

Natasha is going to see these pictures.

She’s going to wake up tomorrow morning in my guest room, scroll through her phone, and see Sonia clinging to me.

This is going to look like a deliberate, vicious retaliation.

I’m practically handing her the reason to sign those custody papers and have me served officially.

I have to get Sonia off me, and I have to do it without sparking a public screaming match that will send my board of directors into a tailspin.

Sonia’s hand tightens on my arm when another camera flash goes off.

She’s pressed into my side, smiling like she belongs there.

Like this is natural.

Like the last few weeks haven’t been one long demonstration of exactly how over this is.

Her perfume hits the back of my throat and I wonder why I never noticed before how cloyingly sweet it is.

I do the only thing I can do without turning the entrance of the Biltmore into a public execution.

I cover her fingers lightly with my own and remove her hand by degrees, like I’m defusing a bomb and one wrong move will blow us all to Kingdom Come.

From the outside it looks like I’m simply covering her hand with mine.

“Sonia,” I say, pitched low enough that only she can hear.

“This is neither the time nor the place.”

Her smile doesn’t move.

“I’m supporting you.”

No, she isn’t. She’s staking a flag in the ground.

I can’t call her out here. If I do, it becomes a scene.

If it becomes a scene, it becomes tomorrow’s headlines.

Chase Warren humiliates fiancée at charity gala.

Warren family civil war.

Questions around stability at Warren Global.

The board will love that.

So I give her nothing. Not warmth. Not anger. Just a look sharp enough to cut glass.

I manage to step away from her and that’s when I see Natasha.

She’s standing near the champagne tower with Julian Morton beside her, and my mood, already terrible, drops straight through the floor.

Julian is in black tie and insufferably pleased with himself.

Natasha is wearing a dress that makes every man within a ten-foot radius subtly reorient toward her without realising they’ve done it.

Her hair is up, leaving the elegant column of her neck exposed.

She’s not smiling.

She looks like a problem I would happily spend the rest of my life failing to solve.

Then she turns her head and catches sight of me with Sonia just half a step behind.

Her face doesn’t change much.

It doesn’t have to.

I know exactly what that expression costs.

A foundation board member materializes at my elbow before I can get to her.

“Chase, good, there you are. We’re ready for you in five.”

Perfect.

I spend the next few minutes shaking hands I don’t care about and pretending my attention is anywhere other than across the ballroom.

Sonia has the sense not to attach herself to me again, but she stays visible.

Close enough to imply.

Far enough to preserve deniability if I confront her.

Julian, meanwhile, says something to Natasha that makes her mouth twitch.

I want to throw him through a window.

Then Jeffrey Bauer appears at her side.

Something in me goes hard and ugly.

He leans in too close.

Natasha angles away, subtle enough that most people wouldn’t clock it, but I do.

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