She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 142

(Natasha)

I wake up to the sound of someone arguing with a vending machine.

This is, as openings to consciousness go, a low bar to clear.

I’ve woken up to worse.

Last week I woke up in a hotel suite in Beverly Hills next to Julian.

Before that I woke up to a custody filing accusing me of being too sick to raise my own daughter.

Before that I woke up to find my husband's mistress wandering around his kitchen wearing his shirt and a mildly territorial expression.

By those standards, a man losing a fight with a snack machine is practically a spa morning.

The world goes away again.

Then I open my eyes.

White ceiling. White walls. A drip in my arm.

I’m in the hospital.

The events leading up to this come back to me in pieces.

The voice of a woman I don’t know who’d appeared next to me at exactly the right moment.

The voice is the part I remember most clearly.

I have her. Give her to me. I have her.

It was weirdly comforting.

I turn my head.

Mason is in the chair next to the bed.

He’s asleep with his face squashed against his own fist in a way that’s going to leave him with a red mark for an hour.

There’s a copy of the Wall Street Journal on the floor next to his foot.

He’s clearly been here long enough to read it.

I look at him for a moment without saying anything.

Then I croak, "Was the vending machine man you?"

He startles awake.

His face goes through about four expressions on the way to landing on relief.

"You're awake."

"I am."

"Do you want water?"

"I want to know if the vending machine man was you."

"That was a man called Phillip from Cardiology. He’s working a double shift and really wanted a Red Bull."

"Have I been here all night?"

"You have. You needed the rest."

He pours me water from the jug on the side table and hands it over with the formal solemnity of a man performing his only useful function in the room.

I drink it because my throat is the texture of a sandcastle.

"Lily."

"Lily is fine. Chase dropped her off at your house. Sarah is back. Liam is being a one-man entertainment unit. When I checked in twenty minutes ago, she was sitting in a high chair smashing a banana into her forehead."

"That's my girl."

"Mm."

There’s a small companionable pause.

"You mentioned Chase."

Mason makes a face.

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