She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 188

(Chase)

The drive takes more than an hour but I don't have a memory of any of it.

Mason is at the wheel.

I'm in the passenger seat.

Nathaniel and Julian are on opposite ends of the backseat not speaking.

At some point Julian falls asleep against the window and wakes himself up swearing about it.

The address Nathanial wrote on the whiteboard turns out to be a property at the end of a long gravel drive lined with cypresses.

The cypresses are wet because someone's been running sprinklers on a vineyard nearby.

The estate is lit up like a Christmas card from hell.

Two police cruisers.

An ambulance.

A black Mercedes parked at a crooked angle on the gravel like someone got out in a hurry and didn't care.

Mason parks twenty feet from the house.

The four of us get out. Nobody slams a door.

Jeffrey Bauer in a sport coat is on his knees in the gravel by the porch.

Two cops behind him with their hands on their belts.

I don't look at him long enough to know if he sees me.

I don’t give a damn about him beyond knowing he’s been caught.

He should have known better than to take on Natasha.

I should have known she'd end up saving herself.

I turn away from him and walk past the cruisers.

There's a third squad car parked closer to the road.

Lights on, no siren.

A blanket-wrapped figure on the hood with a paper cup in her hands.

Bare feet.

I take a full breath for the first time since Sarah called me.

Natasha sees me coming.

She looks at me like she wasn't expecting me to come for her and it tears me up inside.

"How did you get here so fast?"

I don't answer.

Can't, yet.

My hands come up of their own accord.

Find her face and stay there.

I cradle her face like a person handling something he's afraid of breaking and also afraid of putting down.

There's a smudge of something dark on her cheekbone.

I hope it’s dirt and not blood, but all that really matters is that she's warm. She's breathing. She's here.

“Nathanial beat an address out of Bauer’s driver. We were coming to save you,” I tell her, stupidly.

"I’m okay. But thank you," she says quietly. Those blue eyes pinning me in place.

I had words in the car. I don't have them anymore.

I press my forehead against hers for a second.

She lets me have that second, then she takes my hands off her face.

“How’s Lily?”

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