She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 53

Chapter 53 The Morning Call

(Chase)

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is the blue sky.

A wide rectangle of pale Christmas morning light. Deep blue fading to grey at the edges, one star still visible near. the upper corner of the skylight.

I lie still for a moment and let the quiet settle around me.

No estate. No staff moving through corridors. No uncomfortable dinner companions, or Sonia demanding I pay attention to her.

Just the skylight, and the pale morning, and Lily making the small, searching sounds that mean she’s waking up and hungry.

I turn onto my side to look at her.

She’s on her back in the travel cot, hands raised on either side of her head in the involuntary surrender of deep sleep unwinding.

Her eyes open, find my face, and she stares at me with the serious, assessing look she arrived in the world with and has never quite put down.

“Morning,” I tell her.

She considers this information gravely, before starting to grouse at the lack of milk.

I sit up and reach for my phone.

Thirteen missed calls from Sonia.

Several from my mother, including a text sent at eleven fifty-eight that reads only, Call immediately when you see this. It’s important.

I put the phone down and tend to Lily first.

A nappy change. Then a bottle that Natasha left prepared in the bottle warmer in the room.

After she’s been fed, a bit of walking the hallway while she finishes waking up and digesting her breakfast.

The rest of the house is still sleeping.

When I know I can’t put it off any longer, I sit in the rocking chair with Lily and finally press play on the first voicemail.

Sonia’s voice fills the quiet room in fragments. Distress, then tears, then the word miscarriage, and then more

tears.

I listen to all thirteen.

Whatever the circumstances, whatever doubts I’ve quietly been harboring, she lost our unborn child and I wasn’t there.

The guilt is real and I know I’ll have to get back to the house and comfort her.

But underneath it, sliding in before I can prevent it, is something else entirely.

Chopred. The Morung Coll

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Something that feels uncomfortably, shamefully close to relief.

it with that for a moment.

It disturbs me more than the guilt does.

I should be grieving, but it never felt real. I can’t even remember sleeping with Sonia.

God. I’m every bit as terrible as everyone thinks I am.

Natasha is in the kitchen when I come downstairs with Lily.

She’s already dressed, her hair pulled back in a way that makes me stop in my tracks.

I’ve noticed the changes in her of course, but it suddenly takes my breath away.

Natasha is so much more than I ever deserved.

She takes one look at my face and pours me a cup of coffee without asking.

“Everything alright?” she asks.

“I need to get back to the estate.”

She nods and doesn’t press for details.

The only reason I’m not telling her yet, is the selfish need to hang on to the quiet ease between us just a little longer.

She lifts Lily from my arms with the ease of a woman who’s been doing it since the first possible moment she was allowed to.

I gulp down my coffee before slipping into my coat.

“Thank you. For last night. For letting me stay.”

She looks at me over the top of Lily’s head and there’s something careful in her expression.

“Merry Christmas, Chase,” she says simply.

***

My mother intercepts me the moment I step through the front door.

“Where have you been? That poor girl is in such distress!”

Her face crumples as she takes my hand to squeeze it.

“Oh darling, I’m so sorry. I’m overwrought. Sonia lost the baby. Dr. Evans came last night and did what he could for her. She’s resting in the spare room next to yours.”

She lays one palm against my cheek for a moment.

“I know you’re hurting too, but she needs you now.”

I nod without a word and go upstairs.

Sonia rests against the pillows in a pose so carefully composed it can’t possibly be accidental.

She looks pale and her eyes fill the moment she sees me.

Crop The Moming Col

She reaches out both hands and says my name in a broken whisper.

Chase. I’m so glad you’re finally here.”

I cross the room and take her hands because what else am I supposed to do?

She cries. I hold her hands and let her.

I say the things that are required. I’m sorry. I’m here. It’s alright.

But something is off. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s all somehow….wrong.

Her grief is flawless.

It hits every note at exactly the right moment.

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