She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 57

Chapter 57 The Offer

(Natasha)

It starts innocently enough.

Coffee in the kitchen, early enough that the house is still quiet.

Lily is still sleeping soundly in her cot, and Eleanor won’t be down for another hour.

Sonia waits to be served coffee in bed. There’s no chance she’ll fetch her own.

Chase pours two cups without asking.

It’s something he’s started doing without either of us remarking on it, and sits across from me at the island.

“I want to talk to you about something,” he says.

“Alright.”

“Warren Global needs a CFO.”

I look at him over the rim of my cup.

“I’m aware,” I say carefully. “You’ve been operating without one for a year.”

We both know why.

“I want it to be you. Your old position, fully reinstated. Your terms, Natasha. Salary, title, whatever you need. You name it and I’ll put it in writing today.”

He says it the way he says everything in a boardroom.

Direct, confident, no wasted words.

He’s always been very good at making an offer sound like the obvious conclusion to a problem rather than something you could reasonably refuse.

But there’s no way I can accept.

I set my cup down.

“Thank you, but no.”

Chase blinks, a small crease forming between his eyes.

“You can have time to think it over.”

“I don’t need to.” I keep my voice even.

“I appreciate the offer, Chase. I genuinely do. But the answer is no.”

He leans back slightly.

“Give me a reason.”

“I have several.”

I wrap both hands around my coffee cup.

13

The Offer

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“I have a job I’m good at, working with people I trust, building something that belongs to me. Not to you, not to Warren Global, not to this family. To me.”

I pause.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I had something that was entirely mine?”

He doesn’t answer.

“I worked as your CFO for years, and I was very good at it. I gave everything I had to that job.”

I take a moment to try and find the right words.

“Then we ended up in each other’s arms without meaning to, and when things fell apart between us, I had nothing to fall back on. Because I’d put it all inside a structure you controlled.”

I say it without accusation.

“I won’t do that again.”

“It would be different this time,” Chase says.

“How?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

“That’s what I thought,” I say, not unkindly.

No matter what assurances he gives me, it’s his company, and if he no longer wants to play nice, there would be nothing I could do.

He picks up his coffee and turns the cup in his hands, looking at the surface of the liquid rather than at me.

“Mason Stein’s firm is good,” he says finally. “But it’s not Warren Global.”

“No. It’s better for me, which is the part that matters.”

He makes no effort to hide his wince.

“You’d have more resources. More reach.”

“Chase.”

I wait until he looks at me.

“I’m not negotiating. I’m explaining. There’s a difference.”

He holds my gaze for a moment.

Then he nods slowly, the way he does when he’s processed something and decides to accept it even if he doesn’t like it.

“I understand,” he says.

Just that. No argument, no second pitch, no attempt to find a different angle.

I should feel satisfied.

I made my case clearly, he heard it, and we’re moving on like two adults.

+15 Bonus

This is the best possible outcome.

I can’t entirely explain the small, unreasonable flicker of irritation that follows.

Because part of me, the part that is apparently still a complete idiot, wanted him to push back.

Wanted him to sit forward and tell me why I was wrong.

To lay out a counter-argument worth dismantling, to look at me with that particular intensity he reserves for problems he refuses to let beat him.

An argument would have been easy.

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