She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 65

Chapter 65 The Suicide Play

(Sonia)

I’ve been at the Warren Estate for two weeks.

I have cried on comitrand approximately forty times, and Chase has looked at me with genuine feeling exactly

once.

And that feeling was impatience.

Something has to change.

I thought that I’d be sleeping in his bed by now.

That he’d be making arrangements to get Natasha and that squalling brat out of here. But no!

He seems to be turning toward her more and more.

I run through my options the way I always do.

Methodically, without sentiment, the way my brother does his balance sheets.

What do I have? What do I need? What’s the fastest route between the two?

What I have is Eleanor’s sympathy, a guest room, and a man who feels guilty enough to stay in the same building but not guilty enough to actually pay attention to me.

What I need is permanence. A reason for everyone in this house to stop treating my presence here as temporary.

The answer, when it comes, is almost embarrassingly simple.

I pick my moment with the care of a jeweler setting a stone.

Early evening is best.

Late enough that the day’s business is done, early enough that people haven’t yet retreated to their separate

corners.

The sitting room, not the kitchen.

Kitchens are too casual for this, and that’s where the servants toil. I have no business being in the kitchen.

And I need Eleanor, not Chase.

Eleanor is the one who makes things happen in this house.

She’s also my biggest champion.

Chase happens to be passing through when I do it, which is a bonus.

I wait until he’s close enough to hear, and then I sink onto the sofa and let my voice go very small and very fragile.

“Eleanor.” I reach for her hand.

“I need to tell you something, and I hope you won’t think less of me. I’ve been trying to fight it, but… I’ve been having some very dark thoughts.”

I look up, a single tear running down my cheek.

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“I don’t know if I have the will to live when my baby didn’t.”

Eleanor’s face does exactly what I need it to do.

From the doorway, I catch Chase going very still.

The next four hours are deeply gratifying.

Eleanor goes into full emergency mode, which I’ve never witnessed before and which is, frankly, impressive.

I was sequestered in a bedroom the previous time.

Phone calls are made. The family doctor is consulted.

A therapist is recommended, booked, and confirmed for first thing Monday morning, all within the time it takes most people to decide what to have for dinner.

My things, which have been living out of a weekend bag with the unspoken suggestion that I might leave soon, are moved properly into the guest suite.

Eleanor holds my hand and tells me I’m not alone and that this house is my home for as long as I need it.

I cry, beautifully, and tell her I don’t know what I’d do without her.

All of this is excellent.

The therapist is a problem though.

I expected a man.

Men are easy.

You give them the version of you that makes them feel useful and they hand you back exactly the diagnosis you need.

Dr. Reeves is not a man.

She’s somewhere in her mid-thirties, with reading glasses I don’t think she actually needs. They strike me as only being there to make her look more imposing.

She also has a horrible habit of letting silences go on about thirty seconds longer than is comfortable.

She sits very still and she watches everything and she asks questions that seem simple right up until you’re halfway through answering them and realize they weren’t simple at all.

I perform grief. I perform recovery. I perform fragile-but-fighting.

None of it lands the way I intend it to..

She doesn’t push back.

She doesn’t challenge me directly.

She just sits there with her hands folded on her lap and her head tilted slightly and watches me with the polite, patient attention of a woman who has been lied to by professionals and isn’t remotely impressed.

At the end of the second session I smile and ask, very casually, about confidentiality.

“Everything said in this room is completely private,” Dr. Reeves confirms pleasantly.

Chapter: The Sucids Play

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“There are very limited exceptions. Immediate risk of serious harm to yourself or others. But in the ordinary Course of our work together, nothing leaves this room.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I just wanted to be sure.”

She smiles back at me and I’m sure it doesn’t reach her eyes.

Chase comes to check on me that evening.

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