She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 72

Chapter 72 Type

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I don’t know why I came.

That’s not true.

I can lie to everyone else, but I’ve never been fond of trying to bullshit myself.

I know exactly why I came.

I came because Julian called me at an ungodly hour and casually mentioned that Nathanial and Gloria were already on their way to support Natasha and Chase in their hour of need.

I was not about to stay away under those circumstances.

So I grabbed on to the tenuous excuse that Sonia is my sister and that practically makes Chase family.

Step-sister, whom I don’t much like under normal circumstances, but we’ll ignore the qualifiers for today.

So here I am, sitting in a row of plastic hospital chairs with the two people on earth I’m least equipped to sit next to, and I’m being extremely mature about it.

“You don’t have to stay,” Nathanial says, for the second time.

“I’m aware,” I say. “Yet, I’m still here.”

He looks at me the way he always does when I do something unexpected.

Like he’s updating a file in his head.

Probably a list of reasons to dislike me.

Between us, Gloria is reading something on her phone. Or pretending to. Her thumb hasn’t moved in four minutes.

The three of us in a row. Like some kind of cosmic joke.

I met Gloria first.

That’s the part nobody talks about, because it’s the part that makes the whole story significantly more complicated than the version Nathanial tells himself.

We were twenty-four.

We were both working in London at the time and attending the same industry conference, both ambitious, both slightly drunk at the hotel bar on the second night.

She was funny and sharp and completely sure of herself in a way that I had been pretending to be for years but hadn’t quite figured out how to actually do yet.

We hit it off immediately and were inseparable for months.

Then I went back to New York.

We worked for different companies. We led separate professional lives. It was inevitable that we’d grow apart.

Then Nathanial moved to London to run our office there.

I introduced them at a dinner party because Gloria was my friend and Nathanial was my brother and that’s what you do.

Within six months they were serious.

I don’t blame Gloria.

That would require me to admit something I’ve never said out loud and intend to take with me to my grave.

And I don’t exactly blame Nathanial, who had no idea, still has no idea, that there was anything to compete with.

And we’ve spent our lives competing over everything, so even if he did know, he may not have cared.

He’s very virtuous and noble though, so on principle, I believe he would have kept his distance.

The person I blame is Sonia.

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