She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 90

(Chase)

I watch her from the bedroom window as Natasha loads her bags into the boot of her car.

Two suitcases.

The smaller one goes on top.

Lily's travel bag is over her shoulder. The one she bought before coming to Tokyo.

She must be taking the extra supplies back to her house.

To the skylight room she was fixing up for Lily.

I know Natasha won't leave without checking on Lily first, but the bag means she's already been to the nursery and I missed it.

My plan was to run into her there. She’s moving much faster than I expected.

She gets in the car without looking back at the house.

Then she drives away.

I stand at the window for another thirty seconds staring at the empty space where her car was.

I didn’t expect her to leave.

The anger arrives first, which is typical for me.

I’m angry at her for raising the divorce when things were... when we were... when there was clearly something happening that she had to have felt as clearly as I did.

I’m angry that she chose a Sunday morning when we were alone in the kitchen and could have just enjoyed each other's company.

I’m angry with her for coming at me with a reasonable tone and a prepared argument, as if this were a board presentation.

As if what needed renegotiating was a contract rather than whatever the last several months have actually been.

I may not have a word, or explanation for what’s been happening between us, but it’s something, dammit.

Then the anger shifts slightly and becomes harder to look at directly, because it turns out a significant portion of it is aimed inward.

She caught me off guard.

That's the honest version.

She sat across the kitchen island and laid out a calm, considered case and it felt like an ambush.

I felt the ground move under what I thought was solid, and I reacted the way I react when I'm wrong-footed.

Which is to take control of the only variable I can, which in this case was custody of Lily.

If I'd had an hour to think things through.

If I'd seen it coming and prepared.

If I'd asked for time to let the initial reaction pass and find the better response underneath it.

I didn't.

And now she's gone.

And she drove away without looking at the house, which I’m pretty sure means she’s furious.

I am, as my grandfather has noted on multiple occasions, an idiot.

Lily is inconsolable in the way babies are when they can’t tell you what’s missing, but something important is.

She sleeps badly.

She eats reluctantly.

For hours, she makes a noise just short of crying, and the only thing that settles her is being held.

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