She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 98

(Sonia)

The Warren Estate is a museum that actively resents its occupants.

I sit in the solarium, staring at the screen of my phone until the display goes black.

The silence in the room is suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic, metallic snip of the grounds-keeper massacring the rose bushes outside.

I tap the screen and it flares to life again.

Delivered. 8:14 AM.

It’s now past eleven.

Chase hasn’t answered.

He opened the message and made an active choice not to respond.

He moved out of his own ancestral home, retreated to some apartment downtown, and left me stranded here with his mother and an army of silent, judging staff.

Eleanor walks into the solarium and stops in the doorway, looking surprised.

Like I’m a piece of furniture the decorators placed in the wrong room.

I immediately lock my screen and sit up straighter.

"Good morning, Eleanor."

"Is it?" Eleanor asks.

She walks over to the glass table and straightens a stack of architectural magazines that were already perfectly aligned.

"Without Lily here it all feels rather dull and dismal. Chase’s assistant called. He’s skipping the board luncheon today. Apparently, he's working remotely."

"He's under a lot of pressure with the merger," I say, keeping my voice carefully modulated.

Eleanor turns to look at me.

Her expression is composed, but the warm, absolute approval she used to give me is gone.

It evaporated the day Lily was admitted to the hospital and I tried to stop Nathanial from taking the donor test.

"He’s avoiding the situation," Eleanor says.

"And unfortunately, avoiding it doesn't solve it."

I swallow the sharp spike of panic in my throat.

"I'm sure he thought the apartment was best. To give everyone space."

"What that child needs is stability," Eleanor corrects. "Natasha is a fiercely devoted mother. Whatever else I may think of her, she puts Lily first. My son needs to stop hiding downtown and figure out how to do the same."

She pauses, her eyes dropping to my phone on the glass table.

She gives me a look I can’t quite decipher and walks out.

God, I really messed everything up that day at the hospital. I shouldn’t have panicked.

Eleanor was my biggest champion, now I’m not sure from one moment to the next whether she still wants me to be her daughter-in-law.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until I see sparks.

Living here right now is a tactical tightrope.

I need to keep my foot in the door.

I need my clothes in a closet close to Chase’s and my name on the security gate list.

He won’t stay in a crummy apartment forever when he has a mansion to come back to.

And I’ll be here when he returns.

But Chase ignoring me is only the secondary problem.

It isn't the one currently clawing a hole in my stomach.

Nathanial is.

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