She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 112

(Chase)

I read the email three times.

It’s two short, robotic paragraphs telling me she’s never sleeping at my apartment again and that I’ll be getting the custody petition today.

No explanation. No emotion.

My chest tightens. It doesn't make any sense.

When she left two nights ago, she was angry because I wouldn't spell out exactly what I wanted from her.

We fought, but we were negotiating.

We were in a stalemate, not a war.

Why the hell is she going nuclear now?

Before I can even pick up my phone to demand an explanation, my office door opens.

It’s not my assistant. It’s a guy in a cheap suit carrying a thick manila envelope.

"Chase Warren?" he asks. "You've been served."

He drops the envelope on my desk and walks out.

I stare at the thick stack of papers.

She actually did it.

She filed.

The confusion burns away, replaced by a hot, immediate surge of fury.

I grab my phone, ready to tear into her, but my desk line rings first.

I snatch it up. "What?"

"Mr. Warren," a slick voice says.

It’s Jeffrey Bauer’s lead counsel.

"Mr. Bauer wants to move the timeline up. We need the final merger contracts signed and sealed by the end of the week."

I grip the receiver harder.

"That won’t be possible. We agreed on the end of the month."

"Things change. It's the end of the week, or Mr. Bauer pulls out of the deal completely. He has another buyer circling and he is losing patience."

I want to reach through the phone line and throttle the man.

More than that, I want to throttle Bauer.

After seeing the way he was looking at Natasha at the Biltmore gala, and the possessive way he hovered around her, I don’t want anything to do with him.

My gut tells me to tell him to take a walk.

But I am a CEO, and this merger is a billion-dollar acquisition.

It’s too lucrative to let my personal irritation dictate my business sense.

If I blow this deal because I don't like the guy, the board will have my head.

"I'll get back to you," I say, and hang up.

I look back at the custody papers on my desk.

I need to see Natasha.

I need to look her in the eye and find out what just happened.

And thanks to Bauer's lawyer, I have the perfect, bulletproof excuse.

She’s acting as the CFO for this deal. She has to sign off on a timeline shift this massive.

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