She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 125

(Clarice)

I tell myself to stop.

Nat is a closed door.

She has been a closed door for twenty years, and one afternoon with James Bailey on my doorstep is not enough to open it again.

I press my fingers to my temples and breathe in slowly.

Four counts in. Eight counts out.

It does nothing.

Her face keeps assembling itself behind my eyelids.

Not as she must be now, I haven't seen her, but as she was.

Six years old. Solemn mouth. The little furrow between her brows that she got from her father.

Stop.

Sonia is on the edge of the sofa with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around her shins.

She looks like a child who’s been caught and is waiting to see how bad the trouble is going to be.

She’s the daughter I raised from infancy to adulthood.

She’s the daughter in the room with me right now.

She’s the one I have to think about at the moment.

In all likelihood, Nat will never forgive me anyway.

"Sonia."

She doesn't look up.

"Sit properly," I say, surprised by the steadiness in my own voice.

"Look at me. I need you to tell me everything you've done. From the beginning. So we can think of a way to fix it."

Her mouth opens and a small, animal sound comes out.

"Are you going to call the police?" she whispers.

"Of course I’m not."

She starts crying in earnest, and I move to sit beside her.

I put my arm around her shoulders and let her press her face into my blouse.

The mascara will not come out. I can always buy a new one. It doesn’t matter.

"I'm your mother," I say into her hair.

"I’m going to protect you. Whatever it is. Tell me."

It comes out of her in pieces.

Chase, first. She got him drunk and filled in the blanks in a way that made him believe they’d been intimate.

Nothing happened. Nothing ever did.

Then the pregnancy. A prosthetic, something silicone and expensive, ordered from a costume supplier.

She bribed Dr. Evans, whose name she speaks in the casual tone other women use for their hairdressers.

Ultrasound pictures with her name and somebody else's baby on them.

A miscarriage that was a phone call and a performance.

I keep my face still. I have a great deal of practice keeping my face still.

Then she gets to Nat.

She figured out months ago who Natasha really was.

After she became obsessed with Chase and started spending more time with him, she wanted to know everything about his wife.

The best way to beat an enemy is to know their weaknesses.

Sonia learned that Kelly was the surname of Natasha’s foster parents, not the one she was born with.

That was Bailey.

She found out that when Natasha was six, her mother abandoned her and ran away with her older brother and unborn sibling.

Natasha’s father raised her alone until his death.

There were too many coincidences and they kept stacking up.

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