She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 170

(Nathanial)

James catches me in the corridor with a folder under his arm and his mouth set tight.

He seems to be having a hard time meeting my eyes.

The reunion with my uncle is nowhere near as intense as meeting Nat.

I barely remember him from my childhood.

Just a vague feeling that he was always trying to avoid me.

I’m in no hurry to build a bridge.

For now he’ll just be Lily’s doctor to me.

"I would like to take donations from you and your mother," he says. "Just in case. The fewer surprises today, the better."

I nod and start rolling up my sleeve immediately.

The procedure room he leads me to is on the second floor.

Two recliners, two IV trees, that smell of antiseptic and faint vending-machine coffee that lives in the walls of this place.

I sit in the left chair, peel the cuff back a fold, and think about Natasha's face in the corridor twenty minutes ago.

The way she pressed into my shoulder and stayed.

I wish our reunion could have happened under different circumstances, but there’s no denying the joy I feel at having her back.

The door opens and my mother walks in.

She’s wearing a dove grey dress, her hair perfectly styled, as if she’s just come from a salon.

Of course she’d look her best. My mother would rather eat mud than be less than perfect.

James trails her looking like a man delivering a corpse to its family.

"Nathanial."

"You came."

"Of course I came."

"That's the thing, Mom. You’re saying Of course you came like it should be a foregone conclusion that you decided to be in the same building as Natasha for the first time in twenty years. It’s not."

She sets her bag on the chair beside mine.

"Lily's sick. That's the reason."

James turns to the side counter and pretends to read a chart.

I fold my cuff up another turn.

"Natasha knows who you are now. She knows you're the match. She knows you've been in LA. You can’t keep guarding your secrets. It’s going to come out somehow."

Her reaction is faint, but there.

Just the smallest shift around the mouth, the one she's been doing since I was old enough to clock it.

"How is she?" she asks.

"Wrecked. Her daughter is in ICU and she just found out the mother who abandoned her is donating plasma. She doesn't want to see you. Doesn't want anything to do with you."

"I see."

"I mean it. Don't push her. Don't catch her in a corridor on the way to the vending machines and try to explain. Unless you’re ready to actually tell us the truth. She's had enough today."

"I won't push her."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

She says it the way she's been promising me things since I was twelve.

Smooth, soft, delicate.

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