She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 193

(Nathanial)

The call comes Tuesday afternoon. Unknown number. I almost don't pick up.

"This is James Bailey."

"Oh."

My half-brother who was a barely remembered uncle until a few days ago.

I don’t really know what to say.

Judging by the pause that follows, neither does he.

I wait it out. He's the one who called.

"I'd like to buy you a drink. Tonight, if you can. There's a bar at the hotel on Wilshire that’s never too rowdy. I know it’s last-minute, but I'd appreciate the time."

I look at the ceiling.

"Okay."

"Seven good for you?"

"Sure."

He probably thinks I’m an idiot who can’t string a sentence together.

“Thank you, Nathanial. I’ll see you tonight.”

He hangs up. He's clearly not a man who fills space.

I sit at my desk for a minute after.

I don't know what I just agreed to.

I do know I wasn't going to say no.

I get there at five to.

He’s already there, sitting at a corner table with a neat whiskey, no ice.

He stands when he sees me, which is the kind of thing his generation does and ours doesn't.

That eighteen year age gap is substantial, but not insurmountable.

We shake hands awkwardly before I sit down.

I know there was a minute there where we both considered hugging and discarded the idea as premature.

"Nathanial."

"James."

The waiter comes. I order what he's having because it’s what I would have ordered anyway.

We don't say anything until the drink arrives, looking around uncomfortably.

James comes across as being entirely unhurried.

We don’t have that in common, no matter how hard I’m trying not to show my impatience.

"Natasha was in my office earlier today and she told me your mother finally came clean."

"I’m kind of wishing she hadn’t, but yes. I take it you have something to add?"

James nods, eyes on his drink.

"I already told Natasha. And I’d like to be the one who tells you my part in this whole unsavory story myself."

"I’m listening."

It takes about twenty minutes.

He keeps it tight.

The Christmas he was nineteen.

The room he walked into.

The decision to say nothing.

Eventually finding out I was his father’s son and not his brother’s.

He looks at his glass when he says that part. Not at me.

“If I’d known who your biological father was, I probably would have told him as soon as I found out.”

I swallow some of the whisky. It's good. I don't care.

"You were nineteen."

"Yes."

"You should have told him anyway. It would have wrecked his life eleven years earlier, but he might have survived it if it happened sooner."

James looks punch-drunk and I feel like a schoolyard bully.

Blaming his brother’s death on him, for something my mother did, is a shitty thing to do.

But I’m so damn angry and it could be true.

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