She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 61

Chapter 61 The Old Man’s Verdict

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The club smells like old wood and older money, which is exactly why my grandfather has been coming here for forty years.

He’s already at the table when I arrive:

Which means he’s been there for twenty minutes, because Elias Warren considers punctuality a moral failing and early arrival a competitive advantage.

He looks up from his menu without greeting me.

“You look tired,” he says.

“Good afternoon, Grandfather.”

“Sit down. I already ordered you the soup. You need something warm, you look like something the cat dragged in and then thought better of.”

I sit down and manage to suppress my sigh.

Letting him hear it would be more trouble than it’s worth.

The waiter appears with a bottle of wine.

My grandfather takes it from him then waves him away. The poor man looks utterly bewildered.

“Thank you, we’ll pour for ourselves,” I say with a nod.

Then we’re left alone with the bread basket and the particular quality of silence my grandfather deploys when he’s gearing up for something.

Four minutes, give or take.

That’s how much time he allows for the bread and the pleasantries and the polite fiction that this is a social lunch.

Then he puts down his butter knife and looks at me.

“Why is that girl still in your house?”

There it is.

“She’s fragile,” I say. “She lost a pregnancy.”

“She lost a pregnancy,” grandfather repeats, in the tone he uses to indicate that he’s heard something and found it wanting.

“And your response to this is to install her in the guest wing indefinitely.”

“My response was basic human decency.”

“Your response,” he says, “Is what happens when a man feels guilty about something and doesn’t know how to stop paying for it.”

I reach for my water glass and say nothing.

The soup arrives. Grandfather ignores his.

Chapter Nu Cid Mana Veract

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“Do you want this woman, Chase? Yes or no.”

Across the club, two men in suits are laughing at something.

The fire crackles in the grate.

It’s all very civilized and I’m suddenly, intensely sick of civilized.

“No,” I say. “I don’t want Sonia.”

It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud.

It sits between us on the white tablecloth like something that’s been waiting a long time to be put down.

Grandfather picks up his soup spoon.

“Good,” he says simply.

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said in months. Now. What are you going to do about it?”

“I can’t just throw her out. Whatever my doubts about – “I stop.

Telling him that would be a terrible idea. He’d run with it with his usual blunt force and I’d be left to clean up the mess if I’m wrong.

“About what?”

“About the situation,” I say carefully.

“She’s not well, Grandfather. She can’t seem to stop crying and my mother is convinced she shouldn’t be alone.”

“Mmm,” he says when I finish.

“Mmm,” I repeat. “That’s all you have?”

“I’m thinking.” He eats a spoonful of soup.

“Chase. In sixty years of business, I have met three categories of person. Those who are genuinely struggling. Those who are performing struggle because they’ve discovered it gets results.”

He pauses.

“And the dangerous ones, who started performing and somewhere along the way convinced themselves it was real.

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I look at him.

“Which category do you think your young lady falls into?”

I don’t answer, because the honest answer is that I’m not sure, and saying so feels like a betrayal of something even if I can’t name what.

“You have a wife,” my grandfather says, with the bluntness of a man who’s never seen the point of a soft approach when a direct one is available.

“A real one. Who built your company alongside you, carried your child nearly to her death, and is currently living under your roof because you gave her no other option that didn’t break her heart.”

He points his spoon at me.

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“Don’t tell me that was my idea, I’m aware and I stand by it. But now you’re spending your energy managing the

eelings of a woman who is, at best, a mistake and, at worst, a liability.”

“I know that.”

“Then act like you know it.”

He puts the spoon down.

“Get rid of the girl. Fix your marriage. In that order. Because the other way around won’t work.”

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