She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 64

Chapter 64 Sober

(Nathanial)

My step-father arrives at my office at ten o’clock sharp, which is his way of reminding me that he sets the schedule.

I have coffee waiting, which is my way of reminding him that I was expecting it.

He looks well.

Hendrik Morton always looks well.

At nearly seventy years old he has the posture of a military officer, and the patience of a man entirely certain the room will bend to him without being asked twice.

He sits down, accepts the coffee, and looks at me across the desk with an expression I know very well.

Disappointed but optimistic.

The face of a man who believes the previous conversation was a setback, not a conclusion.

“You seem better,” he says.

“I am better.”

“Good.” He sets his cup down.

“Then we can talk properly. Your mother needs to hear from you, Nathanial. A phone call. Something civil. That’s all I’m asking.”

“No.”

He blinks. Just once. I wonder if anyone has ever told him no before.

It’s entirely possible that I’m breaking new ground here.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No,” I say again, in exactly the same tone.

“I’m not calling her. Not yet. Maybe not for a while. I’m not ready to go back to acting like the dutiful son.”

Hendrik is quiet for a moment, and the silence has the same effortless authority that has flattened arguments in boardrooms for decades.

It doesn’t work on me today.

“She’s struggling,” he says carefully. Very obviously trying to remain patient.

“Whatever happened in the past-”

“She left my sister behind.”

I keep my voice level. There’s no anger in it. I’m too tired for anger.

“She packed us up in the night and she walked out and she left her six year old daughter alone in an empty house.”

I take a deep breath.

+15 Bonus

“And when I asked her why, every time I asked her, for years, she changed the subject, or she cried, or she found a way to make the conversation about something else.”

I look at him…

“Nat is dead. She’s been dead for five years and I never got to find her because I spent those years here, doing this, being what everyone needed me to be. So no. I’m not callitig her.”

Hendrik puts his cup down.

“I understand you’re grieving,” he starts.

“I don’t think you do,” I say.

“To you, Nat’s never been anything but a distant concept. A shadow you never met. I lost my sister, whom I loved. Which means I don’t have anything left over right now for managing my mother’s feelings.”

“She’s your mother.”

“Exactly. And she made a choice. She can live with the consequences of it for five minutes while I live with mine.”

The silence that follows is a different quality from his usual ones.

Less controlled.

“The company needs someone at the helm who-” he begins.

And there it is. Right on schedule.

“Don’t,” I warn.

“I’m simply pointing out that your behavior over the past several weeks has raised concerns. The Tokyo meeting. Your conduct at the Warren dinner. Piper has been very-”

“I don’t give a damn what Piper has been;” I say.

“And I mean that with complete sincerity. I don’t care about the CEO position right now.”

Hendrik holds my gaze as if he’s waiting for the sentence to improve on reflection.

It doesn’t.

“You cannot possibly-”

“I spent my entire childhood doing everything in my power to keep what was left of my family together. I did everything I could to earn your respect,” I tell him.

“Do you know why? Not because I wanted to run a company. Because it was the only thing I could think of that would make me indispensable. That would ensure you’d stop my mother if she tried to run and leave someone

behind.”

I lean back.

“And somewhere along the way I forgot that was why I started. But Nat dying reminded me.”

I pause.

“I wasted years. I can’t get them back. And I’m not going to waste any more of them performing the role of the perfect son for an audience that has never once asked whether any of it is making me happy.”

+15 Bonus

Hendrik Morton loses his temper.

Ts a remarkable thing to witness.

The careful control cracks all at once, like ice giving way.

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