She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 67

Chapter 67 She’s Here

(Nathanial)

When I see a private number flashing on my screen, I very nearly let it go to voicemail.

People should know better in this day and age than to withhold their numbers.

But in business you never know when a call can be important.

“Nathanial. How wonderful to hear your voice. It’s been so long.”

I wish I had let it ring out.

My mother has called me from the same number for fifteen years.

I know the number the way I know my own birthday. Automatically, without thinking.

Her voice is doing the thing it does when she’s been rehearsing what she wants to say.

I wouldn’t entirely be surprised if she has it all written out like a script in front of her.

The words are too steady. Too carefully paced.

“Mother.” I put my pen down. “Where are you calling from?”

A pause.

“I’m in Los Angeles.”

I sit back in my chair slowly, glancing out the window to make sure the world isn’t ending.

“You’re here.”

“I’m at the Rosewood. I’ve actually been here since yesterday. I needed some time to compose myself.”

Another careful little pause. “I wasn’t sure I’d actually call.”

I look at the ceiling for a moment, counting to twenty.

She hasn’t set foot in this city since the night we left.

She’s refused every invitation, declined every occasion, constructed an entire architecture of excuses to avoid ever coming back here.

Not even Sonia’s pregnancy or miscarriage could move her.

But now something has shifted her enough to get on a plane alone and travel to a city she swore never to set foot in again.

Without ever telling me why.

“I’ll come to you,” I say. “Give me an hour.”

She looks smaller than I remember.

Not shrunken in any way, just delicate and petite.

Like a porcelain figurine. Perfect but fragile.

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She’s sitting in an armchair by the window when I arrive, dressed carefully, her hands folded in her lap.

ou came quickly,” she says.

“You’re my mother.” I sit on the sofa across from her.

“Why are you here?”

She looks at her hands.

“I needed to face it. The psychiatrist said-”

“I don’t want to talk about the psychiatrist.”

I keep my voice gentle.

“I want to know why now. What changed?”

What follows is twenty minutes of everything except the answer.

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She talks about the flight, the hotel, how different the city looks, how strange it feels to be back after so long.

She talks about Sonia, about worrying for her, about the miscarriage and how she blames herself for not being a better mother.

She talks about Hendrik and the house and the garden and the neighbor’s dog.

She talks about everything in the orbit of the thing I need to know, and not once does she land on it.

“Mom.”

She stops.

“Nat is dead,” I say.

It still costs me something to say it plainly. It probably always will.

“She’s been dead for five years and we didn’t even know. You never made any effort to find her. I need you to tell me why we left her.”

Her face crumples immediately and the tears glisten in her eyes on cue.

“Nathanial, please don’t do this to me.”

“I’ve asked you this question my entire life,” I say.

“Every version of it. Gently, carefully, from every possible angle so you wouldn’t feel attacked. I stopped asking because it upset you, and I told myself I was being kind.”

I lean forward.

“I wasn’t being kind. I was doing what I always do. Making it easier for everyone else. You owe me an explanation.

“You don’t understand how complicated it was-”

“You’re right, I don’t! Because you refuse to explain it to me. All I understand right now is that my sister spent the rest of her childhood alone after we left, and then she died, and I never got to see her again. So please.”

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My voice cracks on the last word, just slightly.

Tell me why.”

She puts her face in her hatids.

The crying starts quietly and builds fast, the way it always does.

Filling the room until there’s no space left for anything else.

I sit there and stare at her.

For the first time in my life, I don’t move toward her.

I don’t reach for her hand or tell her it’s alright or find a way to calm her.

I just sit in it, and wait, and let her feel the weight of the question without rescuing her from it.

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