She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 68

Chapter 68 Just The Two Of Us

(Sonia)

I find out from Hendrik.

He calls me directly, which he almost never does, his voice carrying the particular strain of a man managing several problems at once and not enjoying any of them.

“Your mother is at the Rosewood,” he tells me. “She arrived yesterday. Nathanial has been here to see her and she’s very upset.”

I’m already reaching for my bag before he finishes the sentence.

The cab ride takes fourteen minutes and I spend all of them plotting.

My mother in Los Angeles is a disaster I did not plan for.

I can hardly be blamed for that. She’s avoided this city for my entire life with the commitment of someone outrunning the law.

Whatever finally moved her to get on a plane, it wasn’t a casual impulse.

Something convinced her she needed to come back.

Something or someone.

The timing alone is enough to make iny stomach turn.

Nathanial has been grieving publicly for weeks.

He hired a private investigator and found the death certificate I arranged.

That should have been the end of it.

But grief has a way of making people dig deeper than the first thing they find.

My mother arriving now, in this city, at this particular moment, feels less like coincidence and more like the universe deciding to be inconvenient.

She cannot go to the Warren estate.

She cannot meet Natasha.

Julian saw it immediately. There’s no way my mother could miss that Natasha is her child.

She carried her, raised her for six years, and then left her behind for reasons she has never fully explained to anyone, including me.

Not that I cared very much. Nathanial’s the one who won’t stop worrying at it like a dog with a bone.

The point is, if my mother sees Natasha’s face, no amount of medication or careful psychiatric management will stop her from knowing.

So she can never see her.

She absolutely cannot visit the Warren Estate. Ever.

Not before I boot out Natasha for good.

Chapters Just the Twin of LA

My mother opens the hotel room door and looks like she’s aged five years since Christmas.

gross.

I’m never letting myself go like that.

It’s horribly out of character for her. She’s the one who taught me the power my beauty holds.

“Sonia. My baby.”

She pulls me in immediately, wrapping both arms around me.

The kind of hug she gives when she’s frightened.

I hold her and let her.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I ask into her hair.

“I wasn’t sure I was staying.”

She pulls back, cups my face in her hands, looks at me the way she always does.

“You’re too thin darling.”

“I’ve been through a lot.”

Her face collapses with guilt, which is exactly where I need her.

I guide her to the sofa, sit beside her, and take her hands.

Time to remind her why I should be her favorite child.

“Mom. Does Nathanial know you’re here?”

I pretend not to know about his visit.

She looks down at our joined hands and nods.

“He was very forceful. We argued.”

“What about?”

She’s quiet for too long.

“Nat,” she says finally.

My grip on her hands stays perfectly steady through an act of pure will.

“He wants to know why I left her,” my mother says.

Her voice has the hollow quality of someone describing a wound rather than feeling it.

“He’s never pushed this hard before. He’s always been so careful with me. My perfect boy.”

She exhales a short, broken sound that isn’t quite a laugh.

“I suppose he no longer cares about my feelings.”

A touch rich considering what she did, but I’m hardly in a position to judge.

C

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Enoptilo Just The Two Of U

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“What did you tell him?”

Nothing.” She shakes her head. “Hendrik came home just in time and made him leave.”

Yay step-daddy.

“Mom.”

I choose my words with the care of a surgeon.

“You know Nathanial has been struggling. He needed someone to blame and Nat’s death gave him a direction for all of that grief.”

I squeeze her hands.

“It isn’t your fault. And it isn’t going to help either of you to dig through all of that again.”

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