She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 82

(Natasha)

Gloria zips up my dress and steps back with the critical squint of a woman who takes these things seriously.

"Well," she says.

"Well what?"

"Well, you look gorgeous."

She hands me my clutch.

"Bauer is going to be hanging around you like a buzzard."

She's not wrong.

The party we’re attending is for the release of some new software developed by his company.

The merger is very nearly complete, but for the moment it’s still his company.

During the merger Jeffrey Bauer has been attentive in a way that occasionally crosses a line, and tonight I’m walking into his party looking, according to Gloria, gorgeous.

The medication has done its full work.

The face in the mirror is mine again. Sharp jaw, blue eyes, cheekbones that existed somewhere under the steroids for years and have now resurfaced with something like indignation.

My dress is midnight blue and showing a fair bit of leg and cleavage.

My hair is up.

I look like the woman I was before all of this started.

It's a strange feeling. Like running into yourself at a party.

I’m getting ready at Gloria’s place because Lily would not be happy if I came home, only to leave again an hour later.

I feel horribly guilty about abandoning her for most of the evening, but I know Eleanor will take good care of her and spoil her rotten.

The venue is the kind of place that has a name rather than an address.

All glass and candlelight, the city spread out below it like a reward for arriving.

Gloria and I walk in together and I feel the exact moment the room recalibrates.

It's subtle.

A few heads turning.

A conversation that drops half a beat.

The particular quality of attention that means someone is trying to work out where they know you from.

Many of them can’t place me. That's the crazy part.

I’ve met half the people in this room professionally.

Across conference tables, at industry events, at the Blackwood Gala where I stood in a maternity dress and announced I was representing Stein M&A while eight months pregnant and running on spite.

They remember that woman vaguely and are looking at me now as though I'm someone new.

Jeffrey Bauer finds me in under four minutes, which I suspect is a personal best.

"Natasha."

He takes my hand and holds it a beat too long.

"I knew you'd clean up beautifully, but this is something else entirely."

"Jeffrey."

I smile in the way I've perfected over years of business.

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