She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 91

(Natasha)

My mother makes tea at six in the morning because she doesn’t know what else to do.

I sit at the kitchen island and watch her move through the townhouse, calm and efficient in a way that only makes her worry more obvious.

She raised me to be stronger than this, and now she’s pretending not to see the state I’m in.

My father is in the living room. I can hear him out there, awake, restless, trying not to intrude.

When I arrived yesterday I completely fell apart.

I spent the night railing against Chase, and sobbing my heart out at Lily’s absence.

I know I look like hell today. My eyes are red and puffy. My skin dry from all the salty tears that tracked across my cheeks yesterday.

"Drink," my mother says, putting the mug in front of me.

The tea is too hot and tastes of absolutely nothing.

Outside the kitchen window, the morning is dull and grey.

Across the city, my daughter is in her cot, and I’m here instead of where I belong. By her side.

The distance between us is a hard, constant pressure in my chest, as though something there is being forced to carry more than it can hold.

I know Lily is safe.

Eleanor is there.

And Sarah.

And Chase who is, whatever else he is, an excellent father.

She’ll be fed and warm and held.

But she won’t understand where I am.

Why her mommy, who promised she’d always be there, is suddenly just gone.

That's the part I can't organize into something manageable.

"You did the right thing," my mother says, sitting down across from me.

Her hands are around her mug, and she’s watching me with the steady directness she’s always had.

The kind of attention that never feels invasive, just kind.

"That’s what I thought yesterday, but it doesn't feel like it anymore."

"The right things rarely do immediately."

I look at the table.

"She's going to wonder where I am."

"She's going to see her mother fight for her," my mother says.

I've been turning this over since I started throwing my clothes into suitcases.

Since I watched the estate gate close in my rearview mirror and felt something tear that I don't have a name for.

I know why I left.

The logic is sound.

Lily is going to grow up.

She's going to watch how the adults around her move through the world, and she's going to learn from it the way children do.

Not from what they're told, but from what they see.

She's going to see her mother, and the way her mother allows herself to be treated, and she's going to absorb it as information about what's normal.

I will not teach her that this is normal.

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