All Chapters of She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife: Chapter 331 - Chapter 340

380 Chapters

Chapter 331 Post-Op

(Hannah)The valve replacement was supposed to take four hours.It took six, because the patient's anatomy hadn't read the imaging, and by the time I'm out of the scrub room it's 9:40 and my phone shows one message from James, sent at 7:05.No rush. I'll be here.Nothing after that.No follow-up, no ‘everything okay?’, no little passive question mark designed to make me feel bad faster.Just the one line, two and a half hours old.I call him from the parking garage."I'm so sorry. The surgery-""Ran long. I figured. You still hungry?""You're not still at the restaurant?""I'm in the bar part of the restaurant. They have a TV and I've developed opinions about a snooker tournament.""James. Go home. I'm in scrubs, I smell like a hospital, I'm not fit for-""Hannah. Come eat with me."I go.Obviously I go.He's at the end of the bar with a beer, and when I walk in he doesn't do anything dramatic.Stands, pulls out the stool next to him, flags the bartender."She'll want the water first,

Chapter 332 Terms Undefined

(Chase)"Thursday works," I say into the phone. "No, not the office. I'll come to you."Elijah looks up from his homework at my kitchen island.He's developed a stare like a customs officer."Who was that?""Work thing.""You said 'not the office.'""Some work happens outside the office."I take his empty plate."Finish the math.""It's history.""Finish the history."He goes back to it, unconvinced.Less than a year in this family and already interrogates like his grandfather.Thursday he'll be at the Estate again, standing appointment, snacks provided, the two of them building their little empire of complaints.I drive him to Hannah's at eight and don't check my phone at reds, which is new.Nothing's on fire.Nobody's leaving.There's no folder on any table anywhere.I keep waiting for the other shoe and there's no shoe.Surely this peace can’t last?Sunday lunch at Gloria's.Natasha's across the table dismantling Liam's pitch for Elijah's ‘personal brand.Lily's throwing nothing at

Chapter 333 Out Loud

(Natasha)Chase stands up from the couch slowly, like sudden movement might change my mind."Okay.""One thing first. Then no talking."My heart's going hard enough that he can probably see it.Practiced this in the car.Practiced it in the elevator.It was easier in the elevator."I need you to hear it, and I need you to not make it a whole thing.""You're making it a whole thing.""Shut up."Deep breath."I chose this. You. Not the path of least resistance. Not for Lily. I got offered the thing I wanted my whole life and I stood in that office and it was easy to say no, because everything I actually want is here. You're what I want. I chose you. Out loud. That's the whole speech."Silence.He's got a look I've never seen on him.And I've gotten to know a number of new ones this year to put with the ones I’ve always known.The boardroom ones, the pissed ones, the careful ones.This one's stripped.Like I reached in and turned something off at the wall."Say something," I manage."No.

Chapter 334 No Exits

(Chase)I push in, and whatever smartass comment I had ready dissolves.I have to stop moving.I lock up, burying my face in her shoulder.I have to stop.Forehead buried in her shoulder, every muscle locked, because nothing could have prepared me for how she feels around me right after saying I chose you out loud.Her nails dig into the base of my neck."If you're thinking, I'll kill you.""Give me half a second.""No. Move."I drag out slow. I drive back in hard, just to see what it gets me.It earns me a choked, broken noise I feel with my whole body.She grabs the slats of the headboard.I keep the pace exactly where I want it.Slow.Brutal.She hates it and tries to rush me.Hips lifting, heel dragging down my calf, throwing every trick she owns at the problem.I hook her knee, pin her thigh open, and hold the rhythm.She makes a sound like she wants to choke me."You're doing this on purpose," she snaps."I do everything on purpose.""I hate you.""No, you don't. You gave a whol

Chapter 335 Sunday

(Natasha)"Sonia," Liam calls, across four feet of table."I'm right here, you lunatic.""I know. I just like saying your name."Elias puts his knife down."There are laws against this at a lunch table. If there aren't, I'll have Pemberton draft one. It'll give him something to overbill me for."Elijah's been grinning at the pair of them for twenty minutes straight.He'd sell tickets if he could."Do the thing again," he says. "Where you feed her and narrate it.""Absolutely not," says Sonia."One bite," says Liam. "For the fans."She threatens him with a fork.He beams like she blew him a kiss.Six weeks together and they're already unbearable.God help us all if they make it to the six-month mark.Gloria comes through with the gravy, refill trip number eight.“Where’s Mason and Chloe?” I ask."Chloe canceled this morning, poor thing. She can't get comfortable anywhere anymore. And Mason's stuck on some work thing, he was very cagey about it.""Cagey how?" I ask."Cagey like his moth

Chapter 336 Not the Plan

(Chloe)The contraction hits while I'm reaching for the good honey, the raw kind Bryce swears by, and I drop the whole jar.Glass everywhere.Honey everywhere.Me, gripping the counter, breathing through my teeth like the birthing classes taught me.Except the memory of Marisol’s soothing voice is nowhere near strong enough for what this actually feels like."Okay," I tell the kitchen, once it passes. "Okay. That was a big one."I look at the clock.Four minutes since the last one.Mason put an app on my phone that’s supposed to help guide us through the birthing process.I look for it and type in four minutes.That's not a number the app seems to like.The app wants me calm and hydrated with a bag by the door, and instead I'm standing in honey in my socks, thirty-six days early, with absolutely nothing packed.I'd told everyone this baby would come when the timing was right, that the universe doesn't do accidents.The universe, apparently, thinks honey on the kitchen floor at eleven

Chapter 337 In the Room

(Mason)"Sir, you'll want to breathe too," the nurse says, not looking up from the monitor."We only have the one bed.""I'm breathing.""You're a fun color for someone who's breathing."Chloe's grip crushes my fingers through another contraction.Her face does the work her voice won't.I count it down against the monitor like the birthing classes taught me, out loud, four, three, two, and she exhales through her teeth right on cue."Good," she pants. "Keep doing the numbers. The numbers help."The numbers help.Noted.Filed.Something I can actually do.When they wheeled her into the room, a different nurse asked if ‘hubby was staying or waiting outside’.Chloe answered before the question finished."He stays."Two words.No discussion.Every version of this I'd dreaded, the waiting room, the pacing, the door I wasn't allowed through, deleted in two words, and there wasn't even a second to be weird about it, because the next contraction hit and we were in it.The doctor snaps her glo

Chapter 338 Occupancy Limits

(Natasha)"Sir, the vending machine isn't broken," the security guard says. "It just doesn't take hundreds.""Then what," Elias asks, "Is it for?"I steer him back toward the chairs before Brenda gets a call demanding the hospital be bought and refitted with butlers.St. Anne's waiting room was built for maybe eight anxious people.We are eleven.Gloria's on her third lap of the reception desk, being aggressively charming at a woman who has no new information and is starting to know our names.Nathanial's holding two coffees he hasn't drunk.Sonia and Liam have colonized a corner with Elijah, who's gone quiet in the way kids do when the adults stop pretending not to be worried.Lily's cruising the chairs, working the room like it's Sunday lunch, part two.A man with his arm in a sling gets offered her juice cup.He takes it, but looks worried.Smart man.Chase hasn't sat down in an hour.He keeps drifting toward the corridor doors and back, and I know exactly which waiting room he's a

Chapter 339 Four Pounds Eleven

(Chloe)Mason comes back in with a nurse and rushes to my side.“Everyone’s outside, waiting to see you, but they said someone wants to speak to us alone first.He’s terrified and trying to hide it.Turns out they want to give us good news without an audience.She’s been telling us how well our little miracle is doing."Feeding and temperature," the neonatologist finishes."That's the whole checklist. She's breathing on her own, which for thirty-five weeks is showing off. She’ll be under special care for days, not weeks. You'll likely take her home before you've agreed on a name."Mason exhales like he's been underwater since Sunday."Days," he repeats. "Define days please.""We want to monitor her feeds and weight increase, and keep an eye on her temperature. If she keeps this up, three or four days at most."He asks eleven more questions.She answers all of them patiently.I stop listening after the second, because through the glass behind her, in the third isolette from the door, a

Chapter 340 Visiting Hours

(Chase)"The child will need a proper crib," Elias announces to the parking structure."Not one of those folding insults. I'll have Brenda send one.""She has a crib," Natasha says."She'll have a better one."Nathanial gets him into the waiting car before he can start buying wings for the hospital.Sonia and Liam pull out behind them with Elijah half asleep in the back seat, one hand raised at us through the window.Then it's us.One car left on the level, one kid dead asleep on Natasha's shoulder.I take Lily.She transfers without waking, face mashed into my neck, breathing like it's her job.Natasha watches me buckle her in. Checks the strap after me anyway.We drive.The city does its Sunday-night nothing.Natasha's quiet beside me, head back against the rest, and I think she's asleep until she speaks."So are we going to talk about it, or are you going to keep white-knuckling the wheel and pretending you’re fine?"I look at my hands. Loosen them."Long day.""Chase. Come on. We’

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