Todos os capítulos de She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife: Capítulo 71 - Capítulo 80

(Chase)Lily’s fever spikes again at one in the morning.I know because I'm sitting in the chair beside the cot, watching her little chest rise and fall the way I have been for the past three hours.One moment she's warm. The next, she's burning.Natasha's name is out of my mouth before I've fully stood up.She's in the doorway in thirty seconds, eyes wide and worried.She takes one look at Lily and says, "Call Patel."Patel doesn't answer. His service informs me he's unavailable until morning.I swear quite inventively, then call Dr. Hargreaves instead.The Warren family physician is seventy years old, semi-retired, and answers his phone on the second ring without a trace of irritation.Because men like Hargreaves have been doing this long enough to know that a middle of the night call means something.Especially when it comes from our home.He arrives in under twenty minutes.He examines Lily with steady hands and a face I’m watching very carefully for information he may not be keen

(Sonia)I find a quiet corner near the vending machines and call Dr. Evans before I've fully thought through what I'm going to say.He answers on the seventh ring, which tells me he saw my name and considered not picking up.Very rude."Lily Warren is in the NICU," I say, without preamble."They're blood typing everyone here because she has some rare genetic marker. Every single person upstairs is lining up to donate. My brother is one of them."I keep my voice low and controlled."I need you to fix this."A long silence."Miss Morton."His voice has the same quality it had in our last few interactions.The sound of a man who’s walked very far down a road he doesn't like and can no longer see the start of."I'm a gynecologist.""I know what you are.""Then you understand that a pediatric case at a hospital, under a different physician, is completely outside my reach. I don't have access to that doctor’s files. I don't have access to any files in that building."A pause."I can’t help

(Natasha)The waiting room has stopped feeling like a room and started feeling like a pressure chamber.Plastic chairs. Bad coffee. Too many expensive coats thrown over the backs of seats.Too many people pretending not to watch one another while listening to every change in breathing from the corridor outside the NICU.Nathanial is standing by the window with his phone in his hand and no attention on it whatsoever.Mason is leaning against the wall near the coffee machine, talking quietly to Gloria.Piper is seated with her legs crossed and her shoulders set like she’s bracing for impact.Julian is somehow managing to make a hospital chair look like a throne.Eleanor is stiff with contained fury. Sonia is very still beside her, which is somehow more unnerving than her usual look-at-me attitude.Chase is across the room, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees, staring at the doors as if concentration alone might force them to open.It feels like there are undercurrents swirlin

(Natasha)By the time Lily comes home, the nursery looks less like a nursery and more like a satellite office for St. Jude’s.There are printed instruction sheets above the changing table.A thermometer on the dresser.A neat stack of follow-up appointment cards clipped together with one of Chase’s silver binder clips.Because apparently even our child’s medical crisis has to be organized like a merger.The first time I see the chart he made, I just stare at it.Temperature. Feeding times. Wet diapers. Medication notes. Questions for Patel. Space for symptoms. Space for changes in her mood.It is precise, thorough, and faintly insane.It is also exactly what I would have made if I’d been able to tear myself away from Lily’s side.Chase is standing by the crib, looking down at Lily with the concentration of a man trying to hold the whole world steady by force of will.“You made a spreadsheet,” I say.He glances over. “A table.”“That’s a spreadsheet in a collared shirt.”“It’s useful.”

(Nathanial)Sonia calls at noon and asks if she can come over that evening.I haven’t seen much of her recently.I neglected her for a bit when I found out about Nat’s death.But in fairness, I neglected myself as well while dealing with that overwhelming grief.When I was more myself and tried to visit her, she told me not to come around the Warren estate.Apparently she was learning to stand on her own feet.She arrives looking ready in a way I recognize.Composed, a little too deliberate, carrying the energy of someone who’s spent hours psyching themselves up for something hard.She sits down and tells me.All of it.The phone calls timed to interrupt our evenings.The things she whispered in my ear about Gloria that weren't true.The tears, the crises, the endless careful erosion of something I thought was simply falling apart on its own.I listen to every word without interrupting.When she finishes, she looks at me with genuine contrition and says Dr. Reeves helped her understan