All Chapters of She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife: Chapter 251 - Chapter 260

(Natasha)"When did she start doing that? The pinch. Thumb and finger."Gloria catches the soggy puff Lily hands her like she's been entrusted with something priceless."Is that early? That feels early."Gloria is on my living room floor.Gloria, who once renegotiated a deal in heels at two in the morning and never once sat down, is folded onto my rug in a skirt that costs more than the rug, letting my daughter feed her wet snacks."It's normal," I say. "She's a baby. They all do it.""She's clearly advanced.""She ate a sticker this morning. Off the floor. With genuine relish.""Adventurous palate," Gloria says, without hesitation, and offers Lily her thumb to gum.From the good armchair, Taylor cracks one eye open."Gloria. You're scaring the woman in her own home.""I'm admiring the baby," Gloria says defensively."You're inhaling the baby. You've sniffed her head twice since you got here. I'm keeping a tally.""Once.""Twice. I don't miss things."Taylor sinks deeper into the chai

(Natasha)I say yes on a Tuesday.Which feels right, because the whole thing started on a Tuesday, and I'm nothing if not consistent."We're delighted," the recruiter says, in that voice that bills by the quarter-hour."Truly. The board will be thrilled.""I can only start in two months," I tell her. "I won’t leave Stein in the lurch. Mr. Stein will need time to find my replacement and there are projects I have to wrap up.""Understood."I don’t think I’m imagining the note of approval in her voice.Understandably so.It’s the ones who'd walk out at the drop of a hat that you need to worry about.I hang up.And then I sit in my office and do deep-breathing exercises for five minutes, because I've gone and done it.CEO.The big chair.A firm that has nothing to do with Mason, or Chase, or my shares in Warren Global.A company that I absolutely know is hiring me strictly because they want me to run their business.No emotions tangled up in it at all.Mine. Built by me, run by me. No man

(Sonia)"Cut," Liam says, for the ninth time, in a voice he learned off YouTube."That was good. That was really good. Can you do it once more, but with your soul?""This is my soul, Liam. You're looking at it. Adjust your expectations.""Your soul's incredible. I just want more of it."We're shooting on a rooftop somebody's cousin technically owns, in LA heat that's turning two dozen croissants into a public health concern.Liam brought the croissants.Liam always brings croissants. It’s like a tic.There are four people on this crew, and he packed enough pastry for forty and a belief in his seven-minute short film that should be studied by scientists.He's in a denim jacket.It's ninety degrees.He's worn the wrong coat every day I've known him, and I've stopped expecting the sun to win that argument.The whole roof smells like hot tar and a mish-mash of fruity vapes.Apparently everyone in film school vapes and they all prefer different flavors.It’s giving me a headache."Why am I

(Natasha)Brenda never calls me. Brenda emails. Brenda schedules.So when Brenda's name lights up my phone in the middle of the afternoon, I know it's bad before I answer."Chase collapsed in the board meeting."Her voice cracks."They've taken him to St. Jude's. They suspect it’s a cardiac episode."I don't remember the drive.I remember parking badly, and a security guard starting to say ma'am, you can't stop there, and me rushing past him like he didn’t exist.They can have the car towed, I don’t care.St. Jude's keeps the cardiac cases in a corridor the color of weak tea, and that's where I run out of forward motion.They won't let me in.He's being assessed. Please take a seat, ma'am. Someone will come and talk to you as soon as there’s news.I sit, fighting the urge to push past everyone and go to Chase’s bedside.James finds me there.I sent him a message, hoping he’d be able to use his doctor clout to give me answers they’d otherwise be withholding.He lowers himself into the

(Sonia)Lily has decided my earring is the most important object in human history and is trying to claim it with the grip of a small, furious crab."She likes shiny things," Natasha says from the kitchen. "She gets that from your side.""Our side," I correct.The words sit strangely in my mouth, because a year ago I'd have died before claiming a side that included a foster kid from a beach town.Now I'm on her floor letting her daughter try to rip my ear apart, and the strange thing is there's nowhere I'd rather be.We’ve come a long way over the past weeks.I’m nowhere near Natasha’s favorite person yet, and she still doesn’t fully trust my motives, but she doesn’t take herself into a different room whenever I’m around anymore.Like I have a highly contagious disease.She also no longer times my visits to the second.The last two times we’ve actually chatted fairly amicably and I’m blown away by how happy that makes me.She’s nothing at all like I used to believe.She’s not boring. Or frumpy. Or