Chapter 6 - THE HOUSE SHE REFUSED TO RETURN TO
Natalie was discharged shortly after seven that evening.
Dr. Porter made her promise to return immediately if she experienced bleeding, contractions, reduced fetal movement, dizziness, or worsening pain.
Benjamin wanted her at his home.
Natalie refused.
“I’m not hiding.”
“You are seven months pregnant.”
“I’m aware.”
“Your husband may be desperate.”
“That’s why I’m not going back to Belle Meade.”
She chose a furnished apartment owned by the Hale Foundation near the hospital.
Private elevator.
Security.
No sentimental history.
When she entered, the silence felt unfamiliar.
No Mason.
No housekeeper.
No framed wedding photographs.
No scent of his cologne.
Natalie stood alone in the living room and realized she did not miss the house.
She missed the woman she had been when she first entered it.
Her phone rang.
Mason.
She let it ring.
Again.
Again.
Then a text.
You’re making this much worse than it needs to be.
Natalie almost laughed.
A second message appeared.
We can fix this privately.
Then:
Think about the baby.
That one made her angry.
Not visibly.
Natalie had become very good at anger nobody could see.
She forwarded all three messages to her attorney.
Thirty seconds later Mason called again.
This time she answered.
“What?”
He sounded almost relieved.
“Natalie.”
She waited.
“We need to talk without Hale and Sloan turning this into a war.”
“You brought Vivian to my prenatal appointment.”
“She followed me.”
“You arrived together.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You made several.”
“Natalie.”
She heard the old tone.
The one designed to make her feel unreasonable before she had even spoken.
“The company cannot survive you interfering.”
She looked out over the Nashville skyline.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“For eight years you told me the company had nothing to do with me.”
Silence.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“You don’t understand the structure.”
“I understand thirty-one percent.”
Mason stopped breathing.
Natalie continued.
“I understand unauthorized collateral.”
“Natalie—”
“I understand a forged consent form.”
Nothing.
That silence told her more than denial would have.
“Who signed my name?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bad answer.”
“You need to stop listening to Benjamin.”
“My uncle didn’t forge my signature.”
“Nobody forged anything.”
“Then you won’t mind a forensic examination.”
His voice became colder.
“You are being manipulated.”
There it was again.
Too emotional.
Too confused.
Too pregnant.
Too female.
Too fragile to understand what men had done with her own property.
Natalie looked at the locked apartment door.
“Mason?”
“What?”
“Tomorrow morning I’m filing for divorce.”
He went silent.
“Not responding to yours.”
Another pause.
“Filing mine.”
“Natalie, don’t.”
It was the first time he had said those words without arrogance.
She felt nothing.
“My attorney will contact yours.”
“You’re destroying our family.”
Natalie’s eyes closed.
“No.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I finally stopped helping you destroy it.”
She ended the call.
Then she removed her wedding ring.
She did not throw it.
She did not cry over it.
May you like
She placed it in the kitchen drawer beside a spare key.
Eight years reduced to two objects she no longer needed.
