Loving Lily(34)

Ignoring her was easy. All I had to do back then was be an asshole, and everything would go as I wanted it. Throughout the years, I never saw her, though she wasn’t far from my thoughts. She was always there, lingering.

A part of me still believed I was only buying time for myself until I surrendered to her. I knew there was no place for me to hide. I would eventually find myself going back to her. I did, too. Although I didn’t realize it immediately, I somehow found my way to her again.

I knew, the moment I saw her sitting down with my mother in my office, I was royally screwed. I felt a jolt the moment our eyes connected. And, no, it wasn’t my penis that jolted, but my damn heart. I literally felt each fucking thud against my chest. No woman had ever affected me so greatly that I felt faint and angry at the same time. I almost felt powerless. Her pull towards me was beyond frightening. Yet, as much as I fought it, the attraction fought twice as hard, making it impossible to avoid it.

That very first night, upon seeing her for the first time, I hardly slept because my body was absolutely wired and pumped to get to work the next day to see her beautiful face again. I felt like I was high on something, and I only wanted to be around her at all times.

God, her reluctance, her blatant rejection of my advances, made me driven to conquer her all the more. I hadn’t dedicated my life, not even while studying—hell, not even with work—to acquire anything more than I had with Lily. She was more than an object of my desires; she literally became a person I studied. From her wants to dislikes, whenever she blinked or her different kinds of smiles. She also had distinctive frowns: her confused frown, her curious frown, her angered frown, or the look she got when she was trying to concentrate on something. She became an obsession.

I felt like my mind and heart were pulling me in separate directions. My mind was trying to convince me I was making a fool of myself, while my heart was screaming at me to keep on going, that she—Lily Alexander—deserved to be worshipped from head to foot after I had treated her so unfairly and so brashly. It was my way of making amends

However, all of the confusion and redirection of my feelings and wayward thoughts had come to a halt after realizing that she, too, could play the game. That she, too, could see other men while I was still deciding if she and I should become exclusive. When I saw her with that other man, something dangerous and explosive happened to me. I simply lost it. I was so infuriated I felt borderline manic. I only wanted her

After that, I tried to fight for her and had continued to fight for her since. I would make damn sure I won her back again, too.

Tonight, operation wooing my wife back is firmly in place.

*

Lily and I were sharing one of the junior suites since Mom and Dad had taken the master. Though Mom insisted we stayed there instead of them, it didn’t feel appropriate to do so. Even though I was a grown man, I still respected them a great deal. I supposed that would never change.

“Where do you want me to place your suitcases?” My hands and arms were full upon entering the room.

Our eyes clashed for a second before my gaze dropped to her small, burgeoning stomach, sending an army of weird feely things crawling around my insides.

“Just put them by the door. I’ll figure it out in a bit,” she shyly responded before I gave her a curt nod.

Situating her things beside the door, I started saying, “Okay, but I still get to lift it. I don’t want you lifting anything and ending up straining your back. I don’t want you hurt, Lily.”

“Right. Sure you don’t.”

I guess her play-pretend was beginning to crack its perfect shell. She was starting to become slightly irate.

“What are you trying to say, Lil? That I would want to intentionally hurt you or to even see you hurt?” There was a fine line between sarcasm and an intentional dig at my integrity. I appreciated neither. “Have you forgotten how horrible I felt after I saw you bleeding in the shower?”

The sudden reminder of that incident made her pale a little. I did feel bad for blurting it out, knowing it was a sensitive subject to both of us; however, she needed a reality check. Since this was the most recent horrible thing to happen to us, I felt like I needed to say it and address her biting tone with a good example.

“You scared the living shit out of me. I was even more scared for you compared to when I was trying to fight for my life on the operating table almost a year ago.” Saying the typical I love yous wouldn’t work anymore, not in our case. This had gone beyond out of control. She needed to fathom the depth of how much I cared for her. “So don’t say shit like that. I fucking don’t appreciate it, because I care for you more than you think.”