Loving Lily(52)

Saving face, I tried to make a joke out of it. “I suppose that saves me from hiring my own personal masseuse.”

“Don’t push your luck, Lily,” he warned. “If you need a man to give you an orgasm, look no further. I plan to carry on servicing you until the baby’s born. That way, I can be secured in the fact that you’re taking good care of my child.”

“Geez. Calm down. I was only making a joke. Seriously.”

“You better be,” he quipped back, looking far from amused.

I wanted to be alone to gather my thoughts and tell myself that, if I played my cards right, maybe there was still hope for us. As of that moment, especially after he had rejected making love to me, I needed to recuperate. Sex had always been a major factor in our marriage. Our sexual chemistry was out of the ordinary. Better than that, it was also another means of communication for us. Making love was a way to shower your significant other with love and attention. As a result, for him to decline me, it proved where he stood with me.

After a full minute of silence, he offered to take me home.

“There’s no need for that. I am more than able to get a cab, Drake.”

He wouldn’t relent. “Oblige me this one time, Lil … please?”

“Are you coming home with me or something?” I shouldn’t have asked, but I wanted to see if he had changed his mind. Maybe he still felt something for me.

The flicker of hope instantly vanished when he shook his head. “Can’t. I have a plane waiting for me. I must go to New York.”

“Oh,” I said, braving a smile. “Well, we best get moving, then.”

“Of course.” He then stood up, readjusting his robe. “I’ll go change. I’ll be back in a flash.” Excusing himself, I watched after him as he confidently walked towards the bathroom.

My mind drifted off, considering him and his actions. He didn’t come, and since he didn’t release, did that mean he meant to do it later … with another woman, perhaps? I hadn’t gotten around to asking him if he was already seeing someone else. Men tended to move on at lighting speed. Given that he and I hadn’t been intimate in three months, I was almost certain he had already done so with someone else.

With him leaving to New York, it made me wonder if he was taking the other woman. That was why he was saving his release, to pleasure her with his cock the way he used to do it with me.

It was a crippling thought, but one that was pretty viable. No wonder he didn’t want sex with me. It was because he was already experiencing it with someone else.

Congratulations, Lily. You did push him to it. I truly did. One couldn’t comprehend how much I was beginning to regret it, either. With all of my previous bravado, I had nothing to be proud of. Owning up to one’s mistake wasn’t easy, but I would try to put myself in a certain perspective, and that was to get my husband back. Then we could be a family again.

Driving back home was uneventful. The entire time, we listened to the music, never exchanging words at all. Multiple times, I attempted to speak my mind, wanting to ask if he had someone else, but the moment I opened my mouth, it kept dying on my lips. If my priority was my marriage, going about it by grilling him with questions wouldn’t be the best way to get him crawling back to me. Besides, if he did have someone else, that was my own burden to carry. Whether he did or didn’t, the fact remained startlingly the same—I wanted him back in my life. Though it had taken me a while to get there, I wouldn’t change my mind.

The moment we got home, he didn’t even get out of the car, telling me he had to head straight to the airport.

“Will I see you when I get back?” he lightly inquired, throwing me an expressionless gaze.

Though he wasn’t showing any emotion, I simply blossomed before his eyes. “Yeah,” I responded almost immediately. “Of course.”

He nodded, hardly giving any tells to let me know if he was pleased or not. “Take good care of yourself, Lil.”

“You, too. Safe travels.” Getting out of the car, I watched him drive off as I held my breath until his car merged with traffic.

Come back to me … When you’re ready, come back to me.





Chapter 22

Lily



“What is going on with you? It’s like, whenever I see you, you’re always staring at the clock.” Masie frowned at me before she purposely pointed her eyes towards the large clock behind the cash register then pointed a shrewd look at me.

Apart from the fact that my marriage was on the brink of separation and then divorce, everything was dandy.

“Drake’s supposed to be arriving today.” It was the truth, but that was the least I was worried about.