Chapter 58

~~ MICHAEL ~~

Lily had gone.  I’d told her to go and she had.  Why didn’t she wait for me to get back?  Because you told her to go.  I was an idiot.  I loved her.  I still loved her.  How could she do this to me?  I’d really thought that she loved me. Could I live with her knowing the child she was carrying didn’t belong to me?  I wasn’t sure.

For the first time since I was a young boy, I actually felt like crying.  She’d looked nervous, but so happy when she blurted out that she was pregnant.  When she’d seen my anger, her face had fallen with my words, her tears had started to fall.

I’d automatically presumed she’d been unfaithful to me, like Viv was, but what if she’d been pregnant when she’d moved in with me?  Could I accept her baby if he was the father?  Maybe!  If he was the father then it would mean she hadn’t been unfaithful to me at least.  We would have a child.  We could raise it together and I guess let him see it maybe one day a week.  Okay, I liked that idea.  Fuck, who was I kidding? It would break my heart watching her nurse a child that wasn’t mine.

“Michael.”

“Lucien.”

My brother was standing in the doorway to the lounge and he looked pissed.

“Brother, what brings you to my abode?”

“The woman you love,” he replied.

I should have known she would run to Lucien, they were friends.   He was the only friend she seemed to have since she’d moved in with me.

“You’re an ass, Michael.  How could you kick her out like that?” he asked me while he walked closer and sat opposite me.

“She’s pregnant.”

“I’m aware of that, but I still can’t get my head around you kicking the woman you love, who is pregnant, out of her home.”

“She.  Is.  Pregnant.”

“Talk to me brother, because I’ve left one very distressed, sick woman who loves you, in my hotel room with mom.”

“Oh, fuck.  Why did you have to get mom involved?  And what do you mean she’s sick?”

“Because I needed to check on you and I couldn’t do that with how upset Lily is.  I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

It hurt knowing she was so upset because of me.  “Is she really that bad?” I asked him, hoping he was making her out to be worse than she was.

“Yes.  I had to hold her hair back while she threw up in the toilet. Then I carried her to bed and she cried herself to sleep.”

I swiped at a few tears that had leaked out.

“Michael, I know you love her and I can see how much this is hurting.  Why didn’t you tell her?”

“I thought she would leave me.”

“So you let her tell you she was pregnant and kicked her out anyway.” Lucien said. I really wish he would just shut up.

“How pregnant is she?” I decided to ask, at least then I would know if it was his or someone else’s.

“She’s about five weeks along.  Apparently the doctor said she conceived about three weeks ago.”

It isn’t his.  She was just like Viv.  God, I trusted her.  I gave her my heart.  I told her I knew she was nothing like Viv and I meant it.

I sat forward and placed my head in my hands while the tears flowed.  They wouldn’t stop.

“Michael, you’re presuming Lily was unfaithful to you, but when was she supposed to have done that?  Think about it.  Since she’s been living here with you, she’s either with you, in the office or having coffee with me.  She’s never been anywhere on her own, at least that I know about.”

I heard him and was confused.  What he said was right, she was always with me or him.

“I can see the wheels turning and I swear to god, if you speak what flashed on your face just now, I’ll slug you.  You know me better than that….and you know Lily better than that.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.  What he said was the truth.

“Are you sure the results you got back then, were accurate? And do you always have sex without suiting up?”

I grabbed some tissues and wiped my face then huffed out a breath.  “I guess they were accurate.  I never used anything with Viv when we were first married.  I stopped having sex with her as soon as I found out she’d been unfaithful.  I always used protection, until I met Lily, then it never entered my mind.  To me she was my woman.  I didn’t need to.”

“Do you still have the paperwork somewhere?”

“No…. I never saw the paperwork.”  Fuck, no.  “Viv told me the results, I never saw them….”

His eyes widened.  “You, my brother, are a fuckin’ idiot.  How could you take that bitch’s word without seeing evidence?”

He was right.  Could I have totally screwed my relationship up with Lily, because I’d believed what Viv said? I sat back and contemplated what we had just discussed.  Could Lucien be right?  Viv lied about a lot of things, but I’d never have expected her to lie about something like that.

When I’d started thinking straight, I realized I was a jerk.  A very insensitive jerk at that.  Lily had my heart like no one else ever had.  I trusted her and if I’d been thinking straight when she’d made the announcement, I hoped I would have reacted differently.

There was no way on this earth Lily would have had an affair, which could only mean that I was the father. I felt my eyes well with tears. All these years I’d thought I would never be able to father a child and I had.  I’d destroyed Lily when I told her to leave.  I was a bastard.  I also needed to make this right.

“Michael, you need to have another test.  I’ll arrange it tomorrow,” Lucien said.  I’d actually forgotten he was still in the room with me.

“No.”

“What do you mean no.  There’s a heartbroken woman, who you love in my hotel room.  She needs to know why the hell you reacted the way you did and you need to know the truth, so yes, I will make you an appointment and you will keep it.”

“I do know the truth,” I replied.  He raised an eyebrow in question.  “There is no way Lily would have ever been unfaithful to me.  When she blurted out that she was pregnant, that was the only word I heard and thought it couldn’t be mine.  I saw red and spoke first, instead of thinking first.  I love her, Lucien, so damn much it terrifies the life out of me.  The fact is, I know Viv lied to me.  I know in here that I’m the father of the child Lily is carrying,” I hit my chest where my heart was, “a test will only tell me the same thing, and I need Lily to believe me without the test.  I need her to know that I really do trust her.  That I believe her without a piece of paper telling me the truth.  Do you understand where I’m coming from?”

He was standing, smiling at me.  “Yeah, I do.  It’s about damn time.  You need to come to the hotel in the morning with me and tell her.  She needs to hear it from you.”

“I know.  Let’s go.”  I started to walk out of the room.

“Not yet.”  He looked uncomfortable.  “Lily wanted me to ask you to go and talk to her in the morning to explain why you reacted the way you did.  She just wants tonight alone.”

“Lucien, I need to talk to her now.”

“I promised her, Michael. Please don’t make me break it.”

I was stunned.  How could he expect me to wait until morning to talk to her?  “I don’t like this.”

“I know you don’t.  You broke her heart, Michael.  Leave her to sleep, she could do with the rest and then I’ll have you there first thing in the morning.”

“I guess.”  I ran my hands through my hair as I walked back to the cabinet which held the whiskey and retrieved the ring I’d left there earlier when I’d poured a much-needed drink.

“I went shopping at the jewelers this morning.  I bought her an engagement ring.”  I opened the small black box and showed Lucien.  He whistled.

“That’s Lily.  She’ll love it, once you’ve spent a long time groveling on your knees.”

“I hope she loves it and I’ll spend the rest of my life groveling, if that’s what it takes.”