Chapter 186: He’s concerned about her pregnancy

Mia’s anger mounted up, but she controlled herself by walking away from the housekeeper before she’d do something she might regret, however she took the house phone with her in case Neil would call back again. She hoped he would. When she entered her room, she walked to the open balcony in her room and sat on the fluffy swing chair with the landline phone clutched to her chest, praying desperately that he’d call her back.

In her entire life, she’d never wanted something or someone so desperately as such as she did Neil, and sometimes she thought it seemed unreal to want someone that badly. Even when he’d been accused of killing her mother, she’d never stopped wanting him.

Her smartphone rang inside her pocket at that moment, startling her. She quickly grabbed for it thinking it might be Neil who’d finally decided to call her main phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mia," Rayne’s concerned voice came from the other side of the phone drowning away Mia’s momentarily anticipation of hearing Neil’s voice.

"I dropped by TalkWave Productions but your manager said you haven’t showed up in two days. So I decided to check up on you, is everything alright?"

Mia raked her hand through her hair, trying to tell herself to act normal and reply to Rayne rather than worry when Neil would call, "Yes, I’m fine. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather lately," she said, tossing a glare at Sabrina, who’d suddenly decided to walk into her room at that moment again to clean up her already cleaned room.

"Oh, that’s normal in your condition. By the way I called to ask if you are still interested in shopping for the dresses we plan to wear for my father’s upcoming birthday. Can you manage? I mean it’s fine if you can’t_"

"Of course, I’ve already promised to go with you last week," she said, her eyes on Sabrina. She’d almost forgotten about her shopping plans with Rayne because of her worry, and now the last thing on her mind was going out to shop and attending a birthday party next month, but then she knew she’d soon come around, thus she made another arrangement to go out with Rayne the day after tomorrow.

"Yay! We have a plan now, don’t you dare back out of it at the last minute, Mia. I want my father’s birthday party to be grand and I want my friend to be as beautiful as I am on the day. Take care of yourself and eat healthy for your baby." Rayne scolded like a mother, and Mia couldn’t help but silently wonder how her friend could act normal when she’d recently just gone through a heartbreak. Right at that moment, the landline Mia had clutched to her chest began to ring.

"I will. I have to hang up now. Thanks for checking up on me. Love you," she said quickly and hung up the phone to pick up the landline, only to realize it wasn’t Neil but some random stranger, she ended the call in frustration then her eyes fell on Sabrina and her anger mounted again.

"Sabrina," she burst out in frustration, "I have cleaned the room myself this morning, what are you doing cleaning it again?"

"I’m sorry, Miss Mia. I didn’t know, I will go and prepare lunch then." She bowed slightly and left the room.

Mia took a deep breath to calm her nerves, perhaps her pregnancy and her anticipation for Neil’s call was starting to turn her into an overbearing person, but her housekeeper was starting to get under her skin lately.

****

Mia didn’t leave her room for the whole day and remained there with the landline clutched to her chest. She looked at the time on her phone and saw it was already 8: 38 PM. And just when she was about to give up on waiting for his calls, the landline rang again, and she quickly answered it silently praying it was Neil. And it was!

Neil’s voice sounded even more deeper and smoother on the phone, but it was cold, curt, and clipped, "Are you alone, Mia?"

"Yes." She said, her smile slowly dropping at the tone of his voice.

"Do you think it’s funny for you to frustrate me like this by telling Liam you’d sleep with that asshole? I’ve told you we are not to be in contact until I’m free yet you made me go through a lot to reach you three times."

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear from him, it wasn’t the way she wanted him to talk to her after a month of being apart, but she concentrated on the words he’d sent to her in his message, refusing to let him trick or intimidate her with his voice.

"If you don’t want me trying to threaten you into contacting me anymore," she replied softly, "you can tell me that the things you sent in your message were all lies."

"Fine," he said. "They were all lies." He clipped.

Mia squeezed the phone in her hand and closed her eyes. "Now, tell me that you don’t love me darling and I’d stop trying to reach to you every minute."

She heard him draw a ragged breath, and his voice dropped to a tortured plea as he whispered, "Don’t make me say that. Please."

"I love you so much," Mia whispered fiercely.

Neil felt his heart skip a beat at those words, and even though he was trying to make her see why he didn’t want to keep contact with her for now, he couldn’t stop his own body from reacting to those words. He felt a surge of warmth travel all the way from his heart to his groin. His heart and body longed for her but he knew he couldn’t keep torturing them both when they weren’t in the same country at this moment.

When Liam had told him what she’d said last night when he called him, he’d immediately reached to her house phone which Liam had managed to get for him, but her annoying housekeeper had kept picking up and refusing to give the phone to Mia. He’d felt so mad he’d wanted to reach her house and fire the woman from the way she was speaking to him, but then he’d reminded himself to stay calm. He could torture himself by not being in contact with her until he was free but he couldn’t handle the thought of his woman being with another man, not to mention Owner, who’d now taken the top one list of the most disliked people in Neil’s life!

"I want you, I love you Neil," she whispered softly again, and Neil felt like he’d die of longing if she continued like this.

"Don’t do this to me, Mia..."

Mia’s fingers loosened on the phone and she smiled because she suddenly sensed that she was going to win this battle. "I can’t stop," she said tenderly. "I can’t stop loving you. There’s only one solution I’m willing to accept if you want me not to turn to another man and wait for you, or else you’d lose me forever."

"Damnit, Mia, that’s not—"

"Hush, darling," she whispered teasingly. "You don’t expect me to keep waiting for you without communication, do you? If that’s what you expect, then I guess you still have no idea how a relationship works. For a whole week on the mountains, you’ve never let me sleep alone nor did you fail in making love to me, I’ve gotten used to having sex and now you want me to live without it, don’t you think that’s a bit unfair of you?"

"Oh, Mia...don’t. God, don’t."

"Don’t what?" She probbed.

He drew in a long, labored breath and was quiet for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to reply, and when he finally answered, the words sounded as if they were being wrenched from his chest. "Don’t...ever stop loving me. Don’t you dare replace me with another, I will do anything as long as you’d love me alone."

"I’ll promise that when we meet again and I’m convinced enough that you want me," she said, hugging her pillow to her chest and suppressing a smile.

Those words wrung a reluctant laugh from him, and the memory of his dazzling smile made her heart soar as he said, "Are we talking about marriage here?"

"No, we are not."

"Why?" He sounded so disgruntled that Mia wanted to laugh at the notion that he wanted to marry her when he’d not even courted her in a way she wanted before she’d decide to marry him. But then they’d went ahead and made a baby without marriage so it was only natural that he’d assumed their next step would be marriage once he got back.

"You don’t want to marry me?" He asked, his voice evident that he was displeased by that. He’d never thought about marriage in all of his life but the thought that if he did not marry her as soon as he could, another man would beat him to it and he’d lose her forever because of his cowardice made him want to do that the moment he went back to Mirage Mesa as Xavier Galverra rather than Neil Wayner, the identity he’d been forced to take as a boy by his uncle.

"Do you want to marry me?" She asked without answering his question.

He declared with a solemn voice that made her heart skip a thousand beats,"As long as it marks you as mine alone."

"In that case, hurry up and come back home then we can talk about that," she said, "When are you coming back to Mirage Mesa?"

There was another torturous pause on the other side that strung her nerves to the breaking point, and then he began speaking, and she forgot everything but his words and the incredible feeling of elation sweeping through her as he spoke.

"Alright. I’ll tell my men to hurry the process of my case before the month ends. Do you have anything else to say to me before I hang up?"

Mia smiled at the realization that he had expected the call to end like this when he made it, because he’d obviously talked her out of her threat to sleep with another man. "One question. Why can’t I meet you in whatever country you are right now while your name is being cleared?"

"Because I don’t want to risk anything when we’ve finally found a solution to get this over with." Mia accepted that, and he continued, "However, before that I will stay in contact with you every Friday through this line until I’m back to Mirage Mesa. Make sure to keep that annoying housekeeper of yours away from the phone whenever I call,"

"You mean Sabrina," Mia laughed softly at the sound of the dislike she heard in his voice, "she could be nosy at times."

"Hmm," he hummed softly, "How are you feeling?" He asked, no longer interested in speaking about the insignificant housekeeper.

"I feel wonderful."

"Are you sure? I did some research on pregnancy and learned how severe a morning sickness could be. I hope you don’t suffer from morning sickness or anything like the things I saw online?" He asked, his smooth husky voice laced with concern.

"I have morning sickness, I suppose it’s normal," she replied, twirling a strand of her hair. However, her response only heightened the worry of the father of her unborn child, as he proceeded to bombard her with numerous questions without pausing for her to respond. Having conducted his research on morning sickness via Google, he had discovered alarming information that caused him to worry excessively about her pregnancy.

"When was your last check-up? What did the doctor say about your morning sickness? I read that two percent of women died from severe morning sickness, so don’t take it lightly. I’ll ask James to arrange for a professional pregnancy specialist to be your personal doctor until you give birth. You—"

"Relax, sweetheart," Mia said softly, suppressing a smile at the fact that he cared about her pregnancy enough to do research on it, "Sometimes Google research on things can be exaggerating, don’t believe everything you read. I’m a very healthy woman. I think my body is made for motherhood. And it was definitely made for you."

He swallowed audibly at the sexual reference. "Tease me now, and you’ll pay later on your back in my bed."

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read