Her Last Plea✨

Chapter 46

Alexis wasn't freaking out......or maybe she was and was just refusing to acknowledge it. After all, she was just going downstairs to read a book. It's not like there was anything exciting about reading, except of course that it was one of her favorite pastimes. But it was new territory. She never spent any sort of time alone with Mike in his home. It was always at hers or in the office or some restaurant, for obvious reasons of course. But either way, Alexis felt more comfortable when it was in her apartment. It was her domain, her rules.

What was I thinking, telling Delphina I could move in here, she thought to herself. I'm flipping out over spending one night. I might go completely mental when this becomes permanent. Alexis muttered to herself as she stripped herself of her work clothes and changed into her comfortable pajamas.

Pull it together, she scolded herself once more. Reaching for her book, she steeled her nerves, straightened her shoulders, and walked out of the room. Clutching the book to her chest, Alexis marched quietly down the hall and tiptoed down the stairs. She found Mike in the sitting room, a stack of paperwork on the coffee table in front of him next to his propped up feet.

Mike could feel her presence as she entered the room. "Took you long enough," he goaded. "I nearly aged a year."

Alexis rolled her eyes, walking around the large leather. She wasn't quite sure where to sit, so she sat on the opposite end and quickly opened up her book. "I hardly took that long. Maybe you just changed too quickly.

Glancing over at her, he scowled as he placed a reviewed piece of parchment on the stack next to his feet. "Do I smell?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do I smell?" he repeated. "Why are you sitting all the way over there?"

Alexis nonchalantly shrugged. "I don't know….it's just where I sat down."

Mike furrowed his brow. "Well, I'm not exactly covered in garbage or something. You can sit closer."

She huffed, holding her place in her book with her finger as she snapped it shut. "Honestly Mike, does it really matter where I sit?"

"Yes," he argued. "You haven't sat that far away from me in years and I…I…I don't like it at all!"

Haughtily, Alexis stood up from the couch and moved closer to Mike, about a hand's width away from him, and propped the arches of her feet against the edge of the coffee table. "Better?" she asked, looking at him with a pointed stare.

Mike smirked. "Yes. Thank you."

Alexis rolled her eyes as she went back to her reading, her body hunched forward as she propped her book up on the tops of her thighs, while Mike resumed reading his file again. The two of them were silent as they went about their individual activities, though Mike couldn't help but notice the tense way Alexis held her shoulders, and how her left leg had a slightly nervous and noticeable bounce as she turned the page. Leafing through another paperwork, Mike couldn't concentrate on what was in front of him. He wanted to comfort her, get her to relax, but didn't know how to. She was always the one passing out a calming touch. He had never initiated such an act with her.

He and Delphina were never touchy people with each other. Early in their marriage, they held hands and kissed because it was what they were supposed to do. When he had the urge to reach out and touch her, or comfort her, he was always scolded, his hand barely a breath away from his wife when she would wrench herself away from him. Sex had quickly turned into a chore as their parents consistently nagged them to produce an heir starting from a week after they got married. There was nothing fun or comforting about it, as Delphina became enthralled with every piece of information - the different ways in which one could have sex to determine the gender of the child. Mike, of course, had found this to be a load of hogwash, and he had half mind to gloat when the day came and the son Delphina was so convinced she was having, was instead a daughter.