Mr Reluctant Billionaire || BWWM

Thirty-four

The hand weaving through my scalp applies more pressure when I make to lift my head in her direction, tugging gently on my hair. A sigh slips past my lips, there is no point trying, Clarissa won’t give back my phone. I shouldn’t demand it since all I have gotten is a truckload of news with captions that send my already broken heart into overdrive.

But I still want to see it. To read the gossip tabs about the women he dines with. It is the only way to keep track of him, to know he is fine, if we still have a future together.

Curling into a foetal position with my head resting on Clarissa’s laps, I sniff and pull the duvet to my chin. Tears line my eyes, I blink to stop them from falling but they roll down my cheeks and onto her skin. She doesn’t protest neither does she complain, she rubs circles on my back like she has been doing for the past fifteen days until I quiet down.

The women, I have lost count of the number of women he has dined with since his arrival while ignoring his wife’s emails and texts. He reads them, I know he does, if not the emails, then the WhatsApp messages, the blue tick gives him away. The timezones are different but he should have replied at least one of them at his leisure time. I sigh.

Leisure time he spends with women that are the exact opposite of me: french-speaking, rich, white socialites. Yes, I googled them, one of the many stupid things his prolonged silence made me do. I scoured the internet for every available piece of information on them, which has only led me to stalking their social media pages and feeling inferior.

None of them are students. They are all successful businesswomen who wear their hair up to reveal flawless makeup, creamy skin that has never known hunger or strife.

Clarissa nudges me, muttering something about food, I shake my head, I don’t want to eat. But she will have her way, I know that, if the only way she can get food into me is by shoving it down my nose through a pipe, she will do it without a moment’s hesitation.

Another tap on my back, I grudgingly shift position with the duvet wrapped around me.

She giggles, her hip sways as she saunters to the kitchen and my eyes scan our room for my phone. I can deal with the gossip but I can’t deal with his silence on our one month anniversary. He hasn’t quelled the rumours or conspiracies talking about a strange lady who might be his lover and it irked me to no end, she is his wife. I don’t know who started it or how a picture of me dropping him at his office got out but I am tired of the theories.

All thanks to the tinted window, they didn’t get my face but they got his, a solemn expression of affection as he stared at my retreating car. On a normal day, he looks at me with fondness but in the picture, it was different, like he was in love. His stance was relaxed, his eyes had a dreamy look and a smile played on his lips with his hands shoved into his pockets. The happiest I have ever seen my husband in a picture of himself alone.

Whoever took that shot must have been too busy trying to capture his face to take note of my plate number. The logical part of me is glad I am spared from the spotlight but the emotional part of me isn’t. Those socialites will stay away from him if they are aware of his marital status. A status that has come into question since his travel. Talk about, is the billionaire bachelor finally ready to settle down? I scoff, he has settled, he is married.

Swiping at the tears staining my cheeks, I muster a smile when Clarissa returns with a tray containing a plate of waffles and a mug which she hands over to me without a word.

The curtains are closed but she hugs herself with a lost look. Her nipples poke through her spaghetti strap crop top and her oversized shorts ride up to her thighs when she sits cross-legged in front of me, eyeing me intently until I take a long sip from the mug.