The Faceless Billionaire Celebrity Wife-Chapter 323 - 72 Hrs (8) Apologies.

Music Rec: Play by Alan Walker.

Shikera fought the urge to take out her phone, call Ethan and ask why he was yet to leave. She’d been on the bus for minutes now and he was supposed to have turned around since they weren’t going in the same direction, but why was his car still tailing after her?

’Don’t tell me he’s missing me already,’ she muttered, her lips curving into a bright smile. ’If he misses me, why can’t he just call?’

As if in answer to the question in her mind, her phone rang in her bag and when she brought it out, her face brightened.

"Missing me already, Mr DeLoach?" she asked, prepared to tease him so as to prolong the call.

What she didn’t expect was that Ethan would admit it outrightly and as sincerely as he could.

"Of course, isn’t that supposed to be more than obvious? Except you are not missing me..." he asked.

Shikera fell speechless for a few seconds, blinking in confusion.

"Of course, I am! I uhm...I only wanted to ask why you haven’t turned around yet," she changed the topic immediately. She could not bear being put on the spot.

"I was following you. The fact that you can’t take my car doesn’t stop me from escorting you with it, does it?"

"Yeah... absolutely," she nodded, even though she knew he couldn’t see her, and added, "But don’t you have anything to do? No meeting or..."

"I would rather spend the rest of the day talking to you like this than exhaust the time doing anything else," Ethan deadpanned.

Shikera felt a rush of heat creeping up her cheeks. She was about to facepalm herself when the smile on her face disappeared, to be replaced by a horrified look.

"Wait, Ethan, you are driving and using your phone at the same time?!"

"The car’s on self-drive mode. Don’t worry about it," came his assuring reply. Without even a brief pause, he continued, "Kera, I actually called to say..."

"Say what?" Shikera asked tentatively, hoping he wasn’t calling to talk about the baby. "Ethan, I hope—"

"I called to say I’m sorry, Shikera. I know I shouldn’t be saying this over the phone but you said we can’t predict what’ll happen in the next hour, so here I am."

"Ethan..." she drawled, when he cut her off and continued,

"I am sorry, Shikera." His voice was low, but high enough to reflect the sincerity lacing his apology, "I made countless mistakes over the past few months and the worst? I made you blame yourself for a lot of things which weren’t actually your fault. I let you stay on your own when I was very well aware you needed company. I didn’t give you a hug when you looked like you were dying for one. Instead, I only added to your pain for my own selfish reasons... I was unwise and I thought the solution to this was pushing you far away from me so you could hate me and get rid of the baby but..." he trailed off.

"Hey..."

"Just a few minutes more, Kera, I promise. As I was saying, I didn’t see the truth in your words when you said we could never know who will live on to the next day or not. If I had, I’d have understood earlier that I could be the one to uh...leave earlier."

"No, Ethan. You will not be going anywhere and neither will I," Shikera disagreed with a hint of conviction in her tone, before adding after a short while, "At least for now."

"Anything you say, Princess," Ethan’s voice was low, an excruciating silence accompanying his words for the next few minutes until he finally spoke again, "I know you deserve more than this, Kera and I know this isn’t the most appropriate method and...forget it. We have more than enough time to do this later."

Shikera arched a questioning brow, "What are you talking about, Ethan?"

"It’s nothing, Kera," he lied. "We can talk about it later—"

"I need to know now. Why mention it when you won’t talk about it until later, huh? Tell me," she demanded.

There was a long pause before Ethan replied, "Don’t insist, Princess. I’m serious. We shouldn’t be talking about this right now." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Shikera exhaled out loud, making sure he could hear from the other side of the line.

"You said I taught you anything can happen in the next minute or even the next second, didn’t you?"

"Hm," he hummed in agreement.

"Then what time do you think is most appropriate for what you wanted to say?" she asked.

"Now is just not appropriate. You will kill me if I ask that over the phone," Ethan replied, giving her a vague answer. He expected her to let the matter go and hang up but she did the direct opposite.

"I love you, Honey," she cooed. "You know that, right?"

"What?"

When she continued, her voice sounded sad, "I knew it. Is that why you aren’t willing to tell me?"

"Okay," Ethan relented. "I don’t know what you ’knew’ but I’ll just let you know what I wanted to ask. After that, I’ll hang up immediately, alright? Don’t give me an answer until I uhm, ask the question in the way that you deserve."

"I...I won’t," Shikera promised. Suspicions were starting to swarm in her head but she dispelled them all. Ethan couldn’t ask that.

No, he wouldn’t.

On the other side, Ethan braced himself as he leaned forward to open the car’s dashboard. There was a small box lying in it alongside a piece of folded paper, the latter causing a furrow in his brows.

He could explain the small box but the paper...when did that get there? He picked it up and began unfolding it, his eyes trained on the task like it was something more serious than it seemed.

"Are you telling me or not?" Shikera’s voice came, reminding him she couldn’t wait to hear what he had wanted to ask.

He finished unfolding the paper at the same time his lips parted to ask,

"I wanted to ask..."