Page 92 of The Me I Left Behind

“No.” He caught her eye while she was fussing with Leo. “I want my beans freshly ground. In the morning. I don’t know why you can’t get that right.”

“Leo needed—”

“Get your act together, Lilly.”

She didn’t finish her sentence. Max wandered off.

How dare he!

Appalled and frustrated, Lilly was honestly anxious at his tone.

Leo had needed changing first thing, before she could even get to the kitchen, and it was a messy job, at best. Then, once dry, he’d wailed to be fed and wasn’t at all pleased with the bottle she’d offered. Frustrated, Lilly tried to soothe him best she could, coaxing him to take the formula, but she was certain her frustration was carrying over to the unhappy child.

Max was not pleased with any of that.

If she’d only been able to pump yesterday, like normal—or like she did when Max wasn’t home—she could have substituted breast milk for the formula, and Max wouldn’t have known. And her breasts wouldn’t have been so full and leaky….

If Max was going to be home more, she might have to wean Leo off the breast.

But that was the least of her concern, at the moment.

The morning coffee routine was difficult for Lilly to latch onto, even after all these months. She enjoyed a cup of tea in the mornings—and had no understanding of this obsession with the bitter brew. Max never recognized her lack of interest in his coffee habit. Tea was easy to brew quickly. Making his coffee was a laborious process when one hadn’t even a marginal interest in the outcome.

But she’d attempted to accommodate. She’d purchased the specific coffee grinder and coffeemaker he’d said he wanted, and his favorite coffee beans, and had gifted them to him for Christmas.

He’d not once used them himself. He expected her to make the coffee for him.

That hadn’t been her plan. But when he’d handed the items back to her, and said, “How sweet of you, Lilly, to gift me with fresh coffee every morning. I can’t wait until you make the first pot,” she knew she was mistaken.

She’d considered correcting his thinking—but then he’d flashed that sexy grin of his and tackled her to the floor by theChristmas tree and made love to her until she was silly with pleasure.

The next morning, she mastered the coffee grinder.

Mistake. Huge mistake.

Put it out of your mind, Lilly. Time to get ready for work.

Poppy arrived a couple of hours later, and Lilly still had not showered or dressed yet when she answered the door.

“Goodness, girl. You look a mess.”

“It’s been a bloody hell of a morning, Poppy.” She bounced a cranky Leo on her hip. She’d been agitated with Max, of course, and everything else, and had apparently passed that on to Leo.

Poppy set her bag and sunhat on a side table by the door and reached for the child. “Give me the boy. You go take a minute, and then we’ll talk.”

Lilly exhaled and handed Leo over. “You’re sure?”

Poppy shooed her off. “Get on with it. Take a long shower. This bub and I will be fine.”

“Bless you,” Lilly whispered.

She padded off up the stairs and into her bathroom, where she showered and had a good cry. The warm water did wonders to settle her brain and her heart. But deep inside, she had questions she didn’t know if she could answer.

Questions she didn’t know if she wanted answered.

By the time she’d dressed, Poppy had Leo in his baby seat in the kitchen, happily chewing on a biscuit. She’d brought her breast pump from Leo’s room, where she kept it in the closet when Max was home, and headed to a chair at the table to pump.

Poppy was at the stove. “I’m making eggs and sausages and grilled tomatoes.”