A Billionaire's Mistake

27|Flowers

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Flowers

Lincoln

I called out of work for the first time in two years.

I've been staring at the ceiling for four hours now, an empty bottle of scotch beside me on the nightstand. My head is pounding, and my eyes are stinging, and all I can think about is what an actual idiot I am.

My jealousy got to me too much. Sienna claimed from day one that she just wanted this to be sex, nothing more, so why did I have the right to be angry? I knew what this was when I started it. In fact, this is what I wanted at some point too, but everything is so confusing now. I want more with her, and if this thing between us hadn't ended four nights ago, it would have ended sooner or later. She doesn't reciprocate the feelings that I have, and I have to respect that.

Plus, if Reed was telling the truth, and her psychotic ex is in fact keeping tabs on her, I'm not going to put her in danger if she doesn't care for me, too. She will be safer now that I ended things, and if her ex is still following her and follows her all the way to Europe while I'm trying to gain information, he won't stand a chance. My security followed her there, too, and at the first sign of danger, they'll take the man down in a heartbeat.

I don't even feel like getting out of bed. Even if I were to go to the office, I'd be asked questions I don't know the answers to. Am I still in business with Stone Media, or did Sienna already try to destroy the contract? It wouldn't surprise me. I deserve it.

Letting out a groan, I roll on my stomach and press my face into the pillow just as I hear the elevator doors to my condo open. At first, I think it's Sienna, so I throw the comforter off of me and race out into the living room in just my briefs, but my chest deflates when Margo strides in with a brown paper bag clutched in her hands. "Well," she huffs, "I brought you soup assuming that you were sick, but you look just fine." She looks around at the mess of the condo, at the Chinese containers Sienna and I shared four days ago, to the Harry Potter dvd's on the coffee table and scrunches her nose up. "What the hell happened?"

"It's a long story," I grumble. "I'll be back next week. I needed to take a few days off."

She gathers up the containers and tosses them into the trash can by the fridge in the kitchen, letting out a sigh. "Sienna needs to know if it's a go for the blueprints."

My eyes shoot up to hers. "When did she ask you this?"

"This morning." She narrows her eyes, growing suspicious. "Why? Should she not have?"

"No, I just—" I run my hand through my hair and sit down on the couch. "Shit. I fucked up, Margo."

Realizing she's in for a long conversation, she slips her heels off and takes a seat beside me, resting her head on my shoulder. When she's not in work mode, she's a great friend, and I know she'll separate the two once I tell her what I did, even though she'll probably want to kill me for tampering with the contract. "Lay it on me," she says with a sigh. "What'd you do?"

I go into detail about everything, not leaving out any parts except for the possible psycho ex since that's not verified yet, and once I'm finished, I fumble with my thumbs in my lap, avoiding eye contact in case she lights into me.

It takes a couple of seconds, but she finally says, "You let your ego get too much to you, Linc. You got your feelings hurt, so you just ended things before you were able to let her digest how you felt. If she's had a rough past like you said, you can't just spring things on her like that, and she even told you that she knew there was something more between you both than just sex, yet you still decided to end it?"