A Billionaire's Mistake

29|The Letter

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Letter

Lincoln

How much whiskey can one man's body hold?

I'm lying on my back on the hard mats of my home gym, staring up at the ceiling as I contemplate the question. My lungs are on fire, my abs squeezing in protest from how much I've exerted myself, and yet the pain still doesn't top my broken heart. I thought drinking would numb it, so I took an entire bottle to the face of whiskey, and when that didn't do it, I came to the gym and hit the punching bag over and over and over again until I threw up what seemed to be half the bottle of whiskey in the trash can.

I'm past the point of being angry. I'm past the point of being sad. I'm the type of drunk that makes me feel numb. The type that erases every ounce of feeling that I had and replaces it with stone. Sienna got my flowers, I know she did because I called her hotel for confirmation that they were delivered. Even with the letter professing my feelings, she still didn't call me back.

Can I blame her? I was an ass, and just as Carmen said, flowers were a shitty apology. I should have flown to Europe for her, and I contemplated it, but she was working, and there's nothing that would annoy her more than a love interest disrupting her on a business trip. Her company means everything to her, and showing up with a risk of her client seeing would be unprofessional.

I pant heavily and blink a few times, ignoring the stars dancing in my vision. I have to get back to work on Monday. I can't keep wallowing in this condo with half-eaten boxes of sweet and sour chicken. Every time I order it I think it'll remind me of her, and it does, but not in a good way. I'll eat a few pieces and then remember how she'd roll her eyes when I took the last piece, and then I'd set the box down with the others, my stomach raw and in knots, incapable of handling any sort of food.

I refuse to be this pathetic, no matter how heartbroken I may be, so I use a bench to pull myself to my feet, swaying slightly before I use the walls to guide me to my bedroom. My eyes sting from all the fucking crying, and I have stubble from not shaving. I glance at the mirror while I'm brushing my teeth, despising the man that I see in the reflection.

A man that can't ever get it right. A man that couldn't see his father struggling. A man that couldn't be patient with the one girl who's ever meant something to him. A man that let his ego get the very best of him.

I spit the toothpaste into the sink, then the mouthwash when I hear the elevator doors open in the entryway. Letting out a groan, I grip the sides of the sink and hang my head, letting out a deep breath as I prepare to be faced with either Margo or my mother. Both of them have checked in on me non-stop, and quite frankly, despite their good intentions, they are getting on my fucking nerves.

My body is still dripping in sweat as I walk out into the kitchen. I'm wearing only a pair of gym shorts, no shirt as I grip the island to keep myself from falling. If my mother sees me piss drunk I know she'll take care of me and put me to bed, but if Margo sees me piss drunk? I'm done for. It'll be an hour-long scolding that I don't think I can handle tonight.

But it's not Margo or my mother. It's Sienna. For a second, I think I'm having some sort of hallucination from all the liquor I drank, so I blink a few times to let it register. Her hair is swept up into a loose bun, a knee-length baby pink dress that seems wrinkled and slept in. I'm too stunned to speak, but when I hear her choke out, "Linc," in the softest whisper-sob I've ever heard, I fight back tears of my own.

And then she's running to me, her heels clattering against the hardwood floors before she jumps into my arms and hugs me tight. I'm immediately welcomed with the smell of her, the warmth of her, the very things that I've been dreaming about for the past two weeks.