A Billionaire's Mistake

17|Gravity

The whisk gets shoved into my hand again before she lets out a giggle that's cuter than it should be. "Just do it, Lincoln."

A few minutes later, after I'm done whisking and she's flipping the bacon, I ask, "so, do you want to talk about last night?"

She freezes. "What about it?"

"About the nightmare...or, all of it."

Twisting around so that her back is against the counter, she crosses her arms over her chest, holding the spatula close to her heart. "Let's talk about you instead," she says, "enough about me."

I take a seat on one of the barstools. "What would you like to know?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. The basics. Do you have a family?"

"Yes. My mother lives a couple of blocks from here and my brother..." I trail off, not wanting to start on that subject. I can only talk about him for so long, and after the conversation with my mother the other day, I want to forget about him entirely.

"And your father?"

Like a punch to the chest, I wince and clear my throat. "He passed away two years ago."

Sienna drops her hands down to her sides, her eyes softening. "I'm so sorry for your loss," she whispers, "I had no idea."

The silence is deafening between us, and she can sense the awkwardness because she pulls out her phone and in seconds John Mayer is playing softly through the speakers. "Is that why you're running the company now?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

She pours the egg mixture into the other frying pan before she looks at me again. "You didn't want to take over the company?"

"Not at all. I went to school for criminal Justice. I wanted to be a cop...like Archer. Everything with my father happened so suddenly, and the company just fell into my lap. My mother wasn't stable enough at the time to handle it, she still isn't."

"And your brother? Why couldn't he take over?"

"Because he's always wanted to sell," I explain. "He wants to start his own company but doesn't want to waste his inheritance on it. He's wanted to sell my father's company to start his own since I was in high school. After he passed, my mother asked me to take on Nash Enterprises because she knew Jett would want to sell."

Sienna takes two plates out of the cupboard and splits the items in the frying pan into two, handing me a fork, then a plate. I'm grateful she hasn't asked about my father's death because it's not something I'm ready to talk about yet.

When she still hasn't replied, I add, "that's why I paid you double, Sienna. If I can't save this company... If I can't get my shit together, my brother will convince my mother to sell it, and I can't let everything my father worked for go down the drain like that."

She reaches over to squeeze my hand, sending me a reassuring smile. "I'm going to make sure we save your father's company, Lincoln. Trust me, okay? I'm pretty good at my job."

Gravity is playing gently through the speakers now as she takes a seat beside me, and when I take a bite of eggs, I stare at the fork as if I've never tasted them before.

"It's the milk," Sienna says with a smug grin, "I'm telling you."

I chuckle softly. "Maybe it is, Sienna."

It takes her a minute to get the joke, and when she does, she wrinkles her nose up and tosses a piece of an egg at me. "Not that kind of milk."

I pick the piece of the egg up and chuck it back at her, letting out a loud laugh when it lands in her hair. Putting my hands up in defeat, I laugh even harder when she scowls and tries to tug it out. "I didn't mean to do that," I tell her.

She's trying to get the bits of the egg out of her hair, clearly annoyed, when I start to sing the rest of the lyrics to Gravity with my mouth full of bacon. Her eyes grow wide, lips curving up into a smile.

"And Gravity!" I shout, causing Muggles to jump and scatter to a different room, "is working against me!"

"Oh my god," Sienna groans drastically and covers her ears with her hands, "you are a terrible singer, Lincoln. Honestly tone-deaf."

"And Gravity!" I shout louder, even worse than the first time, causing Sienna to erupt into a fit of giggles. The sound is like pure music to my ears as I scarf down the rest of my plate of breakfast and give her a shrug.

Being myself with her is easy. I don't have to try and be different. The banter is quick, exciting, and never gets boring, which is exactly why I shouldn't have stayed for breakfast. I'm thinking too much about this. Becoming too attached already.

Sienna brings our plates to put them in her sink, and that t-shirt rides up her thighs, exposing those legs that run for miles. As I check her out, I tilt my head to the side, drinking all of her in.

"I'm going to shower," she says, flickering her eyes to mine, "care to join?"

Oh, hell.

Every ounce of me wants to say yes and follow her right into that shower but doing intimate things like this is only going to get me in deeper shit than we agreed on. I'm not so blind to my feelings that I can't understand what's going on, and falling for Sienna is the last thing I need right now. Casual sex is good. It'll suffice.

"Sadly, I have to get to work," I say, rising from the bar stool to kiss her on the cheek. "Raincheck?"

She laughs and walks away from me, those long legs practically begging me to follow her. "Your loss, Lincoln Nash!" she shouts over her shoulder. "Lock the door on your way out!"