Chapter Twenty-Eight: Home
Sienna
It's been a week since I received an overwhelming bouquet from Lincoln. It showed up in my hotel room in a box almost the same size as my body, and as soon as I opened it, a lot of the rose petals were already dead, floating to the hardwood floor and creating a heaping mess. I didn't have to read the letter to know that the bouquet was from Lincoln. In fact, I still haven't read it. The pale yellow envelope is sitting unopened on the nightstand by the bed in my hotel room, a constant temptation to rip the paper and read his words.
What if I don't like what he said? What if he's wanting to end things permanently, and the bouquet was just a weird way of parting our separate ways? Maybe that's why I couldn't bear to read it. Or maybe it's because I've been so fucking busy with this new client that I hardly have time to blink. I could barely scarf down a croissant from the local bakery without an email popping up on my phone.
So much for enjoying Europe.
We've been trying to fit everything in while I've been here. Promotional videos for social media, an entirely new website design, and an array of different internet ads. Normally my team can handle all of these things, but since this is an international client I want to make sure I oversee the progress to make sure it's getting done correctly.
I'm currently sitting in the boardroom of Fraise Stella, and Frances, the client, has been hammering Reed with questions about the social media AD. He wants the model to show more skin, as the people of France don't shy away from nudity, but I let Reed handle his questions. I trust him enough to please the client.
"How revealing are you wanting her to be?" Reed asks, not in a malicious way, just genuinely curious.
Frances shrugs. "Sex sells. If the model takes his shirt off, it'll attract more attention, no? Who doesn't love abs?" His accent is thick, and he makes the other employees around him laugh.
Reed launches into new plans since the goal is to please the client, and I inwardly groan at the fact that I'm now probably going to have to be here for two more days to shoot the video all over again. It certainly didn't help that Frances brought up abs, because now I can't stop thinking about Lincoln and the eight-pack he so effortlessly wears.
Damn Lincoln and his stupid feelings. Why did he have to ruin what was going on between us? Things were so great. I was happy for the first time in eight long years, and now I'm just...hollow. I can't think straight. Even in this board room, I seem to have lost my voice. All I can think about is Lincoln and the way his body felt so right against mine. When he hugged me, I wasn't the broken girl that I pictured myself to be. I was strong, confident, and ready to conquer the world.
At first, I thought walking away would be the right thing to do. I'm not ready to be in a relationship, and I told him that, but now that I've been in Europe for two weeks without him, now that I don't have his stupid smile to look at while I teach him about business, or him to steal the last piece of my sweet and sour chicken, I'm more depressed than I've ever been.
I know it's because I have feelings for him too, so why didn't I say it?
Because you're scared.
I blink away tears and stare down at the notes in front of me, my hands shaking in my lap at the realization of my feelings. I walked away because I was scared, and because of my reluctance, I might have just lost the best thing to ever happen to me.
Lincoln never once pressured me to do anything I wasn't ready for. He was patient and sweet, and everything any girl could ever want in a man, and I lost him. He ended things, and I lost him.
Standing up abruptly from the chair, all eyes turn to mine in confusion before I politely excuse myself and exit into the hallway and let out a loud breath, pressing my forehead up against the adjacent wall from the board room. My head is pounding, and my eyes burn from holding in my tears.
I miss him.
I miss Lincoln.
His touch, his flirtatious comments, his kisses, our debates over Harry Potter, our sex that was completely out of this world. It all slams into me like a freight train. I've been trying not to think about him, ignoring that unopened letter he wrote and what was written inside, pushing out any reminders of him, but today my brain seems to have hit a breaking point.
I glance up when the door opens and Reed steps out into the hallway, furrowing his eyebrows together in confusion as he scans me over. "Are you okay?" He asks.
I wave my hand in the air, attempting to stop crying. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Go back in there."
"You're crying," he says and takes a step closer. "It doesn't look like you're fine."
Why does he even care? When he ended things with me he never even called to check on me. Where was he then? I cross my arms over my chest and remain silent when he takes another step closer and rests a hand on my shoulder.
"It's about Lincoln, isn't it? Did he end things with you?"
My eyes shoot into his like daggers. "We aren't dating! He is just a client for fucks sake!"
Reed smiles sadly, squeezing my shoulder once before he says, "You know when we broke up, I never got this reaction out of you. You showed up to work the next day with a smile on your face when I felt like—" He stops himself and clears his throat. "I guess I've just never seen you this upset, Sienna, and if you need to go back to New York, do it. All of the major stuff is out of the way with Frances anyway. I can take it from here just fine."
My throat bobs as I think of something to say, to deny what he's accusing me of, but I'm so tired of fighting it. I'm so drained of making it seem like I don't have feelings for Lincoln when they've hit me full force. "Why are you being so nice to me?" I sniffle and go to wipe more tears away with the sleeve of my blazer, but Reed catches them instead with his thumb and gives me a soft smile.
"When you love something, set it free, right? I want you to be happy, Sienna, that's all I've ever wanted, and as hard as it'll be for me to see you move on, I know that you'll be happy."
I shake my head. "I don't understand. You ended things with me, Reed. You left me. I never would have left you and you know that. I agreed to marry you. You set me free months ago, right?"
He stares a beat too long, diverting his eyes to the ground before he says, "I know I've been rude towards you at work, and I'm sorry about that, but I just didn't want people getting the wrong impression that we were still together, or that you were giving me special treatment or something. Now that we're in an entirely different country and away from our co-workers, I feel like I can finally tell you how I feel.
"Originally I was going to give you this long speech about how I wanted to try things again. Seeing you with Lincoln made me realize what an idiot I was to let you go in the first place, but..." He sighs and wipes away more tears from my cheeks. "You were never like this with me. You were never truly heartbroken like this after I ended things, and I'm wise enough to understand why. I think I know I've already lost this fight to win you back, but I want you to know that if anything goes south with him, I hope to be the best second option you've got."
He pulls me in for a hug as I weep quietly into his chest, hating that he's right about everything he just said. As comforting as Reed's embrace is right now, it's not Lincoln's. Hugging Lincoln feels like I'm home. Like there's nowhere else I'd rather be, and I'd be a fool to give that up.
"Thank you," I tell him, taking a step back to hold him at arm's length, "and I'm sorry, but I think you're right. I cared for you so much, Reed, but with Lincoln it's..."
"Love," Reed finishes. "I get it."
While the word circles through my head, I let out a deep breath and sag my shoulders. "Maybe, but I'm not ready to admit that to myself yet. I need to take it slowly one step at a time with everything, you know? There are just some things that have happened in my past that make it hard to trust someone with a word as heavy as that one, but maybe. I've never felt like this before."
Reed nods and shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit pants before he sets his eyes on me again. "Just be careful," he warns. "I don't want to see you get hurt."
"I will. Are you sure you're okay handling the rest of the business here?" I ask.
He rolls his eyes and ushers with his hands for me to go. "I'll just make up an excuse that your grandmother died or something. All will be forgiven. You've been here for long enough. Go."
Sending him a small smile and a wave, I tug out my phone from my pocket and text my driver to meet me outside, and then I text Rachel to pack everything in my hotel room up and meet me at the airport.
I'm going home to get my man.
Yes, I finally said it.
My man.