My Billionaire Ex

Regret

"God! When did she get so stubborn?"

Lucas throws the folder he came in with on the bed and drops on it right after.

"Mr. Miller." He retorts as he loosens his tie and lays sprawled out on the hotel bed.

The comfortable bed eases some of the frustration he is feeling but he can still feel himself too ticked off.

After all that hushed arguing with a pregnant Jaelyn he is ready to sleep it off for days. He hasn't done so much arguing during negotiations before.

It wasn't something he was prepared for either. In many of such meetings he has the upper hand or will get it if he doesn't have it. But with Jaelyn she made sure to not have him in that position. In truth he thought it would be the easiest deal to seal because it was really a lucrative offer. Especially for a small company like hers. Others would have jumped at the offer without thinking twice. But he seemed to have forgetten she was not most people.

He was utterly dumbfounded when she said no, so much that it took him a moment to recover. At first he thought she was jocking but when she refused to have the meeting he realised she could be serious.

He however is Lucas Miller and no one says no to him especially if it's business. And since she was playing hard to get, he decided to play along too and he wasn't going to play fair. He used the one person he knew she couldn't say no to for so long. Luckily for him Nina was on his side knowing how much their company would gain.

It wasn't long after engaging Nina that Jaelyn finally agreed but he found himself not ready for what came next. Everything about it kind of caught him off guard. While he spent his entire time dreaming about seeing her again, she was being a smart business woman and getting ready to strike a good deal.

He laughs at himself for letting his guard down. It was so unlike him to be this unguarded in such an important deal. But in his defence, she is more important to him than the deal.

He also realised too late her reason for choosing to have the meeting outside. No doubt if it was in her office there would have been some serious shouting, at least on his part. That part warms his heart because it means she hasn't totally forgotten him if she can remember this about him. She always told him he was too hot headed for his own good.

He sits up and rubs his forehead, he is used to thinking so much about issues and how to sort them out but this time he feels all his energies draining faster than usual and its her fault. He has no idea on what to do to have her talk to him.

He knows he was wrong but he can't believe she doesn't even want to spend a second more in the same room with him unless it's business. When all he wants is to be with her, hold her and tell her just how sorry he is for treating her the way he did. He may be here for business but after seeing her, he can't seem to focus.

From that moment at the reception desk his mind is out of the game. He is too distracted by her to even focus on the deal that had brought him out this far. There is only one thought in his mind since then.

"She is beautiful."

It has consumed him ever since he heard her voice. He has never looked twice at a pregnant woman before, but he finds himself entranced with her. With everything about her looking fuller he finds himself being attracted to her in a whole different way. To him every one of her curves seems to be calling out to him everytime she is near. Earlier in the meeting he could barely pay attention with his body reacting to every moment she shifted in her seat. If it wasn't for the many dead ends he was hitting in the negotiations he would have been consumed by just how alluring she was right there in front of him. Even a second was long enough for his thoughts to go very wild which they did when he held her after keeping her from falling.

His instincts kicked in the moment she bumped into the chair making him spring up and keep her from falling. He was surprised at how he naturally thought to protect them both. He worried not just for her but her baby too.

He had barely recovered from his actions when he felt her react to his touch. It was for a brief moment but her reaction was met with his own that made him feel alive from within. He almost smiled at her when he realized that he still had that kind of effect on her, but her determination to keep that detail to herself kept him from embarassing her.

He closes his eyes trying to contain himself and get his erratic breathing which comes with thoughts about her under control. At this rate he will end up needing to hit the shower.

After a moment he picks up the folder he came in with and looks it over.

He may have reached an agreement with this deal but he doesn't feel satisfied. And it's not because he ended up offering more for it, it's just that everything now is revolving around Jaelyn.

He wants her, and not just as his partner on this project, he wants all of her to himself even more than she ever was before. If there is something the past months have taught him, it's that he can't live without Jaelyn Gray. And now that he found her again he is not letting go even though she is carrying another man's child. His heart tightens at the thought. It was supposed to be him, she should have carried his child.

He takes out his wallet and brings out a photo of her. She is wearing her beautiful smile and she is happy. He traces it with his thumb and thinks back to the time he took it. It was the happiest he had been in a long time. Then he was having problems with his mom and dealing with all the pressures of handling the company when Jaelyn showed up at his office. He remembers her being dressed simply with her hair in a high bun but she was radiating with beauty. She was like a breath of fresh air to his weary soul. She dragged him out of his office and all the way to the fair, a place that did not reflect who he was or who he thought he was expected to be. That was the first time he did what his mother termed as silly things but surprisingly they made him so happy he had wanted to stay there the entire day. He couldn't get enough of her carefree self that bounced around the fair when she found something interesting. It was in one of those moments that he took the pic he is now holding. She was looking away from him at an angle when he captured that smile that had him staring at a single photo for hours. Every thing began then for him but that moment seems like so long ago now.

He places the photo back carefully and like many times before regret consumes him. He blames himself for taking that smile both from her and himself. It may have been his mother's doing but he regrets having taken those steps away from her no matter how much her supposed betrayal hurt him. And he regrets it even more after seeing her again. She seems to have moved on and the thought of a life without her feels like a dark cloud over him.