Billionaire's Perfect Revenge [18+]

FORTY SIX

Two days after Richard Milton announced his arrival, I found myself at mom's place. Zara stood by my side with only Nathan and his wife joining us over dinner.

The dinner at mom's place turned out to be pretty pleasant. Not a single mishap happened. Normally with Nathan and Nadine (his wife) around, mom made situations pretty irritating and mortifying for me—not that I ever let those feelings get a hold of me, and make me feel incompetent. Deep in my heart, I always knew I wasn't ready for a commitment.

But with Zara by my side, mom looked rather elated. She couldn't stop smiling. Shining through her entire being, her smile touched everyone in the room. She was a laughing and giggling mess and only scolded me and Nathan for like fifty times tops. Which wasn't terrible. Honestly.

Although I couldn't deny that more than half of the time we spent having dinner and chatting about shit that somehow felt funny for no apparent reason, my eyes had been glued to my pretty woman in red.

She was so gorgeous though. There was literally no colour in the world she couldn't carry like she owned it. A voice in my head still nagged me for the day I misbehaved, when we met for the first time that is. Or the day I made her sign that contract. Though it wasn't up for debate that deep-deep down, I had always known she was the change my life had been waiting to happen. I just didn't want to admit it. Didn't want to slow down because of some woman.

But she wasn't just some woman.

I should have done everything to win this woman's heart. I should have treated her as a goddess and nothing less. I should have carved my heart out if she ever asked for it. But I was an idiot of course. I had to think with my head and not with my heart. But maybe for that, I wasn't exactly at fault either. After my not-so-pleasant meeting with my dad's attorney, my head was a messed-up place. Project Millennium took the front seat and all I could think about was to get it started. Her determination to get her house back felt like a nuisance I couldn't deal with, not after the project was almost ready to take off. Sure, Josh kept things from me, for which I did throw him out, but the truth was that if he hadn't done what he had, grandpa's dream project wouldn't have seen the day of its foundation.

The day when I handed her the papers of her mom's shop, the expression on her face touched me in ways I couldn't explain. It fucking made me feel as if I won a war of sorts. As if I killed someone but was exonerated without a single scratch on my body. As if I was the rottenest sinner and yet I got an Angel to love me.

Love. What a silly thing! A thing that never crossed my mind ever. But now when I looked at her from across the living room while she chatted with Nadine in the kitchen, laughing at something I couldn't hear, nothing I did could dissuade that word—that feeling—to pop into my head again and again. This warm feeling wriggled around my chest and made me aware of its presence more than ever. It was as if I had grown another organ in my chest, and the more I looked at her, the heavier and more prominent it became.