4. Simon

CHAPTER 4

Simon

“I don’t understand kiss cams,” I say as I look down on the Racketeers arena from the owner’s private box.

My cousin has owned the hockey team for years, but I’ve only seen them play a handful of times. I follow their record and standings, but I don’t really watch hockey and the only player’s name I know is Crew McNeill, and that’s only because he’s also married to Nathan’s wife.

Rugby is more my game, and Nathan humors me once in a while when he’s in London by accompanying me to a match so I come watch his beloved Racketeers play once a year or so when I’m in Chicago.

“What’s to understand?” Nathan asks as the camera zooms in on a couple who grin, wave, and then lean in to share a kiss. “It’s an annoying activity in between periods that entertains the crowd, for some reason.”

“That’s exactly my point,” I say, fighting a grin. “Why do people like watching other people kiss?”

I don’t really care, but Nathan’s adorable wife Danielle told me the story of how she met two of her husbands because of the kiss cam in this very arena when I stopped at their townhouse to see their new baby girl last night.

Her two husbands who are not Nathan.

From what I can gather, were it not for the kiss cam, Nathan might have gotten Dani to himself—at least for a while—so the whole thing annoys him. Which means I need to bring it up however I can.

“Because people are strange and love to watch other people act like fools.”

I laugh. “And what if someone is sitting next to someone they don’t want to kiss?” I ask. I find people watching entertaining, unlike my stuffed shirt of a cousin.

I know that Dani was actually on a blind date with a guy she did not want to kiss when the kiss cam found her in the crowd on that first fateful night.

“They certainly don’t have to kiss them,“ Nathan says with a scowl.

I chuckle. It is so easy, and fun, to tease my cousin. While he has certainly relaxed since meeting Danielle, he is still one thousand times more uptight than I am.

He’s always been serious, and as he got older and took over more responsibilities for the North American arm of the Armstrong family business, he became grumpier and grumpier.

That makes no sense to me. How can you have billions of dollars and be anything but absolutely chuffed?

Sure, there’s responsibility, but we also have the ability to give thousands of people jobs, turn out products and services that can make the world better, and at the same time live lives that are pretty fucking easy and comfortable.

Money can’t buy happiness, so they say, but it sure can buy a lot of things that make it easier to enjoy yourself.

I chuckle as the camera actually finds a couple that doesn’t want to kiss. The guy holds up a sign that says SHE’S MY SISTER. They were obviously prepared.

Then the camera pans to where the mascot, a huge silver and white dog, dressed in a vest and fedora, is standing on the steps. He’s pulling a laughing woman to her feet, then dipping her back and kissing her.

I straighten as he pulls the woman upright again, and the camera zooms in on her face.

I swear my heart stops.

“Holy hell,“ I mutter.

“You okay, Simon?” Nathan asks.

I can’t tear my eyes away from the woman, but I nod. Am I okay ? I’m fucking fantastic.

I just found Elise.

“How do I get down there?” I ask Nathan, not taking my eyes off of her.

She’s just as drop dead gorgeous as I remember. Tonight, she’s dressed casually, instead of the business attire I’m used to seeing her in. She’s wearing tight, dark jeans, and a Racketeers hockey jersey. But because the mascot pulled her out onto the steps with him, I can see her from head to toe. She’s wearing high heeled black boots, her dark hair hanging in large curls around her face and down her back. And the lips that I have been thinking about for fourteen bloody months are painted a cock-teasing crimson.

But more than anything, more than the curves, more than her hair, more than that mouth, it’s the way her face lights up when she smiles.

I would know her anywhere.

That is the woman who walked into my office one day almost two years ago, grabbed me by the balls—metaphorically, not literally—and made me wish for the first time in my life that my last name was not Armstrong and that I didn’t have millions of dollars to my name. That I was just a regular guy who she would agree to go out to dinner with. And then just a little over a year ago, the woman who finally let me kiss her. And then disappeared from my life.

“Down where?” Nathan asks.

The camera has moved off of Elise and I’ve lost track of her.

I turn to my cousin. “I need to find the woman the mascot was just kissing.”

Nathan looks at me for several beats. He narrows his eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I shake my head with a frown. “No. Why would I be kidding?”

“Did Danielle put you up to this? Or was it Crew?”

Okay, if anyone was going to put me up to something to mess with Nathan, Crew is a pretty good guess. But I’m dead serious. “No. Nathan, I know that woman and I need to talk to her. Right now.”

I can’t believe she’s here. I looked for her after she quit. We kissed and then the next day she just didn’t come back to work. Accessing her employee files to find her address was probably not completely ethical, but I didn’t care. I needed to know that she hadn’t quit because of me because then I would have to apologize and talk her into returning to her job.

But she’d already moved. I resigned myself to the fact that she didn’t want to be found. She could’ve walked back into my office at any point. Hell, she had my number. I’m still convinced to this day that she knows I would’ve welcomed any contact.

Which means she didn’t want to have contact.

I chalked it up to just one of those things. It could have been something, and then it wasn’t. But if she is within the same building as I am at the same time, I am going to find her and talk to her.

If for no other reason, than to assure myself that she is fine and I didn’t somehow fuck up her life.

Nathan studies my face and apparently decides that I am completely serious. He nods. “Fine.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and presses a couple of buttons. He puts the phone to his ear. “Wade, I need you to go get the woman you just kissed.“ He pauses, then frowns. “Elise?” His eyes find mine.

I give him a single nod, telling him that yes, that’s the name of the woman I am talking about as well.

“Yes. Go get Elise and bring her up to my box.”

Perfect. We can have a private place to talk.

“Yes, right now.” Nathan pauses, then rolls his eyes. “You can do that afterward,” he says heavily.

I can’t help it, I smirk.

Finally, Nathan hangs up. “I don’t know why I keep that kid on staff.”

“He’s going to get her?” I ask.

“As long as he doesn’t forget or get lost between where he is and where she’s sitting,” Nathan says dryly.

“Thanks.”

“You want to tell me what this is about? How do you know Elise?”

I narrow my eyes. “How do you know Elise?”

“Elise is a friend of Danielle’s. She works part time for Crew’s sister, Luna.”

That makes me frown. “What does Luna do?”

“She owns a bakery.”

She quit working for me at a very high paying, comfortable executive assistant job with fantastic benefits, to go work for a bakery?

“So how do you know her?” Nathan asks again.

“She used to work for me. She was my assistant’s assistant.”

“And why do you need to talk to her?”

I take a breath and blow it out. I study my cousin. He’s a very good guy. He’s also madly in love, managing a complicated but clearly real and fulfilling relationship with three other adult humans, and he just became a father. Maybe he’ll understand this.

“I wanted to ask her out when she quit and walked out of my life, disappearing without a trace,” I tell him. “After I kissed her.”

Nathan just blinks at me for about five seconds. “I see,” he finally says.

“I haven’t seen or talked to her in fourteen months. I just want to know that she didn’t quit her job because I crossed a line.”

There is a knock at the door to the suite and Nathan looks toward the door, then back to me. “Well, looks like here’s your chance.”

My heart thumps hard with anticipation. We had undeniable chemistry, me and Elise.

“Come in,” Nathan calls.

The door swings open and a guy in a big furry dog suit, minus the head, leans in. The man in the suit is not at all what I expected. He’s young, early to mid-twenties, with blond, shaggy hair, a scraggly beard, and a somewhat goofy grin that somehow manages to look nervous at the same time.

“Mr. Armstrong? Elise is here.”

Nathan nods. “Come on in Elise.”

The mascot steps back, and she moves into the room.

She’s looking at the mascot and reaches up to pat his cheek. “Thanks, Wade. And seriously, that’s the last time for the kiss cam. That’s three games in a row that you’ve come for me.”

The grin the kid gives her is definitely not nervous. It’s big and full of affection. “You’re such a good sport. And the social media account is now all about us going out, you know.”

I frown as she laughs. “I know. We have to stop encouraging them.”

“There’s no negative for me here,” Wade tells her.

“Sweetie, you’re a big talker,” Elise tells him. “But I keep telling you, I don’t think you have what it takes to keep up with me.”

“And what is that, exactly?” I ask, interrupting their exchange, even though it’s clearly not serious.

I’m ready to have Elise’s full attention on me .

And I get it when she swings toward my voice, sees me, registers who I am, straightens, and her eyes widen as her mouth drops open.

Nathan steps toward the door. He nudges Wade out as he steps into the hallway. “I’m going to go check on a few things,“ he says. “Take your time.”

Then he’s gone, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Hello, Elise,” I say, tucking my hands into the pockets of my dress pants. I want to reach for her. I want to stomp across the room, back her up against the wall, and kiss the hell out of her.

I haven’t forgotten her taste. I haven’t forgotten the feel of her lips. I haven’t forgotten how it feels to press my body to hers. I haven’t forgotten how her sweet little moan of desire sounds.

It was a damn good kiss.

And now she’s right here in front of me and it’s taking everything in me to hold back.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks, her voice breathless.

“Watching hockey,” I say, going with the simplest answer.

She looks around, as if confused. “How are you here? How do you know Nathan?” Then she laughs softly. “Or do all you hot rich guys have some private club or something?”

There are of course private clubs for very wealthy people but I give her the real answer. “Nathan and I are cousins.”

She stares at me. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She frowns and shakes her head. “Armstrong. Why did it never occur to me that you have the same last name?”

I open my mouth to respond but she goes on, “Maybe because you're British? You live in London. Nathan‘s from here. There have to be a million Armstrongs in the world.”

I wait just a moment to see if she’s finished, then I say, “Our grandfathers were brothers. My grandfather moved to London to run the family business office there. He met my grandmother, who is British. My father grew up in London, as did I. We’ve always overseen the European branch of the business while Nathan has been in charge of the North American branch.”

She lifts her hand and rubs her forehead. “How is it possible that I became friends with the woman connected to your cousin?”

I lift a shoulder. “Fate. Obviously. “

She scoffs. “Yeah. Sure.”

But I’m serious. Is it fanciful to believe in things like fate and soulmates? Maybe. Would people be surprised that a billionaire businessman is whimsical? Maybe. But who better to believe in things like luck and fate than someone who is living a life like the one I live? Most everything good in my life had come to me through luck, good timing, and charm.

“I was disappointed you disappeared without a trace,” I tell her, cutting to the chase. It doesn’t really matter how we ended up in this moment, only what we do now that we’re here.

Her eyes widen. “Oh.”

I take a step forward. “I tried to find you…Not just because of the job, but because of me. I wanted to see you, date you, after that kiss, and I hate to think you didn’t know that.”

She presses her lips together and crosses her arms. “I had to leave. We couldn’t do that.”

“Why not? We did it very well.”

I’m still pissed I hadn’t kissed her before I did. I’d wanted to for months. She’d only worked for my company for about six months. I’d thought I had time. I was enjoying getting to know her. Enjoying our flirtation. Enjoying letting her know me and building on our chemistry to the point of I-can’t-take-it-anymore.

She laughs. “I was terrible at my job. And I just kept getting worse, it seemed. And then I was throwing myself at the boss. I had to get out.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” I say, taking another step forward. “And even if you did, your boss was very happy to catch you.”

Her brows pull together slightly in an adorably confused look. “It was inappropriate.”

“It wasn’t. We don’t have a policy against employees dating. They—we—just have to disclose it. We were two grown, consenting adults.”

“It was inappropriate to me . I was bad at my job. Thinking about staying there just because of my feelings for you felt wrong.” She bites her bottom lip, watching me. Then she says, “After we kissed and I realized that my feelings were even stronger than I thought and realized you might feel some things too, I knew I had to leave right then…or I maybe never would. And I would have felt terrible about myself keeping a job I didn’t deserve, or like, just so I could be close to you.” She pauses. “I’d already done that for about three months.”

Fuck yes . I love that. I probably shouldn’t. It obviously bothers her. But she had feelings for me. That’s all I can concentrate on.

“We could have worked it out,” I tell her. “But here we are now, not working together. Let me take you to dinner.”

She shakes her head and backs up toward the door. “I would drive you crazy, Simon.”

I step toward her. “Yes, you would. You did . In every good way.”

“No,” she protests, stepping back again. “I’m not talking about that . I’m unorganized, messy, late all the time. Not just at work at a job I don’t understand or like. I’m like that all the time . In everything. Even the stuff I love.”

I frown. I’m not following. “Elise, why would I care about that?”

“You would,” she insists. “I worked for you for six months. I know that you value organization and competence and professionalism and…I’m not those things.”

“I have an assistant for those things. I don’t need those things from you. Not when you’re not on the payroll, and I’m discussing getting to know each other on a personal level.”

Her eyes widen yet she steps back, right into the door. She fumbles for the knob, her gaze glued on mine. “We’re not a good fit.”

“We could be an excellent fit,” I say, making sure she understands the full innuendo.

She sucks in a breath.

“Simon…go back to London and forget me. I’m fine. I’m good . You don’t have to think about me anymore.”

“I’m here, in Chicago, until the end of March,” I tell her. “And there’s no way in hell I’m going to forget you. I was gutted when you disappeared, thinking I was responsible for you quitting your job.”

She twists the knob and steps forward to pull the door open. “You’re not responsible for that. I absolve you of all guilt. The job was a terrible fit for me. So you can go forth and live your life and not feel bad about it.”

“I’d feel better about my life if you were having dinner with me.”

She stares at me. “You could have any woman.”

“Good to know. I want you .”

She hesitates in the doorway. Then she shakes her head. “I have to go.”

Don’t push her. You don’t have to push right now. I tell myself that even though everything in me is screaming to take her into my arms and kiss her again.

“Okay,” I say, begrudgingly. “I’ll see you soon.”

“That sounds ominous.”

I smile. I don’t believe her. I can tell her heart is pounding and her adrenaline is pulsing. Her cheeks are flushed and she keeps wetting her lips. “Does it, love? Or does it sound tempting?”

She swallows hard. Then she says, “Bye, Simon,” and turns and literally flees .

But I just smile.

Now I know she has feelings for me. Now I know why she left. Now I know where she is. Now I can find her.

And I fully intend to.