Simon

I’d arrived at the hotel ready to change over into workout attire and hit the gym. I had another night ahead of me to spend revising the purchase agreement for Maddox Consulting after which I’d fall into bed. The sale appeared to be a done deal, to be completed in the next couple of weeks. When I got Emma’s text, I was torn between telling her I didn’t feel like a drink tonight and curious as to what she’d wanted me to see.

Now I knew why she’d sent the text. All thoughts of working my night away were forgotten. I drank in the sight of Peyton in her jumper, jeans, and boots and thought how beautiful she looked, smiling with Emma. Yet the moment I walked up, her smile disappeared. Suddenly I was on a mission to find it again.

“You want another drink?”

She hesitated. “Sure, although I may have to get an Uber.”

“I could drive you home.”

“Probably not a good idea.”

No. It wasn’t. Rather than being the gentlemanly thing, my offer was an invitation to intrude further into her life. “Or you could stay long enough you won’t need one.”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

Didn’t I always? But at this moment, there was nothing that would keep me from her. “No.”

I signaled the bartender, who already knew I wanted my whiskey neat. I found it curious when Peyton ordered the same, only with sours to cut the taste. “How was your week?”

“Tiring, but productive. I can’t imagine having to go through these types of things all the time like your team does.”

“We have breaks in between.” Although I seldom took them. Instead, I was always crunching numbers regarding the next possible investment endeavor for my boss.

“Hopefully, everything is good with this one. I’d hate to put in all the work and the deal fall through.”

I was tempted to tell her it looked as though we were moving ahead with the purchase, but I couldn’t yet. For the first time, I cursed that fact. It occurred to me she seemed to want what was best for George instead of hoping the entire thing would crumble. A lot of people wouldn’t have felt that way. They enjoyed the status quo too much to want change. “Hope so, too.”

We were both quiet. The fact conversation was now awkward didn’t settle well with me, especially when it had been quite natural in the beginning. However, given the way we’d left things the last time, was it any wonder?

“Emma tells me Russ is competent.”

She took a sip of her new drink. “He is.”

I sighed, not liking her short answers and needing to clear the air. “I wish I hadn’t brought up your father the way I did.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because I wanted your raw reaction to the rumor. It’s the way I operate.”

“Without apology?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to give her the canned response I’d give to anyone else. Because I didn’t regret my actions and I wasn’t responsible for the way they made her feel. Given the choice, I’d do it the same all over again. Of course, I hadn’t meant to hurt her by bringing up her deceased father, and that hadn’t been my intention. Getting to the bottom of the rumor had been. I had twenty different ways of explaining myself and rebuttals for any argument she might have. But none of that came out. Instead, I told the truth.

“I have a hard time with them.”

“Why?”

“I can’t say.” I’d confided in Emma when we’d both been in London drinking. Since she’d spilled her broken past, I’d shared some of mine. She was the sole person outside of my family who knew the real reason.

“Can’t or won’t? You know what? It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t be asking deep questions or demanding an apology. And you shouldn’t have to justify why you won’t give it. It was only one date.”

She declared the same words I’d told myself over and over. It was only one date. Two kisses. Yet the thought of losing her left me in a panic. She was retreating, both figuratively and physically, putting money on the bar, ready to go.

“Then why do I miss you? Why do I sit in my office, quiet as a church mouse so I can hear your voice through the walls? Why do I think about you all of the time?”

She stilled. Her lips parted in surprise while the magnitude of what I’d admitted hit me. But there was no going back.

“I keep telling myself it was only one date, too.” I’d tried to convince myself it was insane to have this connection with someone I barely knew. But I felt as if our time had been cut short in some sort of tragic way. If she knew the depth of my thoughts on the matter, I was sure she’d be running for the hills. They weren’t the thoughts of a rational man who’d been out with a woman once for dinner.

She moved her body towards me until I could feel the heat from her leg next to mine. The sexual tension radiated from the both of us like a low hum while my heart thumped in my chest.

“Maybe it’s because it’s now forbidden we want it more.” Her voice was down to a whisper, full of a need that hadn’t been evident before.

“Meaning you feel the same way?”

“Yes.” She let out a sigh, her finger rimming her glass with a seductive action I doubted she was even aware of. “Evidently, we’re both crazy, or maybe we simply can’t stand not getting our way?”

I smiled and watched her do the same. Catching the bartender’s attention, I ordered another whiskey and then threw back the one in front of me with one motion.

“I do enjoy getting my way.” And right now, I’d have loved nothing more than to pay the tab and take her up to my room. I’d have her naked in two seconds and my tongue buried in her pussy in two more.

“Me, too.” The way her eyes darkened made me wonder if she wasn’t thinking the same thing.

“My family,” I blurted out.

“What?”

“My family, or rather my father, is the reason I don’t give apologies.” Even saying the word in a sentence was hard to get out. Yet giving her something was important if I was to bridge the gap caused by any wrongs I’d done her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

No. I didn’t. I shook my head. “Do you miss your father?”

She took my cue for changing the subject onto her family. “Every day. I miss my mom more, which I suppose I should feel guilty about, but my father traveled a lot. She was around for the day to day.”

“You lost both parents? At the same time?”

“Yes. In a horrible accident.”

I assumed a car crash. “You were a minor. What did you do?”

“My sister became my guardian. Can you imagine at age nineteen in your sophomore year, having to quit college and come back home to take care of your teenage sister?”

“No. I can’t.”

“It’s what she did. She finished her degree locally by attending school at night. Had a long-distance relationship with her now-husband while he was at college—all so she could keep me in our home town and with her.”

“Pretty selfless.”

“She is. Are your parents still alive?”

I wasn’t accustomed to talking about my family at all. Yet here I was putting it out there. “My mother died five years ago. My father lives, although I haven’t spoken to him in almost two decades.”

“Twenty years?”

“Just about. He wasn’t a good man.”

“If I were to guess, he had something against you saying sorry?”

Quite the opposite. I simply nodded, not wanting to burden her with how I used to get beat until the word would pass my lips. It started when I was about four. My father enjoyed the groveling, the tears, and most of all, the pain. He saw an apology as weakness. The words would empower him while defeating me. It had taken me years to realize it was he who was truly the weak one. A man who would prey on a child and his wife with his fists.

“Actually, he enjoyed it a bit too much.”

“I’m sorry. I mean—shit. In talking about it, there I go throwing it out there at the worst possible time. Sorry—fuck, now I did it again.” She clasped a hand over her mouth as if to keep the deluge of apologies from escaping.

I threw my head back with laughter and then watched as she joined in. “You’re trying not to say it again, aren’t you?”

She removed her hand and bit her lip in the adorable way she did when she got nervous. She had a way of making the serious lighter. Of edging sunshine into my darkest places with no effort at all. Perhaps that was I sought in the glimpses I’d had with her. I missed the laughter.

“Jesus. I didn’t realize how I throw it out there so often.”

“Most people do.” I envied how freely she could say the words. For her, they didn’t pull up the shitstorm of emotions they did for me.

“A lot of people don’t mean it.”

“True. The closest I can get is saying I regret something. And I truly do regret putting Jeff’s allegation out there because I didn’t know your father had died.”

She searched my eyes for sincerity and must’ve found it because she took my hand. The simple touch almost undid me and my resolve not to kiss her again. Consequences be damned.

“I regret we’re not on our third date by now.”

I grinned, thinking back to her breakdown of relationship timing. “Is that the magic number?”

“For you, I didn’t think I’d make it past two.”

Breath hissed between my teeth as I willed my erection to go away. I couldn’t remember a time I’d wanted a woman as much as I did her. But I respected her enough not to screw up her future. A job she’d worked hard to get was in my control and shouldn’t be tied to personal feelings.

“Guess I probably shouldn’t have said that. I should go.”

My mind and body warred. My brain recognized it would be best for my self-preservation if she did leave, but I didn’t want to listen to the inner voice saying so. “I don’t want you to.”

A sigh of regret passed her lips. “I know, but you need me to. And so do I.”

I waved off her cash. “I have this. Are you okay to drive?”

She stood up, looking steady, but I wasn’t sure about her alcohol tolerance.

“I’m fine. Good night, Simon.”

“Good night, Peyton.” I wanted to kiss her on the cheek or give her a hug, but I knew if I did I’d be lost in her. Instead, I watched her walk out, already missing the warmth she’d brought me simply through conversation.

I sat at the bar and threw back two more whiskeys. When someone took her chair, I almost got my hopes up she’d returned. Then I realized it was Emma.

“I was hoping to see you both gone. Upstairs, to be exact.”

“I wish, but it’s fucking impossible. As much as I’m trying to keep it professional, I don’t know how I’m supposed to remain unbiased at this point when I do interview her for the CFO position.”

It was already a lose-lose proposition. If I promoted Peyton, then it could be argued I did so because I had a personal bias. If I didn’t, the same argument could be applied.

Emma rolled her eyes. “It is crystal clear she’s way more qualified than Jeff. Not only is he a tosser, but he’s not nearly as good with numbers. Russ indicated he had to ask for three different versions of Jeff’s payroll data because he couldn’t format Excel correctly. Nobody but the HR girl he’s currently sleeping with likes him. And that’s a disaster waiting to happen since he’s still hitting on anything else female with a heartbeat. Do you want a CFO who hits on your assistant even while sleeping with a junior staff member?”

I gave her a look. “So much for not having a bias against Jeff, too.”

She laughed. “Since when haven’t I shared my opinions?”

An idea suddenly formed.

“What? What did you think of just now that’s putting that somewhat goofy, weirding-me-out expression on your face?”

“Bias. I couldn’t go to Phillip to say I’d have to opt out of interviewing because of a bias towards Peyton. He’d ask why. Also, if I dropped out of interviewing CFO applicants, Tom would get adamant about an external candidate, or worse, Jeff. But if I say I have a bias regarding Jeff because of information which came to my attention and because he’d hit on you, I can recuse myself from interviewing either of them for CFO.”

“Does that mean Tom would instead?”

I was already off my stool, putting my card on the bar for the check. “No way. Neither of us would do them. The investment board would.”

She raised a brow. “Phillip’s board of directors?”

My boss, or rather The Stone Group, had a board of five directors. “Yes, they’ve done it on the executive level. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I can set it up so she and Jeff fly to New York later this week and have their interviews there with the board. It’s brilliant.”

“Wait. Where are you off to?”

“To ring Phillip.”

She pushed the brakes. “It’s almost ten on a Friday night. I get you’re anxious, and hell, so am I, but we both know it has to wait until Monday at least. It most especially needs to wait until after the deal is closed. Otherwise, it would look strange for you to recuse yourself from interviews that might not happen.”

Had I been thinking straight I would have come to the same, logical conclusion. “You’re right. Bollocks.”

She patted my shoulder. “Impressive obstacle removal, mate. Glad I’m here for you to ensure there is no collateral damage. You intend to tell her?”

I wished I could get in the car and drive over to her house now. But there was no guarantee the board would agree. “Not until next week. Can you tell her to clear her schedule for next Thursday and Friday? Hopefully, her flight will be on one of those two days.”

“Yes. Oh, and I guess I’ll inform Jeff, too, although I’m reasonably certain his calendar is always clear.”

I laughed for the first time, optimistic that I might have a solution for how I could buy the company, protect her job, and still get the girl.