He pulled his hand away from her neck, the absence of his touch making her heart ache terribly. “My intentions are to love you the way you deserve. But I guess it makes sense for you to ask. We’ve had to face so many obstacles that this chance hardly feels real.” Simon leaned towards her and pressed a warm, tender kiss on her forehead. “I didn’t say anything about our relationship because I figured saying ‘I love you’ meant we were in one.”
“We’re in a relationship?”
“We are if you’ll have me.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and stared deep into her eyes. “Heather, I want you to be my girlfriend. I want us to be together. Just us.”
“Is this your way of asking me to go steady?” She laughed softly, happy memories of their relationship in high school drifting back to her.
He nodded. “Yes. I want us to be exclusive. I want you to be the only woman in my life. And I want to be the only man in yours.”
She smiled coyly. “Which means—”
“Which means you can tell Drew to get lost,” he said gruffly.
“For the last time, there’s nothing going on between me and Drew,” she said. “Anyway, I can’t agree to you being the only man in my life.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a stark intensity radiating off him that she had never seen before. It was so powerful. So masculine. Clearly, now that he had made up his mind to be with her, he was never going to take no for an answer. “Why the hell not?”
“Because Finn is a big part of my life,” she said gently.
The hard expression on his face vanished. “Heather, I would never come between you and your son. I know he’s the most important person in your life, and there’s no way I’d ever ask you to change that. Finn comes first, and I promise I’ll always honor that.”
His words were making her heart swell with happiness. She let out a sigh of relief and smiled at him. “In that case, I happily accept. Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.” She giggled. “And now I officially feel like I’m a freshman in high school again.”
Simon leaned forward and let his hands slide down to her waist. His touch scorched through the fabric of her blouse, heating her all over. “I want to kiss you right now,” he said in a low voice.
Shock made her eyes go wide. “Simon, we can’t do that. We’re at work.”
Without responding, he took her hand in his and started to lead her down the hall.
“Where are we going?” she demanded with a gasp.
“To my office.” He grinned at her, something devilish glinting in his blue eyes. “You don’t think they’ve given it away already, do you?”
Minutes later they were in his office, and the first thing Simon did was wrap his strong, muscular arms around her. “How about that kiss?”
She giggled in spite of herself and pressed a quick peck on his lips. “How’s that?”
He pulled away from her, but an inferno still raged in his eyes. Simon’s desire was as undeniable as her own. Resisting his charms took so much effort that she struggled to breathe.
“I seem to remember you kissing me backstage at a work conference not too long ago,” he said.
“We weren’t at Dover headquarters,” she reminded him. “I’ve never been that reckless at the office.”
He tipped her chin back with his hand, letting this thumb brush across her lips. “You’re beautiful, you know that? How did I survive all these years without you?”
Heather didn’t know what to say to that. Because she had no idea how she had done the same thing. All those years in a loveless marriage to her ex-husband. Gary had never looked at her the way Simon was now. For most of her marriage, Gary had treated her like something to be merely tolerated. Like a burden he had been saddled with.
But with Simon it was like he couldn’t get enough of her. Every stolen glance between them, every word they had ever exchanged at work, had been charged with an electricity that she and Gary never had.
“Now we have the time to make up for all those years apart,” she said softly.
He turned away from her and approached his desk. “That’s why I want us to go on vacation together.”