Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Simon
If she posted that video, that meant she was back. I stood from my desk and headed down the hall to her office. When I reached it, she wasn’t in there.
“Patrick, where is she?”
“Still at Montclair Tribeca, Penthouse A. She wanted to film a couple more shots.”
“Did she say when she’ll be back?”
“She said about an hour.”
“Thank you.” I walked back to my office, grabbed the file, and stopped at Sonia’s desk.
“I’m running out for a bit. I’ll be back later.”
“Okay.” She smiled.
I climbed into the back of my car.
“Where to, Simon?” Nick asked.
“Montclair Tribeca.”
As soon as I arrived, I took the elevator up to Penthouse A and found Bella standing on the terrace, holding her camera up. It was chilly, and she wasn’t wearing a coat.
“Simon, what are you doing here?” She smiled and stepped inside when she saw me.
“I came to see you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why do you automatically assume something’s wrong?” I asked.
“Because you have that look.” She pointed.
“What look?” My brows furrowed.
“You have your business face on.”
“I always have my business face on,” I smirked.
“No. You have several faces,” she said.
“What do you mean by several?”
“There’s Business Simon. There’s Annoyed Simon. There’s Arrogant Simon. There’s Horny Simon—”
“Bella.” I stopped her.
“And there’s that one.” She grinned.
“Can you be serious for thirty seconds?” I shook my head.
“I am serious. You came here in the middle of the morning carrying that.” She pointed to the file folder. “I’m worried.”
“Don’t be.” I took out the report and handed it to her.
“What is this?” she asked.
“The Tribeca sales report.”
She stared at it, turned around, and gripped the edge of the countertop.
“Oh God,” she said. “I knew yesterday slowed down.”
“What?” My brows furrowed.
“We didn’t have any signed contracts yesterday, and traffic dipped over the last couple of days. But don’t worry. I’m fixing it. I have three new concepts we’re shooting today. The rooftop one should—”
I stepped closer to her and gripped her shoulders from behind.
“Seriously? Is that all you saw? Bella, we sold twenty units in two weeks. Twenty!”
“Really?” She turned and looked at me.
“Yes.” I smiled.
“Holy shit!” she shouted with excitement and threw her arms around me. I pulled her into me and held her tight.
“Twenty fucking units.” She laughed into my chest.
“There she is.” I chuckled.
She broke our embrace. “Do you know what this means?”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, seriously. Do you understand how insane that is?”
“I understand perfectly.” I grinned. “Are you finished here?”
“Why?” Her eye narrowed.
“I thought we could grab an early lunch before heading back to the office.”
“In that case, I’m finished.” She reached up and kissed my lips.
“Are you ready to go home?” I asked, stepping into her office.
“Yes. I’m tired.” She grabbed her purse. “What’s for dinner?”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Italian. I’ve been craving it all day.”
“You had an Italian sub for lunch,” I smirked.
“Shut up.” She laughed.
“There’s that great little Italian place on the way home. I could place the order now, and we can stop and pick it up,” I said.
“Sounds good. I want the chicken parmesan.”
“Chicken parm it is.” I pulled out my phone and called in our order.
After we picked up dinner, I set the bag on the island. Raine ran into the kitchen, jumped on the island, and investigated.
“How are you, Raine?” I picked her up and scratched under her neck. “Did you miss me today?”
“Meow.”
“You did? Well, I missed you too.” I quickly kissed the top of her head and set her on the floor.
Bella walked into the kitchen in a pair of sweatpants and one of my sweatshirts.
“Is that my sweatshirt?” I asked.
“Yep. I love this one. It’s so comfortable.”
“Then by all means, wear it. Take all my clothes, Bella,” I smirked.
“Shut up.” She laughed.
“Are we going to watch that movie tonight we’ve been wanting to see?”
“Sure.” She grinned. “We can pop some popcorn too.”
“Do we have any?”
“Yes. I picked up a box last week when I was at the store.”
“Smart girl.” I winked.
After we ate, she grabbed her laptop and took it over to the couch.
“I thought we were watching the movie now,” I said.
“We will in a while. I have something I need to get done for tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’ll go in my study and check my emails. But when I’m finished, we’re watching the movie.”
“I know.” She smiled.
I went into my study, checked my emails, sent a few replies, and shut down my computer.
I went into the living room where Bella was sitting cross-legged on the couch with her laptop.
She’d been sitting there for two hours working.
I’d tried twice to get her to close the fucking laptop, and she ignored me.
I walked behind the couch and looked over her shoulder.
“You’re still working?”
“I’m almost done,” she said.
“You said that forty-five minutes ago when I came out here.”
“I really mean it this time,” she said.
“You said that the first time.”
She looked up at me. “Do you need something?”
“Yes. I need my girlfriend to stop working.” The word slipped out of my mouth.
“What?” Her brows lifted.
“Nothing.” I started walking away.
“No.” She closed her laptop. “You just called me your girlfriend.”
I turned and stared at her while she stared back.
“Well, you are, aren’t you?” There was no getting out of this one. It was time anyway.
“I don’t know. Am I?”
“Jesus Christ,” I sighed.
“We’ve never talked about it.” She laughed.
“We do sleep in the same bed every night, Bella.”
“That doesn’t automatically make me your girlfriend.”
“You live in my home,” I said.
“Technically, I’m your temporary roommate until I can afford a place of my own.”
“You stopped being my roommate the first time I fucked you.”
“What?” Her eyes widened. “You cannot possibly think that’s how relationships are defined.”
“I don’t know how they’re defined. I’ve avoided them my entire life.”
I walked over to the couch and sat next to her. She placed her laptop on the coffee table.
“Okay. So, I’m your girlfriend?” she asked in a serious tone.
“Do you want to be?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re my girlfriend.”
“You’re such a romantic, Simon Montclair.”
I sensed sarcasm in her voice. “I thought it went well,” I smirked.
“For a first-timer, you’re really good at this.”
“I try.” I winked.
She laughed and wrapped her arms around me.
“Now, can you stop working?” I asked.
“I have one more thing—”
“Okay, sweetheart. Enough. You’re turning into me, and I don’t like it.”
“What?” Her brows furrowed.
“You’re turning into me, and I don’t like it.”
“No. What you said before that,” she said. “What did you just call me?”
“I thought we already established that. You’re my girlfriend.”
“No. Something else. You called me sweetheart.”
“I did? Doesn’t sweetheart and girlfriend go together? Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“I’m not. I’m just shocked.”
My brows furrowed. “Why are you shocked?”
“Because you don’t use pet names.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Really?” Her head cocked.
“I don’t.” I chuckled. “But you’re my girlfriend, and sweetheart comes with the territory. So, get used to it.”
She climbed on my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Say it again.” She smiled.
“You can finish your work tomorrow at the office, sweetheart. We have to watch our movie, sweetheart. Is that enough for you?”
“Never.” Her lips pressed against mine.
“How about this? I love you. I’m so in love with you, Bella Castle.” I smiled as I ran my hand down the back of her head.
“You love me?”
“Yes, and I’m not afraid to say it. I love you.”
“God, Simon. I love you too.” She hugged me.
“Are you sure?”
She broke our embrace and stared at me. “Of course. I’ve been in love with you, you big dummy.”
I laughed. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
“Yeah. So was I.” I ran the back of my hand down her cheek. “It feels right, Bella. You feel right. You’re in my home. In my bed. At my company, driving everyone insane.”
“I do not drive everyone insane,” she said.
“You made your team show up at five in the morning for sunrise footage.”
“They volunteered!”
“Because they’re afraid of you,” I smirked. “Listen, you came into my life when I didn’t want anyone in it. I had everything exactly the way I wanted it. I had my company, my penthouse, and my schedule. Nobody asked me for anything or expected anything from me. You invaded my sanctuary.”
“Don’t forget about your rules,” she said.
“Ah, yes. My ten perfectly reasonable rules.”
“They weren’t reasonable,” she said.
“They were excellent rules, Bella.”
“They were ridiculous rules, Simon.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Those rules are out the window.
I only made them because I wanted to make sure you didn’t interfere with my life.
But you still interfered with every fucking part of it.
” I smiled. “You took over my kitchen. You turned my fireplace into a pumpkin patch. Fuck. Harold is still sitting in the kitchen. You leave your shit everywhere, and you’ve somehow managed to get more closet space than I have. ”
“That is not true.” She laughed.
“It absolutely is. You dragged me to a fall festival. You invited my father without asking me. You steal my sweatshirts, and you leave cabinet doors open. You also make me eat dinner later than usual because you’re working.
You’ve disrupted my entire life, Bella Castle.
And you know what? I don’t want it back. ” I smiled.
“Simon.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“I used to step off that elevator and love that the penthouse was quiet. Now, if I get home before you do, I fucking hate it.” A single tear fell from her eye. I gently wiped it away with my finger. “Don’t cry, Bella.”
“I’m not.”
“The tear on my finger suggests otherwise.” I smiled.
“Go on. I’m sure there’s more,” she said.
This shouldn’t have been so fucking hard. I’d negotiated deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars without breaking a sweat. But this woman sitting on my lap had my heart pounding like I was about to jump off a building.
“I told him.”
“Who?”
“Christian. I told him I was in love with you at the game that day.”
“And you waited this long to tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
“That you’d melt?” A smirk crossed her lips.
I laughed. “Maybe. I don’t know, sweetheart. I’m a better man since you crashed my life.” I cupped her face in my hands. “I love you, Bella. You’re my girlfriend, not a temporary roommate, and you’re not going anywhere. This is your home, and you’re right where you belong.”
“I love you so much, Simon Montclair.”
“And that makes me incredibly happy. Now, how about that movie?”
“Are you kidding?” Her brows furrowed. “Fuck the movie.” She gripped the bottom of her sweatshirt and pulled it off.