Billionaire Games by Sylvia Maddox

the sun rise. Then she wondered if she’d have a chance to.
    She wouldn’t think about the future, though, the minutes, days, and weeks that grew closer with each passing second, and instead tried to keep herself in the here and now as she tiptoed across the wood floor, sure that her steps got louder as she approached.
    When she finally reached the windows, she stopped next to the only thing that was more breathtaking than the view.
    “I see Alan found you,” Simeon said.
    “You sent him directly to my doorstep,” she replied.
    “How did you know I’d sent him?” he asked.
    “A hunch,” she said.
    Claire thought she saw the faintest hint of a smile, but it was quickly snuffed.
    “And you didn’t change your mind,” he said.
    “No, despite how hard you tried to make me,” she said, thinking back to the picture, the very fact that Simeon had sent a stranger to retrieve her. It hadn’t occurred to her then that sending Alan might have been his way of trying to push her to change her mind. She was even happier now that she had seen through his attempt.
    He kept his eyes glued on the view, hands behind his back, his face an implacable mask of reserve.
    Her already-thudding heart sped, and her stomach swirled with a combination of nerves and desire so intense that it almost took her breath away.
    She looked at him openly, curiously, at first focusing on the dark brown hair that he had brushed back, a stray curl he hadn’t managed to tame lying against his forehead, the lone part of him that didn’t look completely put together.
    Claire looked lower at his jaw, as strong-looking as granite and dark with the beginnings of a beard that he always seemed to sport. Her sex clenched as she remembered how that skin felt against her body, abrading her as he kissed her. She quickly dropped her gaze to his ramrod-straight posture, his suit dark blue this time, which did nothing to hide the power of his strong, thickly muscled body.
    Claire still hadn’t gotten used to it, this man before her so different than the one she had known before, but so potent still.
    “Hello, Simeon,” she finally said.
    Instead of returning her greeting, he replied with a question.
    “What are the terms of our agreement, Claire?” he asked, all without looking at her.
    She had been watching him, saw his firm yet full lips as they moved, heard the deep rumble of his voice emerge from his chest, but he still seemed distant, rigid. So controlled, and not at all like the way she remembered.
    Stop it , Claire scolded herself internally.
    She couldn’t continue to do that, couldn’t allow herself to think of him the way he had been then. If nothing else, she knew that her old Simeon was gone. She’d have to learn the new one, learn to tolerate him, if not fully understand him.
    Though if the way her body hummed with anticipation was any indication, tolerating this new Simeon’s touch wouldn’t be a problem at all. Could she handle the emotions that would undoubtedly be stirred?
    That was still an open question.
    “You still have that terrible habit of answering questions with questions,” Claire finally said. He’d always done it, and it had driven her mad back then just as it was annoying her now.
    “What are the terms of our agreement?” he repeated, voice bland, disinterested, as if he were asking about a grocery list.
    Her anger sparked.
    “You’re right. We should come to an understanding of our terms. I’m going to start first,” she said.
    Then she turned her body so that she directly faced him, the light from the streets below lighting half his face but leaving the other in shadow.
    “Simeon, whatever you think I was back then, whatever you think I am now, you don’t know me. I’m going to go through with this, but you don’t get the right to judge me, or assume that you know who I am or that you know anything about me. And you don’t get to disrespect me,” she said.
    That got a reaction from him, the way he thinned his