Page 5 of Indescribable Love

She started to walk away, but paused. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I feel bad leaving you alone. Maybe I’ll send Celia and Alex and I’ll stay here and work with you.”

“Absolutely not. This is our vacation,” he told her. “You wanted to see the mountains, and that’s why you’re here. I’m supposed to be relaxing, but I also need to be working on new music. You know how hard it is to do that when we’re on the road.” He shrugged. “There is nothing for you here that you have to do. I’m a grown man and I can take care of myself. I swear.”

Chuckling, she shook her head. “I can’t help but worry about you. You work too much and never take time for yourself. You should be on a tropical island right now with people bringing you drinks and no guitars or pianos in sight.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself. That sounds more like torture.” Motioning to the space around them, he said, “This makes me happy. Just like taking your son to the aquarium is going to make you happy. So please go and I’ll see you at dinner.”

With a dramatic sigh, she agreed. “Juliette will be here sometime after lunch. She came highly recommended from Prestige PR, and I’m sure the two of you are going to hit it off.” And with a wave, she was gone.

Simon waited until he heard the front door close before he let out a long breath. Of course he was going to hit it off with Juliette—or Jules, as she apparently liked to be called—he made sure he hit it off with everyone. And while he wasn’t thrilled with her essentially moving into the house for the next two weeks, he supposed Nikki had a point. Maybe he’d be able to get her to talk some sense into the producers of the documentary and make them see that some aspects of his life deserved to stay private.

Although his baby brother was a professional football player, no one was harassing Jax about his childhood.

“Okay, I need to stop obsessing about this,” he said, taking the last spoonful of his breakfast. It was getting him nowhere, and it seemed like he had something new to worry about.

His new publicist.

Maybe he should have taken Nikki up on her offer to stay. It might have been nice to have someone else here to help Juliette get settled.

He instantly waved that thought off. Simon was a people person. Basically, he didn’t believe in asking anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do. They had just arrived at the house a few days ago, so all the beds were made, the linens were fresh, and all Juliette needed to do was come inside and pick out which room she wanted. There were four of them to choose from—three on the upper level and one on the lower level. His bedroom was here on the main floor, so they were each guaranteed to have their privacy. It wasn’t the way he would have chosen to do things, but if this is what Mick wanted, this was what they were going to do.

Putting his dishes in the dishwasher, Simon washed his hands before heading down to the lower level. There was a piano set up down there along with his guitars and so far it had been a great space for him to work in.

Sitting down on the large sectional, he picked up his Gibson acoustic, and messed around for a few minutes until his mind was clear of everything except what he was playing. It was something he’d been doing for a while now, simply allowing himself the time to goof around with musical nonsense before he got serious and tried to create. Every once in a while he’d play something by another artist. He was particularly fond of playing Elton John’s music or Ed Sheeran or Coldplay; it all depended on his mood. But right now, he found himself easing into his own rendition of Ed Sheeran’s “Galway Girl.”

His mood lightened as he sang, and suddenly he could clearly hear a melody that was new to him. Transitioning into it, he let his hands take the lead and play, but as the music became clearer, he knew he needed to be recording it.

With the guitar in his hand, he stood and walked across the room to the table he’d put the recorder down on last night. He hated to stop playing for even a minute, but it was necessary. And while he was up, he opened the doors to let the fresh air in. The one door was close to where the driveway wrapped around to the back of the house, and if nothing else, he knew he’d be able to hear when Juliette arrived.

For now, however, he was content to work on this new song. Sometimes the lyrics came first—others, the melody. Right now, it was the melody.

At some point, he went and grabbed himself a bottle of water. The lyrics weren’t being as cooperative as he’d hoped, but he tried not to let it get him down. He had notebooks full of lyrics, and if he wanted to, he could try to match this music up to some of them.

“But I’m not giving up yet,” he murmured as he got comfortable on the sofa and picked up the guitar.

No sooner had he hit record again than he heard a car door slam in the distance.

“Or maybe I can take a break and come back to it later.” Putting the guitar aside, he stood and stretched before walking to the back door, prepared to go out and greet Juliette and see if she needed help with her bags.

Stepping outside, he couldn’t see her car—or her—but he certainly heard her.

“Who does that?” she said with exasperation. “He’s a freaking millionaire! He couldn’t find somewhere a little more habitable?”

The huff of irritation was loud, and she may have growled.

“Who would choose to come up to the mountains on that death trap of a road? I could have died!” She slammed a door or possibly the trunk, he couldn’t be sure. “I should have just let Vanessa fire me. Hell, I should have insisted on it! Now I’m going to be stuck up here on this stupid mountain because I’m too terrified to drive back down! This is it. This is how my life is going to end. Stranded on a mountaintop with some overly perky musician.” She groaned. “Why couldn’t it be a heavy metal singer or something? At least my last days would have been interesting.”

Several things occurred to him at that point. First, she clearly wasn’t a fan of his. Second, this wasn’t her choice of assignments. And third, she was possibly the most negative and dramatic person he’d ever met.

Well…technically he hadn’t met her yet, but that was about to change.

Strolling around to the side of the house with a smile on his face, Simon waited until she noticed him.

“You must be Juliette,” he said cheerily.

She was wearing a large pair of sunglasses so he couldn’t see her eyes, but he had to imagine they’d gone wide at the sight of him.

“And while I will admit to being a fairly upbeat person—and I’ve heard that I’m far from boring—I’m not sure I’d be up to par with your heavy metal standards.”

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