Free Kiss Is a Four-Letter Word by Erin M. Leaf

stalked off with her friend, lights sparkling on the jewelry at their wrists and fingers. She was sleek, beautiful, and confident. What the hell were Simon and Eli doing asking me to this thing? I'm the opposite of elegant. Sherry took another sip of her drink, wondering if she should even bother trying to shove through the crowd. Maybe she should just leave now.
    As she stood there, debating the merits of escape, someone knocked into her and she spilled her champagne. Damn. Could this evening get any worse? Some of the liquid hit her bare toes. She hoped none of it got on the beautiful dress Carrie made for her and looked down, trying to see if it had stained the fabric. Nope, nothing. Sherry heaved a sigh of relief and straightened back up, glancing at the stairs. Eli was looking right at her.
    She looked back, unable to stop herself. He was gorgeous. He nudged Simon and whispered something to him. Simon's head swung around too. Sherry flushed. Her heart banged against her ribs so hard she wondered if the people around her could hear it. Was this what Cinderella felt like when she set eyes on Prince Charming? How in the hell would she make it until midnight without making a fool of herself?
     
     

 
    Chapter Five
     
    "There she is," Eli said to Simon, nudging him with his arm. Simon looked down into the crowd. Eli knew the moment he saw her by the way his friend's breath caught.
    "Damn. She's beautiful." Simon fingered his cufflinks again and Eli smiled at the nervous gesture.
    "We should go down and show her our table. She probably has no idea where she's sitting."
    Simon glanced at Eli. "She probably doesn't know a single person here. It took a lot of guts for her to come." His voice was admiring.
    Eli nodded. Simon was right. "You don't need to convince me that Sherry's amazing. I already knew that." He started down the steps, nodding at the guests they'd invited. The company had been hosting this charity for the New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital for years, long before his father died and left him the reigns. That meant a lot of the people here wanted to talk to him. And Simon. Eli didn't know how he would've done it all without Simon.
    He glanced at his friend then reluctantly stopped to chat with the mayor. Even as he nodded and made small talk, Eli was thinking about how he'd never known his father. How he and his mom had been happy with just each other. Simon lived next door to them for most of Eli's childhood and they'd been best friends forever. He remembered the day the lawyers came to the apartment he and Simon shared in the Bronx while they were studying at Columbia. It was pizza night. He and Simon had just cracked open the box when the lawyers told him that his father was John Ellis Blackwood III. When they told him that the man Eli had never known had died and left him everything, one year before Eli graduated with his MBA, his first reaction was panic. The everything in his father’s will included billions of dollars and the Blackwood investment company.
    Damn, life had been weird back then. It'd been eight years since he and Simon had taken over the dog and pony show. After the first turbulent years they'd settled in, but lately Eli found the challenge merely exhausting rather than invigorating. He felt old, at age thirty, until he met Sherry.
    "Eli, come on. I lost sight of her," Simon said when Mayor Johnson finally edged away.
    Eli shot Simon a frustrated look. "It's not like I wanted to stand there yakking about Mitch's precious dogs, Simon. Give me a break."
    "Stop talking and follow me." Simon pinched a sliver of Eli's sleeve between his fingers and unobtrusively towed him down the rest of the stairs and into the crowd. "Jesus. This thing gets worse every year. I thought we were limiting the guests this time?"
    "Someone always sneaks in, you know that," Eli murmured in between nods and smiles of greeting. He grabbed a glass of champagne from a tray and gulped it down. "Is it