Oliver Queen had been back from the island for two years the first time he met Felicity Smoak. With both of his parents dead – his father from suicide to save Oliver and his mother from cancer – he finally took his "rightful place" as CEO of Queen Consolidated. To say he did it reluctantly would be putting it nicely. Walter, his father's ex-CFO and mother's widower, swore this was what his parents would have wanted but Oliver doubted that. They wanted their legacy to be a successful corporation and all Oliver would do was run it into the ground. As he had said many times since coming back from the island, he didn't get a business degree while he was away. Yet, here he was. Sitting in an office that felt an awful lot like trying to fill a shoe that would always feel too big.

Oliver had been going over stock numbers and business agreements for so long that eventually it all started jumbling together. He looked at his watch to find it was past seven and he hadn't had dinner yet. The moment the thought of a burger from Big Belly Burger entered his mind, his stomach growled. He threw his pen down in frustration and stood up, deciding this could all be finished tomorrow. He grabbed his suit jacket, not bothering to put it on, and headed for the elevator.

On the way down, the elevator stopped at the 23rd floor to let someone on. Oliver had been staring at his phone and when the doors closed, he was just going to keep seeing what the tabloids had said about him recently when the woman on the elevator with him gasped. He looked up and he felt like the breath had been knocked out of him.

In front of him stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. She had blonde hair that looked so soft he wanted to run his fingers through it. And that was with it tied into a ponytail. He decided right then he wanted to see what her hair looked like cascading around her shoulders. She had black rimmed glasses that somehow made her even more beautiful, even though they hid the gorgeous blue eyes that were currently taking him in as well. He smiled at the thought that they were checking each other out simultaneously. His eyes then moved to her lips, which were covered in bring pink lipstick that didn't make her look cheap or like she was trying too hard. He wondered if she just liked the brightness of it in this gloomy building.

"How'd you know?" He heard her say, and he saw her gawking at him.

"Sorry, what?" He replied after a few moments, trying to catch his bearings.

She laughed and said, "You said I wear my lipstick because the building is gloomy. I was wondering how you knew that."

Oliver sheepishly pulled his eyes from hers and stared at his shiny shoes, feeling a blush creep up his neck and make its way to his cheeks. He wasn't sure what to say so he just stayed silent, staring at his shoes for the rest of the ride down the elevator. He had never reacted to a woman like this before. He never had a problem with being charming with women to get them into bed, but this woman was affecting him and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. What was happening to him?

The elevator dinged to signify their arrival to the parking garage and they both went to move at the same time. They both said, "You go first, I insist" at the same time and Oliver couldn't help the grin that formed on his face. He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled a real, true smile and he had to admit to himself that it was nice.

Although, it was short lived.

"Sorry, Mr. Queen. I didn't mean to, uh, get in the way." The young woman said, looking like she was starting to shake. Oliver's smile vanished and he wondered why she was apologizing when it was his fault just as much as hers. And it happened in elevators all the time, so she had no reason to be sorry. He said as much.

"You have no reason to apologize. It was my fault." He told her sincerely. "Ladies first." He continued, making a sweeping gesture of his hand. She smiled shyly and stepped out of the elevator, heading in the same direction Oliver's car was parked. He followed, leaving a few feet between them so he could appreciate her body. She was short, probably 5'5", and her legs were to die for. The dress she was wearing was modest and went to right above her knees, but what he could see of her legs only made him want to see more.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts of taking her against the wall in the parking garage and continued walking. They walked in silence, only the sound of her high heels – was she trying to kill him? – echoing around them.

"Shit." Oliver heard her say, dragging his eyes from her legs to her face to notice that she was digging through her purse. She had stopped about four feet ahead of him to dig through her purse and Oliver found himself wanting to make sure she was okay.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked her as he reached her side, trying to get a sense of what was going on. She had things falling out of her purse onto the concrete ground and she seemed frantic. She basically had emptied her purse before she noticed he was there and jumped, startled.

"Sorry, did you say something?" She asked him, placing her hand over her racing heart.

Oliver bent over to pick up the things she had dropped (a red pen, her QC badge, and lens cleaners) and returned them to her. His fingers barely brushed hers and the heat he felt at the small contact knocked the wind out of him. She moved her hand back so fast that it made him think that maybe, just maybe, she had felt it too.

"I asked if you were okay." He told her after his heart returned to its somewhat normal speed. It was still racing but that had been the normal for the last, oh, five minutes so he just went with it.

She stuffed her items back into her purse and said, "Yeah, fine. I just left my keys in my office." She then turned around and headed back towards the elevator.

Oliver spent two seconds debating on what to do before he followed her and made it into the elevator just as the doors were closing. She raised her eyebrow in a question that silently asked him what the hell he was doing and he said "What? I can't let you go up there alone at night. I'll go with you. It's not a big deal, Mrs…?"

He watched as she internally battled herself before pushing the button for the 23rd floor and said, "It's Miss, actually. But you can call me Felicity. Felicity Smoak."

Oliver smiled to himself, thinking of all the different ways he could say it.