Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 2(135)
“And you’re the one who gets to be pregnant. Sounds great,” Jeremy said sarcastically. “Why go through all that hassle? Why don’t you both just have sex?” He chuckled.
“That’s what I said!” Quickly, I added, “I didn’t mean to say it, but it slipped out.”
“No way. You didn’t, did you? Maybe that’s why he’s so upset. I can understand, really.”
“No, I said that before he was upset.”
“What?”
I told Jeremy most everything. I left out our intimate encounter in Asher’s office, because I still didn’t know what to think of it. Punishment, Asher said, but I don’t know if he believed that or not. I did mention the book, though, how I destroyed his collector’s edition of Dante’s Inferno during my temporary job cleaning Asher’s office. How he took the phone call from the doctor while I was there, and then he broached the subject with me. His request, out of nowhere but like he talked about this with everyone every day, of surrogacy and egg donation and then our lunch and the subsequent photo session and…
“Woo boy. So did you have sex?” Jeremy asked at the end.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that,” I said.
He ignored me. “That’s so strange. I can’t say I’m surprised, though. Asher is… strange.”
“How is he strange?”
“I’m not going to tell you how he’s strange. You either figure it out on your own, or not at all.”
“I told you things!” I protested. “I don’t see why you won’t tell me anything.”
“I am going to tell you something,” he said. “I told you I’d show you the library, and that’s exactly what I plan to do.”
“I suppose,” I muttered.
“Anyways, before we go, I should ask this again. I was supposed to come here to bring you home. Are you coming?”
“Shut up,” I said. “No. I won’t. Where is the library?”
“You’re demanding,” he said, laughing. “You’re nothing like Beatrice.”
…
Asher frowned. He dutifully stayed for the entirety of his meeting, as necessary, but wondered the entire time. Distracted, annoyed, why wouldn’t she leave? What was he supposed to do if she remained at his house the entire day, and was there when he came home? Of course he could ignore her, but what kind of message did that send? She couldn’t just stay at his house, but he felt badly about forcefully removing her, too. Not that he had to do anything more than make a phone call or two, but he didn’t think Jessika deserved that.
Except, why not? He planned on never seeing her again, so what did it matter?
His annoyance only grew when he checked his text messages during a lull in the business meeting.
“She’s staying,” Jeremy wrote. “Sorry, boss. I tried.”
…
Jeremy had shown me where the library was. It looked like a closet from the outside, tucked under the staircase to the second floor, unimposing and ordinary. Instead, it was a door to the cellar, which wasn’t a cellar so much as a completely furnished basement transformed into a library. Jeremy opened the door, walked me downstairs, laughed as I gaped, then left.
It was so big! Wall to wall bookshelves filled with books, and a massive table in the middle covered with more books. The ones on the table weren’t in any particular order, and were just left laying around for whatever reason. In the far rear of the library, there was a massive, cushioned chair with an ottoman, and a couch next to it. Both had blankets heaped on top of them.#p#分页标题#e#
The lights in the ceiling were extravagant and reminded me of the lighting in old, classic architecture style libraries. I’d never been to one myself, but I’d seen pictures on the internet whenever I had a fit of wanderlust and wanted to sate it by doing an image search on Google. Not quite the same as going to these places, but I could imagine I’d gone. Sitting on my couch, turning off every light in my apartment except for the one lamp I moved to the top of my coffee table, I liked to curl up with a book and read and pretend I was at the Angelica Library in Rome. Or the Athenaeum in Boston… or the Cogrington Library in Oxford…
I stepped towards the table and looked at the books there. Five, total: a second edition copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the paperback version of A Storm of Swords, Pride and Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and The Time Traveler’s Wife. I stared at the zombie book, dumbfounded. Was that really a book?
Finding a piece of paper and a pen on the table, I went around to each of the books and opened them. Or I opened all of them except the Lewis Carroll book, because it scared me somewhat. Regardless of my plans, I really didn’t want to repeat what I’d done the other day with Asher’s copy of Dante’s Inferno. Each book had a bookmark inside. I opened the book, plucked the bookmark loose, then wrote the corresponding page number on the paper I’d found. One, two, three, four.