Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 2(136)

Placing the bookmarks in a neat pile, I left them on top of the library table. Then I decided that wasn’t good enough, so I scurried upstairs and put them on the kitchenette table, then rushed back down. And, why was I leaving them in a neat pile? I went back upstairs, threw them on the table so they scattered around, disorganized, then I went back downstairs.

I pulled his blankets off his chair and couch and tossed them at the foot of the basement stairs, too. I briefly contemplated moving books around on their shelves and putting them out of order, but I didn’t want to go too far, so I stopped. And, as a final act of defiance, I went upstairs again, found the loaf of bread Jeremy had used to make toast in the morning, pulled off a corner, and dropped it onto one of the stairs as I went back into the basement.

There!

And I waited.

And worried.

For all I knew, this was a terrible idea. I don’t actually know why I did any of this. It seemed… wrong? Yes, well, definitely wrong, which was the point, except what was the point of my point? I couldn’t really figure that one out. I sat on the couch, contemplating this. When I’d decided that nothing I did made any sense and I should fix it and then leave, or wait and maybe write down some heartfelt apology to Asher, I…

Footsteps. Upstairs. I heard them, soft thuds on the ceiling as someone walked around on the first floor of Asher Landseer’s guest house. If it was Jeremy, I doubt he would have done that. He probably would have called out my name, maybe knocked on the door first? That’s what he’d done the other times he came. So, no, this was someone else.

They walked around upstairs, slowly, inspecting the place. My breath quickened, heart raced. I felt like I was in a horror movie. The villain, some insane man with claws in place of fingernails, would walk down the basement steps any moment and find me sitting on the couch, easy prey for the taking.

The person upstairs walked towards the staircase leading to the second floor. I heard brief sounds of their ascent, then nothing. I should leave, hurry away, run outside and beg Jeremy to take me home, but for some reason I couldn’t move. The footsteps thudded down the stairs again, across the living room floor towards the basement door, and then down those, too.

I stared, wide-eyed, at the foot of the stairs all the way across the library room from where I sat. I saw feet first, in polished leather shoes, then immaculate dress slacks, a smooth suit coat, and finally Asher’s somber, solemn face. He stared at me and I stared back at him. I tried to breathe, but the air felt too heavy to my lungs.

“Jessika,” Asher said. “What are you doing?”

I didn’t answer him; I couldn’t answer him.

He kicked the blankets away from the bottom of the stairs and stepped towards me. In his hand he held the four bookmarks. Hidden in my chemise blouse sleeve, I’d tucked the piece of paper with notes on which page he’d marked in which book, but he couldn’t have known that. Walking to the edge of his table, he checked each of the books.

“Too afraid of this one?” he said, lifting up the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “Probably a good idea. It’s worth a quarter of a million easily.”

I gulped. I wanted to cry all of a sudden, for no good reason. I’d done this on purpose, intended on doing this, but now I really didn’t know why.

Asher left the table and came towards me. He tossed the bookmarks in my lap and stared at me, hard. “Do you think this is a game?” he asked.

I somehow managed to shake my head, no.

“Why did you do this?”

I lifted my shoulders in the barest hint of a shrug.

“I wanted you to leave,” he said, talking to himself more than me. He began pacing in the library, fretting, rubbing at the sides of his eyes with his index finger and thumb. “I didn’t want this to happen. Do you know how difficult this is for me? Do you know what I have to do? I have to tell Beatrice about all of this, and then what? Besides that, I have to deal with you now, too. I don’t even know what you’re doing. Why did you throw a tissue in the trash in one of the bedrooms upstairs?”

“I don’t know,” I squeaked. My voice cracked as I tried to speak normally.

“I don’t know, either! I do know one thing, though.” His eyes glimmered and he stared at me with vicious passion. “You’re going to clean it all up. Now.”

I stood immediately, hurried to the stairs. My God, Asher was scary like this. Scary and… I thought back to my episode in the bathtub. Probably a bad thing to think about right now. I ran to move past him, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. He squeezed me hard around my waist, his fingers tickling and digging into my sides. I started to laugh, but then a prick of pain sunk in and I opened my mouth, gasping.