Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 2(139)

He stared at me, silent, and then he burst into laughter. “How distracted?”

“Asher, I’m really distracted right now,” I said, teasing.

“Go,” he said. “Put on your clothes. Get dressed. I’m going to yell at Jeremy, but then I’ll come back. We can talk about things.”

I nodded.

“Talk,” he repeated, his tone solid and firm. “Talk and nothing more. What kind of pizza do you like?”

“What?” The question was so out of the blue that I didn’t know what to make of it.

“I’ll order pizza. We can eat and talk and get to know each other. We can watch a movie?” he offered.

“Asher…” I paused, stared, grabbed my skirt from the floor and squeezed it between my hands. “Yes, I’d like that. I like mushrooms. And ham. I usually ask if they can go light on the cheese. Anything else is fine, too. I’m not picky.”

“Not picky?” He asked, sounding unconvinced. Grinning, he stood up. “Alright. I’ll be right back.”

He left me in his library basement, disheveled and half-clothed. I relished the idea of sitting with him, eating pizza like a couple and watching a movie. Talking. Leaning my head against his shoulder while he put his arm around me.

I needed to refrain from that, though. I needed to pull back and stop this right now. Asher accepted me, gave me a second chance, and though he’d acted in a fit of passion again, I didn’t think we could do this anymore. Especially with his wife returning.

Some fluke, he might say. I’d apologize profusely to her, beg her to accept, and somehow Asher had decided he would weave in a request for me acting as her surrogate. Egg donation, pregnancy, their child in my womb. Except it would be partly my child, too, wouldn’t it? Not exactly, but somewhat. My egg and his seed, but it was for her, his wife. Beatrice.

Could I handle that, though? Could I do any of this? I’d agreed so quickly, and I didn’t have any real reasons for it.

That was in the long term, though. Thinking shorter, could I even manage to survive dinner with them tomorrow? Asher, yes, perhaps, but I pictured Beatrice, some cool, calm woman screaming at me and demanding I leave, threatening Asher with divorce, or more. I had no right to ask if he had a prenuptial agreement with her, but if he didn’t I could very well be his downfall.

And then what would Asher think of me?

There was no reason to worry about it right now, I told myself. Tomorrow, dinner, I had plenty of time until then to think of what I was going to do and say.#p#分页标题#e#





His Absolute Desires

*

I sat on the couch waiting for Asher to return, feeling calmer than I had in months. Years, maybe? I didn’t know for sure and couldn’t have said why—since I felt like I should be anxious—but I felt wonderful. Asher, the man I’d met only a couple days ago, the CEO of Landseer Enterprises, was off ordering us pizza.

And a movie! I wondered what movies he might have. Did he watch classics, like Casablanca, or did he prefer newer movies? Comedies? Action films? Or, dare I think it, romance? The latter was, perhaps, awkward wishful thinking. I didn’t actually care what kinds of movies he liked, or what in particular we watched, but I enjoyed the idea of sitting in his guest home and watching a movie with him. By ourselves, alone, with pizza, like some kind of casual date.

Of course it wasn’t a date, but some small part of me had classified it as that. He had a wife, told me multiple times he needed to be faithful to her, but why? I didn’t want to ruin his marriage, not by a long shot, but I wanted him to be happy. She left for weeks at a time from what he mentioned, and when she was here she rarely spent time with him from what I knew, so it wasn’t a very expressive marriage. Convenience and association, and since they both came from well-to-do families it made sense, but that didn’t mean marriage needed to be that way.

There was love and passion. Fervid desire and anticipation. There was emotion, like butterflies caressing your skin and sinking into your stomach, making you feel weak in the knees and oh so wonderful. I knew Asher was fully capable of these feelings and of making someone else feel them, too. He’d shown me passion aplenty in his office when I first met him. Just last night he’d shown me even more, too. He had love and desires and excitement bottled up inside of him, begging to get out, but he had no way to release them.

I wanted all of him. He was rich, yes, but that wasn’t what was important to me. I wanted his affection and his love, his release and his happiness. Maybe that was why I accepted his request to act as an egg donor and surrogate mother for his infertile wife. It was an awful, horrible, horrendous idea, and I knew in the end I would come to regret it if—or more like, when—the entire ordeal was over and Asher and I parted ways, but I felt like I needed to do it anyways. For him, for his happiness, and for a brief glimpse of happiness for myself, too.