Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 2(149)

Actually, none of it was understandable. No matter what, Solomon Royce shouldn’t have done what he did. It wasn’t excusable and I hated myself a little bit for trying to rationalize his behavior. The point stood, though, that if I told Asher he would probably do something about it. What that was, I had no idea. The obvious solution would be to remove me from the equation, since I was likely of little business use to someone like Asher Landseer.

I didn’t like that idea. I wanted to be important, something more, but at the moment I couldn’t. And yet, why would I want that? For who, too? It wasn’t that I wanted it, per se, but more that I didn’t want Asher to have a good reason to not want me around. I had very scant few reasons for him to take notice of me as it was, so giving him even less would ruin that.

Except, was that the kind of person Asher was? No, not really. Asher was a businessman, a billionaire, and the CEO of a company. He was a husband, and a reader, and a lover of silly old movies like The Goonies. He liked Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Dante’s Inferno and The Time Traveler’s Wife. He liked pizza with chicken and feta cheese and tomatoes and onions, and he was controlling sometimes, a bit demanding, but not without reason. Unknown reasons, hidden somewhere in the depths of his mind, but I never doubted that he had very specific and important reasons for every single thing he said or did.

Or, maybe not everything, but most things. Sometimes he talked regularly, as if he were an average person. Casual conversation. We’d stayed up late last night talking about nothing important, but it was fun and amazing. I knew his favorite color(blue) and that he didn’t like raisins, especially in cookies. He knew that I liked to read and wanted to review books as a job, and that I realized I probably couldn’t make a living off that but that I loved it anyways. I’d even shown him my small website with some of my book reviews, too. On his smart phone, he browsed through it, humming and hawing as he looked at what I’d done.

He never made fun of me for any of it, either. He didn’t say it was dumb or useless and he seemed genuinely interested in what I did. Maybe it was dumb and useless(in fact, I was fairly certain of it), but it was my passion and so he accepted it. He accepted me in some ways that I’d never really felt accepted before. I felt like I could tell Asher stupid things that were important to me, and probably no one else. Things that sounded silly and trivial, except he wouldn’t laugh or mock me. He would listen and nod and understand.

I stared out the window at the skyline, thinking these things. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a bottle of perfume sitting on Solomon’s desk. Tucked away in a corner, behind a short stack of books, looking quite out of place. I reached for it and picked it up and looked at the front.

Ambre et Vanille parfum, it read. Emblazoned on the front was a French woman’s name, somewhat like my own but probably entirely different. I didn’t know a lot of French and the flowery, calligraphic writing made it hard to read. Unstoppering the bottle, I sniffed at the perfume.

Interesting, I thought. Very feminine. Did Solomon have a lady friend he intended on giving it to? Or—and this was odd of me to think—had he intended on giving it to me? A way of apology? For some reason I couldn’t even begin to imagine that; it didn’t seem in his character, what little I knew of him. I stoppered the bottle and put it back where I’d found it.

The window, staring, thinking, and…

“Jessika?” Asher poked his head into Solomon’s office, knocking lightly on the door as he did. “Are you finished?”

I stood up and faced him, smiling. “Yes, I’m all done. I was waiting for you.”

Asher grinned and beckoned for me to come. I walked across Solomon’s office and joined him in the doorway. He took my arm in his, very gentlemanly, and escorted me down the hallway and to the elevator.

“Was everything alright?” he asked. There were other people in the building still, but none leaving right now. When the elevator dinged, the doors opening, we had the entire six-by-five foot compartment to ourselves. “Solomon can be confusing at times,” he added. “I hope he wasn’t too difficult.”

I gulped, briefly reconsidering what I’d decided. I should tell him; I wanted to tell him. And yet when it came to it, I said, “He was fine. I managed to do everything he asked.”

Everything, I thought, except for the first thing. And I was very, very glad of that.



…



Jeremy drove us home and Asher brought me back to his guest home. Once inside, he said, “So, if Beatrice agrees, then I think it would be best if you stayed here during… everything. Would that be alright with you?”