Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 2(153)

He kissed her on the cheek and she pulled him in closer. Their lips touched and I watched it. Nothing more, no passion, but lingering, still kissing, right in front of me. I realized I was grinding my teeth and furrowing my brow. Before they stopped, before they could see me, I forced myself to loosen my jaw and relax my eyebrows.

“I’m glad you could come, Jessika,” Asher said after he stepped away from Beatrice. He sat at the head of the table, between me and her and to my right. “I’m sure Beatrice and I both have a lot of questions for you, but let’s enjoy ourselves first. I think that’s best.” To Beatrice, he added, “I’ve been getting to know Jessika over the past few days, and I really think you’ll like her.”

“Is she another of your pet projects?” Beatrice asked, acting like I wasn’t even in the room. “I understand you want to help people, Asher. I really do. But you aren’t actually helping them. By doing this and giving them things, you’re making them reliant on you. If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, and if you…”

He interrupted her rather firmly. “Thankfully we’re not having fish for dinner.”

“Asher,” Beatrice said, frowning at him.

“We can talk about this later,” he said.

I sat there, feeling more awkward and uncomfortable than I could remember ever feeling while waiting for dinner to be served. I’d accompanied a friend to her weird uncle’s birthday party once and sat at the table while listening to a horrible retelling of the time he’d taken Viagra and hadn’t been able to orgasm. Even with porn and baby oil, he’d said, and lots of masturbation after a couple hours of having sex with my friend’s aunt. And then, subsequently, he needed to go to the hospital, where he’d embarrassed multiple nurses and baffled the doctors. He sounded so proud of this story, but for me it was one of the most awkward moments of my life.

Or it was, until now, with Asher’s wife in their home. Not the same kind of awkwardness, but I really didn’t enjoy her formal, cold, and callous way of treating me like a peasant.

“So,” Asher said. “How was everyone’s day?”

“Exhausting,” Beatrice said immediately. “The flight was horrendous. They ran out of hot towels in first class and I had a headache the entire way.”

“Mine was alright,” I added quietly.

This wasn’t going well. Why was I here? I should leave, I thought. What could anyone do if I did? Yes, I would say, I need to go. I apologize, but I don’t think I can do this. I would say that, stand up, excuse myself, and then leave.

Except, just as soon as I’d almost convinced myself of actually doing it, Asher looked at me. He smiled, genuine. No unhappiness, no distraction. Not confused in the least. He looked at me while Beatrice talked about her trip and the sights she’d seen and what her friends thought of this and that. He smiled at me with what seemed like unadulterated interest and excitement. With his eyes twinkling at me, I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

From beneath the table, his foot tapped at mine. I tapped him back, grinning, and then I lifted my heels off the ground and touched the toe of my shoes against his pants. I lifted, slightly, just a playful nudge. The front of my heels pressed against his sock, then his bare skin, up along his shin.

He grinned at me and shook his head slightly, almost imperceptibly. I grinned back. Beatrice continued talking.

I had wanted to leave, but now I didn’t. I would stay and listen and do this. I would answer Beatrice’s prying questions and try my best to make her happy. Not because I liked her, because I was fairly sure I didn’t, but because it was what I felt like I should do.

I wanted so desperately to make Asher happy and to see him smile.





His Absolute Indulgence

*

Once dinner ended, the torture began.

Dinner was delicious, I reminded myself. I tried to think of the chicken cordon bleu, with butter braised asparagus and fresh made biscuits. Dessert consisted of homemade vanilla bean ice cream topped with cherries jubilee, which was also wonderful. Asher, his wife, and I drank water and a wildberry melomel. I’d never tried melomel before, but I absolutely adored it. Overall, dinner was exceptional.

After dinner, though, Asher’s wife, Beatrice, suggested we retire to the smoking room.

“We don’t smoke there, though,” she said, as if I’d already lit up a cigarette. “The smell of smoke in a house is nauseating. You’ll have to quit if we accept you for this position.”

The position, she said, as if they were interviewing me for a job as a maid or a chef or some other servant. She seemed to like to completely disregard the fact that Asher had asked me to become an egg donor and act as her surrogate. This, apparently, had nothing to do with her, but was more par for the course as a person of importance. Hire cleanstaff, find a cook, and then put an ad in the paper for a woman willing to bare your children; this was how Beatrice acted.