I pay the cabbie and get out of the car. I see the familiar figure of a man, huddled in the doorway, and I worry about poor Mattie, who must be freezing in the early December chill. It isn’t as cold as some of my Ohio nights, but it’s not the kind you want to be locked out of your apartment on.
But when he raises his head, I see it is not who I thought it was.
Asher stands up, brushing the gravel off his pant legs. He is still wearing his tuxedo. His bow tie is undone and hanging around his neck. Other than that, he still looks as perfect as he did when I last saw him a few hours ago.
I stop in my place by the curb and approach him tentatively. “What are you doing here?”
Asher’s eyes are sullen and leaden with emotion. He takes a deep breath and when he lets it out I start to hold my own. “My name is Alexander Gutierrez. My mother was Juliette Asher and my father was John Gutierrez—”
“You don’t have to—”
“No, Emma, I do. You asked for something real.” He holds out his hands to the side, open as in offering. “This is me. This is real.”
“Okay.” I pull my coat in, protecting myself from the evening chill. “Go on.”
Asher takes a beat to start, as if the weight of his words are hard to lift off his tongue. His red-rimmed eyes look deep into mine, and I know what he is about to say is going to be potent with meaning.
“When I was ten years old, my parents took me to a hockey game. The roads were a mess. We had no business being out that night, but they wanted to take me for my birthday. It was the first game I’d ever been to. It was also my last. Our car rolled off an embankment. My parents, they were both crushed in the impact. We were in the middle of nowhere, and we didn’t have cell phones. There was no one to call for help.
My hand rises to my mouth as I let out a gasp. I don’t say a word, though. I let him speak.
“I watched my parents die in that car. My father died first. My mother tried to fight, but she eventually lost. I sat in the back seat for five hours, staring at them, hoping they’d wake up, but they never did.”
Asher takes a step toward me, his eyes wide and red, the beautiful gold gone. In its place is sheer sorrow. “My grandfather hated my father. When I came to live with him, he told me I was no longer my father’s son. I was an Asher now. He didn’t even call me by my first name because it was my father’s name as well. Instead, he called me Sunny. Said it was my hair.”
I can imagine Asher as a towheaded little boy. Although the images on my head are one of a carefree child, not someone who lost the love of his parents and was shipped off to live with his tyrant of a grandfather he’d never met.
“Edward Asher was a good man. He didn’t know love, but he knew how to teach. He trained me to lead. And I have. I am the CEO of Asher Industries, a business he built from the ground up. A legacy he left me when he died last year. I spent the better part of this year traveling around Europe trying to find a place to bury him. When I did, I came home and took over the life I was groomed to live.
“I play the cello and the piano. My mother taught lessons out of our home. She was classically trained before she gave it all up to live with the man she loved. A poor man, but a good man. The reason music is so important to me, the reason the school is the only thing in this world I am proud of is because it is my one connection to them.
“I’ve broken two bones in my life, I hate pickles, and I think soup is completely overrated. I prefer movies to television, Thai is my favorite kind of takeout, I’d rather go to a museum than a ball game, and I only read autobiographies. I don’t know how to do laundry, but I can make a great spaghetti Bolognese.”
Asher takes another step closer to me, his breath smokes out in the cold. I look up at him and take in the honesty of his words and actions.
“I have been in love twice in my life. Once to a girl who loved me for all the wrong reasons. Another to someone I loved for all the wrong reasons.”
My eyes well up with tears and I swallow them back, taking deep breaths to keep my emotions at bay. He takes one final step closer to me, his body pressed up against mine. His arms lay outside my arms, holding me gently yet with purpose.
“Right now I am falling for a woman who seized my soul with the play of a piano and arrested my heart with a walk until dawn. And she made me fall for her with the words of lyrics we may not have written, but they’re still ours.” His voice is low and breathy. “Do you remember what you said right before I kissed you the first time?”
I think back to the day, but I can’t recall. I look up at him for the answer.
“You said no one knew what it was like to lose everything, to have it all ripped out from beneath you.” Asher’s body comes dangerously close to mine, too close because I can feel the pain of his words radiating off his body. “Iknow, Emma. I know what that’s like. That is why I had to kiss you, and I have wanted to kiss you every day since. Hell, my lips haven’t touched another since because I can only think of you.”
“I find that hard to believe—”
“Believe it.”
Asher rests his palms on my head as his ice-cold fingers lace through my hair. My cheeks burn at his touch and my heart sears with his words.
“The me you saw in Capri, that was the real me. You’re the first person in twenty years to call me by my name, my real name. I gave myself up to you a long time ago.
“I want to be with you for all the right reasons, Emma. And despite all the wrong reasons there are for you to be with me, I’m asking you to. This is me. This is real.”
Tears pool down my cheeks and I smile at the words he is saying. There are more reasons why I should stay away from him than there are reasons I should be with him. He is broken and scared, but he is real and absolutely perfect.
With reckless abandon, I lean into his touch and kiss him with every ounce of love and passion I have in my body. His cold lips give way to his warm mouth, and I sink into his heat. My hands wrap around his body and pull him in tight as his tongue skims mine and his lips grab hold of my own, desperate with need.
