“I have been pestering my son to meet you, and he hasn’t come through, so I thought I would take matters into my own hands. Would you like to come to dinner with Asher tonight at my home?”
My eyes nearly bulge from their sockets. I was enamored by Asher and his fame when I first met him, but the thought of meeting his mother has me starstruck in a whole new way.
“I . . . I would be honored.”
“Lovely. Harrington and I are very much looking forward to it. Oh, and Declan will be there as well, I hope that’s not a problem.”
“Of course not, I love when Declan is around.”
“Yes. He is a delightful boy.”
I wouldn’t describe him as a boy seeing as he’s like six-foot-five and built like brick, but then he is her son, so I guess he’ll always be a boy to her.
“Thank you for the invitation, I’m very much looking forward to meeting you.”
“As am I. It will be delightful to have another woman at the table. I’m always surrounded by my sweet but overwhelming boys.”
I chuckle. “I can imagine.”
“Dinner is at seven o’clock.”
“Thank you. I’ll see you then.”
After I end the call, I cover my mouth and let out a muffled squeal of delight.Oh my god, did that just happen?Did Catherine Rothschild Langford just invite me to dinner? I don’t know why it’s such a surprise, I’ve met the rest of Asher’s family, but there’s something about the grandness surrounding Catherine that has me equal parts excited and nervous.
When I’ve come back down to earth, I enter the conference room and immediately freeze as I notice the reaction of my coworkers. The call with Catherine distracted me enough that I wasn’t thinking about what Asher and I just did in his office. The thought of it comes slamming back into me, full force, as it’s clear by the looks on my coworker’s faces that Asher and I spending time alone in his office with the windows blacked out was not missed. If they didn’t know Asher and I were fucking before, they do now. Or at least they heavily suspect it.
I try my best to ignore their curious looks and make my way to my desk, but as soon as I sit, I want to melt into it. EvenEmily seems to be a bit surprised, and she knows more than most that Asher and I have become . . . close. At first it was out of necessity to pull off this charade, but that necessity turned into a lot more very quickly, and with it all being such a delicate situation, I haven’t exactly been up front with everyone about what Asher and I do behind closed doors. It’s none of their business, but now it’s clear the office gossip has already made the rounds and I’m at the center of it.
With horror, I realize I’m going to be eating dinner at Asher’s parents’ house, and no doubt Harrington and Declan will have heard what happened in Asher’s office, and I’ll have to face them at a family dinner. I almost bang my head against my desk. What was I thinking?
I wasn’t, that’s the thing. Whenever Asher is near, my ability to reason flies out the window. But if there’s any consolation I can offer myself, it’s that Asher seems to be just as affected by me as I am by him. He still has a ways to go at learning how to be in a relationship, and learning to give and take, but I can’t deny how devoted he is when he doesn’t feel backed into a corner. When I look back at most of our arguments, or most of the times he’s been a dick, it’s stemmed from one fear or another. Fear from the board’s threats, fear from media attention, and fear from whatever this outside threat is. Take those away, and Asher is practically perfect. So maybe it’s not too crazy for me to acquiesce to his little truth or dare extra credit demand. Maybe if I can just hold on while he sorts through this shit, maybe we really will come out on the other side with everything we both want.
The thought gives me some sense of relief, and I push the embarrassment aside. If Asher and I do have a future, my coworkers will have to come to terms with it at some point. And in the meantime, it’s none of their business.
I remind myself of why I’m here today and what should be occupying my focus, and I bury myself in work.
Over the next half hour, I tweak the domestic violence statement and finally send it off to Emily. My gut ties itself in knots as everyone else finishes their parts of the story and send them Emily as well. My knee bounces and I drum my nails on my desk, my nerves hitting a crescendo, as I wait for her to put it all together.
“Okay, we’re live,” she says another twenty minutes later.
As a team, we collectively hold our breath. It will take some time for the story to circulate, but the moment still feels like the first drop on a rollercoaster, where suddenly everything is happening and there’s no going back.
For the next little bit, everything will be out of my control. It’s a feeling I’m trying to get used to, but it’s not easy. I’ve always been someone who plans, who works hard to make my life what I want it to be. Now my life is like a ship at sea, one day it’s calm and perfect, and the next it’s a raging storm. It’s not something that feels comfortable or natural.
My mother’s words from a few weeks ago nag at me.“Is he worth it?”
She was asking me if Asher is worth all the trouble with the media. I had said yes when she’d asked, and I still feel that way, but fuck if the media side of this relationship isn’t difficult. Hopefully with time I’ll grow more used to it. In the meantime, all I can do is keep my chin high and move forward.
Daphne walks past my desk but stops and bends down toward me. She sniffs in my direction. “New cologne?” she sneers. “I mean,perfume. Women don’t wear cologne. Although, you smell an awful lot like Mr. Langford right now.”
I flinch away from her. “First of all, don’t sniff me. That’s creepy as hell. Second, how would you know what Mr. Langford smells like? Do you go around sniffing him, too?”
Daphne bristles. “Of course not! He wears expensive cologne, the good kind, so you can smell it even when you’re near him.”
I let out a long breath. “What’s the point of this conversation? What is it that you need?”
She narrows her eyes. “I’m just making an observation that the two of you disappeared into his office, he blacked out the windows, and then sometime later the two of you left his office looking a bit disheveled. And now you smell like him.”
