by Ali Parker
Asher
Casanova Club #10
Ali Parker
BrixBaxter Publishing
Contents
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Description
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
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Description
Asher Sutton.
He’s dashingly handsome and more charming than any man has a right to be.
The catch?
He’s a royal.
Yes. You heard me. Royal.
Now I know he’s not Queen of England level royal, but his family seems to think he is, and from where I’m standing he might as well be. He has plans to take me to a masquerade ball this month.
I can hardly wrap my head around the idea of spending another month with a man who isn’t the rock star who literally rocked my world in August. Now I have to step into a life of duty and sophistication unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
I expected the glamorous parties and lavish gowns. I even expected the sophisticated class of London herself.
However, I did not expect to have feelings for yet another man.
But here I am, halfway across the world.
Falling.
Introduction
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Chapter 1
Asher
“You’re late,” Antoni, my go-to man when it came to all things business and family, muttered as I brushed past him through the front door of the estate. He had a black suit jacket and tie draped over his right forearm, and he fell into step behind me, his shiny oxfords clipping the stone floors of the grand foyer. Every third step was almost a shimmy to keep up with my long strides, but he never opened his mouth to complain. “Your mother has already made two laps of the estate looking for you.”
“And where did you tell her I was?” I asked.
“I played dumb, of course.”
“Excellent.”
Antoni had been in my mother’s employ for at least a decade, and we’d known each other significantly longer. His younger sister had dated one of my cousins and so on and so forth, earning him and his family a seat at our dining table when they were quite young. Mother didn’t like it, of course. Neither Antoni nor any of his relatives had a drop of royal blood in their veins, and after she’d had one glass of wine too many, she got pretty flippant with her comments.
When the relationship between Antoni’s sister and my cousin went to hell, he and I were already good friends. His financial situation was more than rocky, and I pulled strings to hire him here and house him in the staff quarters across the courtyard of the estate.
He always said he was eternally grateful and that he’d never be able to make it up to me.
I always said he’d already made it up to me by being a human shield between my mother and me whenever I seemed to need him.
“Is she in a mood?” I asked as I took a right turn off the foyer down a wide corridor that led to the meeting chamber of the estate. Unscented candles burned in alcoves in the wall while a pale glowing oil diffuser sent plumes of steam up into the air at the far end of the hall. It was an odd contrast between modern and historic. The spicy, earthy scent of cloves reached my nose when I approached the chamber door.
Antoni stopped behind me and adjusted his pale gray suit jacket. “She’s bothered that you’ve made them wait.”
“They could have started without me.”
“Do you really think that’s likely?”
I grumbled under my breath. “I had better things to do this morning than sit around a table with a bunch of old farts talking about money.”
“Keep that sweet little sentiment to yourself when you get in there, okay? The smoother the discussion, the faster you get out of there.”
I sighed and raked my fingers through my hair, smoothing out some of the untamed curls that formed only on the top of my head and not the side. Then I turned to Antoni as I rolled down the sleeves of my white button-up to button them closed at the wrist. “Am I presentable?”
Antoni winced.
“That bad?” I groaned.
He shook his head. “No, but I can smell soup and poor on you.”
“Fuck, Antoni,” I growled. “Talk about keeping sentiments to yourself.”
“Hey, I’m just being honest. Sit downwind of your mother in there and she won’t catch on.”
I sighed as he handed me the jacket on his arm. Once I’d shrugged into it, he draped the tie around my neck and tied it under the collar. He smoothed the shoulders of my jacket and nodded decisively. “You’re good to go, mate. Remember. Downwind. These damn essential oils of your mother’s won’t be enough to chase away that smell. What is it, anyway?”
“Pea soup,” I said, keeping the other potential guilty parties like body odor, liquor, and other common scents one might inherit while working a shift in a soup kitchen to myself. Some things were better left unknown.
“I love pea soup,” Antoni said.
For the first time since walking into the house, I smiled. “You should come with me next time.”
“So long as your mother doesn’t have me running around like a chicken with my head cut off, count me in. Now please, by all that is good, get in that goddamn room so your mother doesn’t implode and come looking for me.”
I closed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you. I’d be—”
“Lost without me.” Antoni grinned. Then he shrugged out from under my hand and retreated a few steps away, pointing his chin at the door. “Go.”
Antoni’s footsteps faded out of earshot down the corridor, and I braced myself against the storm that might be raging on the other side of the wood-paneled door. Squaring my shoulders, I twisted the handle and stepped in.
As expected, I found my mother and father sitting in their high-backed chairs at the head of a long black table covered in an assortment of serving trays with a variety of foods, mostly cheeses, meats, fruit, and spreads like pâté. The windows were cranked open, letting in a soft September breeze that smelled like crisp leaves and freshly cut grass from the grounds. The chandelier above the table cast fragments of light onto the stone floors, the food, and the people sitting in the other chairs.
There was Brynwold, our finance man.
Keaton, our public affairs and communications advisor.
And John Lite, a family friend, mediator, and confidante. He knew more about this family than I did, and there was no meeting he wasn’t present for. He had to be closing in on eighty now after serving for generations in this stone-walled mansion. He had his own quarters in the actual mansion, and he was the only employee with security clearance to enter any room he desired.
My parents, the Lord and Lady of
the house, sat shoulder to shoulder at the far end of the table. My father was chewing on a cracker and cheese, his mouth nearly invisible behind his thick gray beard and mustache, while my mother sat straight-backed and rigid, staring right at me.
She clicked her tongue. “Ash, where have you been? This meeting was scheduled to start at nine o’clock sharp. You’re over forty-five minutes late. This is completely—”
“Unacceptable,” I said. “I know. I apologize for the delay. I had personal matters to attend to this morning that ran far later than I expected. I had no intention of making you all wait for me. Please, for future reference, start without me if this happens again.”
My mother shot a look at my father, who was still too preoccupied with his food to offer her any sort of support. Unlike my mother, he had thrown in the towel on the whole “parenting gig” when I turned twenty-one. That was a decade ago now, and my mother still hadn’t come to terms with the fact that I was a grown-ass man who made his own decisions.
“What sort of personal matters?” my mother asked.
I pulled out the chair at the opposite end of the table from them and lowered myself into it. I nodded at the three other men in the room and offered friendly greetings. They smiled in return as I leaned back in my chair and crossed one ankle over my knee. “Private personal matters.”
My mother’s gray-blue eyes, the same shade as mine, flicked over the room, and part of me realized she was considering asking the others to leave to ask me where I’d been. Thankfully, she let the matter lie. “Very well. We can discuss your tardiness later. For now, let’s focus on the matters at hand. Brynwold, you have the quarter’s finances prepared for review?”
Brynwold nodded his stiff neck, cleared his throat, and pulled a folder from the briefcase leaning against the side of his chair. He proceeded to present charts and graphs and collected information about my family and their spending habits. He went into detail about the rest of the year and what we could expect to earn and spend.
I zoned out.
These kinds of things turned into white noise in my ears in a matter of minutes. I didn’t care much for the rigid lifestyle that came along with my bloodline. I preferred the freedom of a normal life. Antoni had once called me Princess Jasmine, a reference I didn’t understand until a pretty girl at a bar explained the reference to me while giggling through the whole thing.
At first, I’d been annoyed that he’d compared me to a sixteen-year-old princess who dreamed of leaving a castle, only to fall in love with a street rat.
Then I realized he’d been spot on.
I craved the carefree lifestyle that lay beyond the confines of this estate. I ached for more than meetings and old money and crisp suits. I wanted to make a difference, and having our money and influence meant I had the power to do so.
The only catch was that I had to do it away from my mother’s prying eyes.
“We should move on to discuss social events on the calendar for this month,” Keaton said. His deep voice pulled me out of my reverie, and I nodded, shifting in my seat as he looked around the room at all present members. “At the end of the month, you have the highly anticipated Autumn Masquerade. As of now, there are three hundred and four confirmed attendees. And let’s not forget about the upcoming dinner this Monday. There will be some important folks there so please, arrive on time and in your best dress. We can expect some sort of social media exposure from an evening like this.”
“Do you hear that, Ash?” my mother asked, cocking her head to the side. “Media. Dress properly. And arrive on time, please.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
Somehow, she managed to sit up even straighter as she looked coolly at me from across the table. “I’ve invited some women on Monday I’d like to introduce you to.”
Here we go.
“They come from suitable bloodlines. They’re all highly educated, attractive, responsible young women. It’s time you stop rubbing elbows with commoners, Ash. I don’t need to be picking up magazines with pictures of you being referred to as the ‘Never Ending Bachelor of London’. It isn’t a good look.”
I itched to rub my temples, to scratch my jaw—to give in to frustrated behavior. But I remained still and kept my gaze steady. “I can’t control what the magazines want to say, Mother. Besides. They’re all trash, anyway. You know that.”
You know that better than anyone.
“It’s time for you to look to your future, Ash,” my mother said. Then she looked imploringly at John. “Some support, John?”
The old man turned his weary brown stare to me. When he spoke, his voice shook. “Your mother raises some good points, Asher. You have responsibilities to this family and this house. There is a time and place for your recklessness, and unfortunately, that time has passed. You are in a new chapter of your life that demands some accountability. And maturity. You need a woman.”
“A wife,” my mother clarified.
“Well,” I said, getting to my feet and straightening out my jacket. “I guess it’s a good thing there will be eligible candidates for my courting at dinner on Monday. Are we done here?”
The room turned to my mother.
She swallowed but nodded. “Yes. You’re free to go.”
Free my ass.
Chapter 2
Piper
The end of my French fry was heavy with ketchup. I’d been using it to push the red
condiment all around on my plate, and it was probably so saturated that it was soggy now.
Janie kicked my shin under the table. “Will you quit that?”
I looked up at her and dropped the fry amongst the others. “Sorry.”
Janie sighed and took a sip of her soda. “Are you sure you’re good to do this all over again? I mean, I get that London is a nice escape from everything, but maybe throwing yourself into another guy’s arms right now is a bad idea.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said stiffly. I didn’t want to have this conversation while we sat in the very exposed restaurant at the airport. I had to go through security within the hour, and then I’d be hopping on a plane to London to spend all of September with Asher Sutton.
A royal.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re still bent out of shape about Levi, and maybe you just need a few more days to get your thoughts in order. I could call Jackson and ask—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Janie, but I think staying in New York would be the worst thing I could do.”
I meant every word. Since coming back from my time in LA with Levi, I’d barely had the energy to get my ass off the couch. I’d eaten maybe one full meal in three days and grazed on Cheetos and ice cream. Even though I’d denied it repeatedly to Janie, I knew what this hollow, desperate, aching feeling was.
It was heartbreak. Plain and simple.
And there was no room in this competition for that. I was done with it. No more pain. No more suffering. No more falling in love with men I couldn’t have. It hurt too much.
Janie nudged my shin with the toe of her shoe again, gentler this time. “I’m going to miss you. This year has been really hard, Pipes. Not having you there every morning before I go to work, or having you bring leftovers from the restaurant home so we could be silly and watch movies all night or watch reruns of whatever shit show we’re in the mood for. I just… I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” I reached across the table and put my hand on hers. “This is all going to be over soon, and everything will go back to normal.”
“Can it?”
“Can it what?”
Janie chewed on her bottom lip. “Can it go back to normal after everything that’s happened? After all these guys? After you’ve fallen for—”
“Don’t say it.” I shook my head. “I can’t. Not right now. I just have to get through these last three months, endure the proposal, and then get home and close the door on this whole thing.”
“With your money.”
“Yes. With the money. Of course.”
Janie sighed. Neither of us said anything for a couple of beats. In that time, our waiter came to our table and cleared our plates. When there was space to do so, Janie leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. “Have you talked to your folks yet?”
“No.”
“Phillip?”
I nodded. My brother had been much more responsive to my calls. If it weren’t for him, my parents would have completely shut me out of their life while they struggled to comprehend my participation in the Casanova Club.
“They’re still mad,” I said.
“How long can they act like this? I mean seriously, you’re doing this for them. If this doesn’t clear up soon, I’m going to go down to the restaurant myself and give them a piece of my mind. It isn’t right, Pipes. It just isn’t.”
I forced myself to smile at my best friend. I was so very lucky to have someone like her in my corner. “Thank you, Janie. I know your heart is in the right place. But please, for me, leave it alone? Stirring the pot will just make things worse. My dad won’t have this epiphany and realize my good intentions because you go in and ‘set him straight’. It’ll just make him pull back harder.”