Asher (The Casanova Club Book 10)

by Ali Parker

  Janie shook her head. “I hate it, Piper. I’m sorry. I know they’re your parents, but I can’t wrap my head around it. They’re being so… so…” She grasped for the right word.

  “Childish?”

  “Yes, that. And Mean. And selfish. And stupid.” She threw her hands up. “The whole thing is just stupid.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  Janie dropped her chin into her hand and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. Then her gaze slid to me. “So, if they don’t come around by the end of this, do you still plan on giving them the money?”

  “What? Yes, of course I do.”

  “So you’re telling me if they haven’t talked to you in three more months, including last month—so four in total—that you’ll still give them the money instead of accepting a proposal from the man you’re in love with? You’ll be able to live with yourself?”

  “I’ll have to.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand, Piper.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to. I know where you’re coming from, Janie. I really do. But I did this to save my parents, and I’m not going to shift gears now that I’m so close to pulling this off. No, I didn’t expect it to go down like this, but there have been a lot of things I haven’t expected these past few months.”

  Like falling head over heels in love with more than one man.

  With four, actually.

  Janie dropped some cash on the table while shaking her head. “Well, you’re a saint, Piper. I can tell you that much. If I were in your shoes, I’d have already planned out what I was going to be wearing for when Levi took a knee to propose. Something flashy and sleek and—”

  “Janie, please. This isn’t helping.”

  She licked her lips and studied me. “I’m sorry, Pipes. I want you to be happy. That’s all. And he can give you that.”

  “Stop. I’d have to move to LA. It’s not happening.”

  “We could make it work.”

  “Janie,” I pleaded.

  She got to her feet and picked up her purse off the back of her chair. Draping the cross-body over her shoulder, she nodded at me. “Come on. We should get you to security so you have time. I’ll walk you there.”

  I followed Janie out of the restaurant. We joined the throngs of people toting their carry-ons and neck pillows and children across the terminal toward the security check. Janie and I walked side by side, our steps matched, and I knew there was something else she wanted to say but was holding back.

  I suspected she’d been doing a lot of that lately.

  If our roles were reversed, I knew I’d be just as unhappy about this as she was. I’d be furious that her parents were treating her so badly, and I’d be even more furious that she was going to willingly pass up on the best shot at love to ever fall into her lap.

  And I would have as many conversations as it took to help her figure out which man was the right one for her.

  But our roles weren’t reversed. I was the one getting on the plane and leaving again. I was the one who had to make the hard choices. And I was the one who was going to have to live with the regrets and repercussions when this was all nothing but a memory.

  I was glad Janie didn’t have to endure it.

  We stopped about fifty feet away from the security line, and Janie caught my elbow to pull me out of the way of foot traffic. We tucked ourselves up against a window, and Janie shoved her hand into the depths of her purse to pull out a package wrapped in two layers of silver tissue. There was a slightly crumpled blue bow fixed to the front.

  She handed it to me. “This is for you. Don’t open it until you’re on the plane.”

  “Janie, you didn’t need to—”

  “I know. But I wanted to. Have a good month, okay? I know it will be hard, but maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I mean, it could be worse. At least you get to spend September with a total hunk who happens to be fucking royalty. You’re about to live every little girl’s fairy tale.”

  I nodded and held the package to my chest. “Thank you.”

  Janie wrapped me in a big hug. I held the package, which I was very sure was a book, in one hand and hugged her back with my other arm. I didn’t want to let go.

  When we broke apart, she flashed a brilliant smile at me. “Go on. Knock that hottie on his royal ass. And have fun, okay? Try not to think about you know who.”

  I smiled back. “I will. Love you.”

  “I love you too, Pipes.”

  Turning my back on my best friend got harder and harder every month. But I did it. I walked with purpose to the security line. It moved quickly, and when I reached the front of the line, I looked back over my shoulder. Janie was there waiting, just like I knew she’d be. She went to the tips of her toes and waved exuberantly. I waved back before moving forward through the scanner.

  Once through security, I made my way to my gate, where I ordered myself a cup of green tea and got comfortable in one of the bench seats. I opened the gift from Janie, which was a travel guidebook of London, noting all the best places to visit and the places to avoid. Janie had gone through and left little sticky notes on certain locations she thought I’d like, and she’d paired them with funny little messages that made me smile.

  On the inside cover was a handwritten note:

  To my best friend and the strongest person I know,

  Let this book be your guide while I’m not there to hold your hand and drag you into shoe store after shoe store. I love you, babe.

  XOXO, Janie.

  I closed the book on my lap with a smile and ran my fingers over the glossy cover. Then I waited, rereading Janie’s inscription whenever I had the urge to pull out my phone and call Levi and tell him I loved him and I missed him.

  The urge came more times than I cared to admit.

  Chapter 3

  Asher

  There were several things my memory had preserved of Piper James.

  First, her smile.

  For me, a smile was a big deal. It said a lot about a person. Piper was a girl who smiled a lot. I’d noticed it during her first interview back in December when she’d walked into the room in those leather pants of hers. The men had all had heart attacks over those damn pants.

  My mother would have fainted.

  I also recalled she had incredible and unique features. Her eyes were such a dark shade of brown they almost looked black, and she had thick dark lashes that framed them dramatically. Her eyebrows were so severely arched that it almost appeared as if she were in a constant state of surprise.

  Under the conditions of the Casanova Club, she might have been.

  She laughed a lot. And for some reason, I imagined she was a good dancer. She had a body made for moving. The women my mother wished me to be with were strait-laced good girls who wore pencil skirts and high-neck blouses, and the most moving they did was their weekly tennis match at the ladies’ club.

  I scoffed to myself at the thought as I got out of my matte silver Maserati Levante and closed the door with my hip. Shielding my eyes against the late afternoon sun, I peered up at the sign above the airport doors that read, “International Arrivals”.

  This was where I’d meet her. Somewhere on the other side of those doors, Piper James was collecting her luggage and clearing customs.

  She had no idea what waited for her on this side: me and the royal pressures of being me, social obligations, rigid schedules, and expensive outfits.

  And my mother.

  I winced at the thought.

  My mother would not look kindly upon Piper.

  I’d known back in December that this might have been a mistake. Perhaps the biggest mistake I’d made since I stole my father’s Range Rover when I was eighteen to take my buddies out on a joy ride. My father’s security detail found us under an overpass, drinking beers. I hadn’t had any because I was driving, but my safety-first common sense had been overlooked because of my idiocy for stealing the car in the first place.

  Dating the same w
oman as eleven other men who came from a family of nobodies, and from America no less, would be akin to me killing someone in a drunk driving accident, throwing their corpse into a river, and lying to authorities about it, in my mother’s eyes.

  That might be a little extreme. But to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure which scenario would ruffle her feathers more. Her son the murderer, or her son the “Never Ending Bachelor of London” dating an American girl.

  It didn’t matter.

  With more nerves fluttering around in my gut than I’d expected, I hopped up onto the curb, crossed the sidewalk, and stepped into the airport. I was lucky in the sense that people didn’t usually recognize me when I was out and about. My family had wealth and influence, but our reach wasn’t very far. I suspected that was because all my relatives before me had led selfish lives and hadn’t shared their money and prowess with their “subjects”, for lack of a better word. There were people in need in our city, practically in our backyard, and the Suttons had diligently ignored them for generations.

  But not me.

  Change was in my blood. My parents were fighting hard against it, and I couldn’t stop them or control what they did, but I could control what I did. And I was going to make a difference. Somehow or another, I’d see it through, and I would live a life I could look back on and not be filled with regret.

  That was my worst nightmare.

  To reach a ripe old age and find myself sitting in the same rooms of the same mansion I’d known all my life, with a woman I didn’t love by my side and an unfulfilled heart beating weaker and weaker by the second.

  The airport buzzed with activity around me. People talked into their phones or typed with their acrylic nails on their keypads as I walked by, heading for the luggage carousel. I had my eyes peeled for a pretty brunette with big eyes and a killer smile.

  I found her standing at the conveyer belt. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she had one leg popped out while she rested her weight on her right foot. The position created languid curves, and my eyes followed the length of her body from head to toe. She had more curves than a man like me had a right to want.

  She was dressed in dark blue jeans that hugged her like a second layer of skin and a black pullover sweater. There was a massive bag draped over one shoulder hanging at her hip, and her hair was curly and drawn up in a high ponytail on top of her head.

  I approached and tapped her shoulder.

  Piper James turned around and smiled.

  It was as white and brilliant as I remembered.

  “Piper.” I held out my hand.

  Her nearly black eyes flicked down to my hand, and she offered me hers, which I lifted to my lips to press a kiss to her knuckles. Her cheeks flushed, and she giggled shyly before pulling her hand back. “Asher, it’s nice to see you again.”

  “Likewise. Here, let me take your bag.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “I insist,” I pressed.

  Piper’s eyes flicked back and forth between mine as a new kind of smile stretched her lips. A cool, calculating one. “I’m not one of those girls who expects a man to always carry her things, you know?”

  “Never said you were. But I must confess, I am one of those guys who can’t stand idly by while a woman holds something heavy and both my hands are empty.”

  “How do you know it’s heavy?” she asked.

  “The strap is pressing into your shoulder.”

  “Are you a detective or a Lord?”

  “Neither. I am very susceptible to judgment, however, and I can’t shake the feeling that everyone in this terminal is giving me dirty looks because the beautiful girl I’m with is still holding her own bag.” I held out my hand expectantly. “Now, please, for the sake of my humility, give me your bag.”

  Piper laughed. It was as glorious a sound as I remembered, and I grinned as she shrugged the bag from her shoulders and held the strap out to me. I slung it over one shoulder while she rolled her eyes at me and turned her attention back to the luggage carousel. “Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  We stood side by side and waited until her luggage appeared, at which point I had to engage in another toxic masculinity struggle to get her to let me retrieve her bags from the conveyer belt. I conceded at the end and let her tote one of her two suitcases through the terminal and back to where my Maserati was parked outside, but I did not let her help me load the trunk.

  She stood on the curb as I stacked the bags in the back, and her head moved on a swivel as she soaked in the sights of the airport, an ultra-modern spectacle in the heart of London.

  I closed the trunk. “Is this your first time here?”

  Piper nodded. “Yes, I’ve never been to Europe.”

  “Well, lucky for you, you’re going to have the city’s best tour guide at your beck and call. I’ll make sure you see all the best things while you’re here. And we’ll do it right.” I opened the passenger door for her, and she climbed in.

  Then I hurried around the hood and got in myself. We pulled out in the fairway, and I followed traffic to get on the highway to head east to the City of London. Piper shifted in her seat, and the car filled with quiet.

  I cleared my throat. “It’s about a forty-minute drive. Do you need anything? Food? Something to drink?”

  “No, I’m all right. Thank you. There were refreshments on the flight.”

  “Very well. Your hotel room is a luxury suite. You’ll have a full kitchenette with a butler, if you’d like, as well as twenty-four-hour room service and access to all hotel amenities. There’s a spa, indoor and outdoor pools, exercise facilities, fine dining options. You name it. They’ve got it.”

  Piper looked over at me. “Hotel?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I apologize. I should explain. My position makes it hard to enjoy female company, especially for long durations of time like the month we have before us. To spare you from any unwanted media attention, or unwanted attention in general, I arranged for you to stay in a hotel not far from my estate where you’ll be comfortable and have some privacy.”

  I chose not to mention I’d done this to spare her from my mother.

  “Oh, well, thank you,” Piper said, running her hands down her thighs a few times. She seemed nervous.

  “The Dorchester is one of London’s finest hotels. And the location is unbeatable. You’re minutes away from Big Ben and the London Eye. You’re just across the street from Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. I made sure you had a view.”

  Piper nodded and gazed out the window, soaking in the sight of the London skyline. “The city is beautiful.”

  I had to agree with her. London held a special place in my heart. I’d traveled to many major cities around the world, and none of them compared to my home. Admittedly, most people probably felt that way about the place they grew up. But London’s heart beat in my chest, and it had since I was a young boy who realized this place needed him and he needed it.

  “You’ll meet my family tomorrow evening,” I told Piper.

  “What? Isn’t that a little soon?”

  I chuckled. “Yes, for all the other men, I can see how it might have been jarring to meet their family right off the bat. But this is different. It’s an event at the estate. A family dinner of sorts. I’d like you to be there to see what my home is like.”

  Piper drew her bottom lip into her mouth. “Okay.”

  “I’ll send something to your room for you to wear.”

  “Okay,” she said again.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll enjoy yourself. And if you don’t, we’ll get the hell out of there and find something better to do. Deal?”

  Piper smiled, and the lines of worry in her face disappeared. “Deal.”

  Chapter 4

  Piper

  Spending my first night in London came with pros and cons.

  Pro?

  I was able to shamelessly order three separate rounds of food service, all of which were terrible for my health, to
self medicate my broken heart while I watched three back to back movies in my hotel robe and ugly cried into the mascara soaked collar.

  Con?

  There were no distractions from said broken heart.

  Left to my own devices, I wallowed, and when I wallowed, I spiraled, and when I spiraled, I found myself staring at Levi’s name in my phone, wondering how bad it would really be if I called him.

  How much harm could one phone call do? Surely, it would make me feel better to hear his voice and to know he was okay. Surely, he would understand why I needed to talk to him.

  Surely.

  But it was a fool’s wish. If I called him, the real harm I’d be doing was to Levi, not myself. He was the one spending the month alone while I was off gallivanting halfway across the world with a bloody Lord’s son. It wouldn’t help him to know how I was doing. It would only hurt him. And that was the very last thing I wanted.

  I set my phone facedown on the nightstand beside my bed and let out a long, weary sigh.

  “It’s going to be a long month,” I muttered to myself.

  At around half-past one, there was a knock on my door. I answered it to find a hotel employee smiling at me with a long, flat, white box spread across his outstretched arms. “A gift arrived for you, Ms. James.”

  Recalling that Asher had told me he’d send something for me to wear to his family dinner tonight, I stepped aside and let the employee in. He said nothing about the complete state of disarray my room was in and set the box down on the foot of the bed. Then he turned to me with a smile. “Ms. James, may I collect the dishes for you and leave them in the hall for our maid service to collect?”

  “Oh. Um. Yes. Of course.”

  I stood lamely in the corner watching him pick up my mess, and then I smiled and waved when he slipped out into the hallway. I closed and locked the door behind him and rushed back to the bed to hover over the box.

  On top was a handwritten note. I wondered dimly if it was Asher’s printing or just his words and some employee somewhere had transcribed them for him.