“Only Mr. Black’s personal security team has access to the VIP level of the club, this penthouse, and personal security details anyway. You can tell us apart by our ear pieces. Theirs are coiled and visible, whereas ours are skin-toned to be covert.”
“Oh,” I say. “Why are there so many of you?”
“There’s usually not so many of us. There’s about twenty-six of us in total that rotate from shift to shift. You have a night guard for when I’m not here. His name is Wilson, but if you keep regular sleeping hours and nothing bad happens, you’ll probably never meet him. The guards stay in the security room at night, only leaving when they do their rounds. They never go into the bedroom, though.”
“Rounds,” I repeat. “Is that when you press those button things?”
I noticed that when Xavier does his “rounds,” he presses little buttons in each room. They’re super small and the color of the walls. I wouldn’t even know they’re there if I didn’t see him press them.
“They’re another security precaution. I have a ten minute window to press them during each of my scheduled rounds. If I don’t press them in time, an alert goes out to the entire team, all twenty-six of us. There are protocols for when that happens, but it never has before. It’s not always me doing the rounds either. When I’m not here because I’m off shift or out with you, there’s always three people in the security room. One of them does it then.”
“Wow,” I gasp.
I’ve never heard of such heavy security for one person, especially one that can take care of himself. Is all of this really necessary? He says he’s not in the mob anymore, but how can I believe him when he has more security than the mayor?
I eye Xavier, wondering what detail I pulled him from. “What did you do before you were assigned to me?”
“I got pulled from my old rounds in the security room to work your personal detail, so they’re training a newbie right now. That’s why there’s four guys in the security room instead of only three.”
“Only?”
“Mr. Black has a lot of enemies, Ms. Ives.”
“Lucy,” I correct, absently.
His words chill me to the core. They’re yet another reminder of the dangers of knowing Asher. I suspect that whenever I look at Xavier, I’ll always be reminded of the danger I’m exposing myself to.
A part of me can’t wrap my mind around the idea of a threat large enough to necessitate the existence of such heavy security. I have to assure myself that it’s just a precaution for a wealthy man. That it’s for his corporate enemies not the criminal ones.
I remind myself that the deal I have with Asher is a good one. I’ll gain financial security for as long as this charade lasts, and after I graduate, I’ll have my job of choice with Asher’s letter of recommendation and connections. My thoughts flash to the rumors of Asher’s company acquiring IllumaGen. Working there would be a dream come true.
If I’m being honest, the benefits far outweigh the cons. Asher has no reason to hurt me now that he knows I’m not a threat. In fact, I have a security guard to protect me! There’s no way Asher’s “enemies” can get through this insane security.
Bulletproof glass and walls? Panic buttons? Panic rooms? An armory? Twenty-six guards? Rounds every half hour? This is security suitable for the president. Plus, Asher is no longer involved in the Romano family business.
… Or is he?
When the lasagna is finished, I divide it into eight large pieces and plate them. I give one to each of the guards in the security room, much to their amazement, and hand a plate to Xavier. By the time Asher gets home, I’ve just finished off the last of my lasagna and Xavier has already nabbed one of the extra pieces. He finished that one, too.
“Damn, girl,” Xavier says at the same time Asher enters our line of sight. “You can cook.”
“What’d you make?” Asher asks.
“Lasagna.” I get up and heat the remaining piece for him, because it’s technically his food anyway.
When I’m done, I set it on the place mat next to my seat. He loosens his tie and puts it on the kitchen counter before sitting down beside me. He looks exhausted, yet he still manages to appear alert. I avert my eyes as he undoes the top few buttons of his button down. Even the slightest sliver of skin is enough to tease me, so I don’t let myself look.
“You never told me you can cook.” He moans when he takes a bite.
I force away the dirty images his moan elicits and shrug. “One of my foster dads was a chef, and I loved to eat enough to want to learn how to make food. He ended up teaching me a lot.”
I also learned how to make a lot of different cuisines from all the families I’ve lived with, from Peruvian to Irish food. My Vietnamese dishes are ridiculously good, too. My Bo Luc Lac is melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
Jumping from foster home to foster home is like traveling the world in so many ways. You’re exposed to such a diverse group of people and get to learn from the experiences they give you. I’m not sure if I would have traded it all for a stable childhood and family, though I could certainly have done without some of the creeps.
Asher nods and takes another bite. The sensual way he closes his eyes and bites down sends dirty thoughts through my mind.
He swallows and turns to Xavier, who takes my dish and his to the dishwasher. “You can go for the day.”
Xavier nods, says his goodbyes to us and the rest of the security team and leaves. When he’s gone, it’s just Asher and I in the room. After the questionnaires from this morning, I’m more comfortable around him, but he still has me on edge. So, I distract myself with my stats homework, opening up my overpriced textbook and getting to work.
I’ve bitten off a chunk of my No. 2 pencil by the time Asher asks, “What’s wrong?”
I exhale deeply, reluctant to admit my failure. “I don’t understand this.”
He leans over, skims my work, and shrugs. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. Fiduciary inference is outdated anyways. You probably won’t ever use it.”
“That may be, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ll still be tested on it.”
Asher stands up and places his dish in the dishwasher along with all the other dishes Xavier brought back from the security room before he left. I try not to watch as Asher loads the dishwasher with all the kitchen utensils and dishes I used to make the lasagna. He puts soap in the machine and turns it on. It’s weird watching him perform domestic acts. It’s like watching a wild lion play fetch.
After he returns to the seat next to me, I’m shocked when he starts to explain the math to me. I listen, and half an hour later, I’m a proud pro at fiduciary inference. I almost wish that it’s used more often.
“You should’ve been a teacher,” I say, as I pack up my work into my backpack. I follow him up the stairs.
He pauses to think about it before shaking his head. “It never would have worked out. I don’t like people, and teachers deal with a lot of them.”
“So do you as a business man.”
“That’s different. I’m the boss at work. I have control. Teachers don’t. They answer to parents and administrators and students and the government. It makes what they do infinitely harder than what I do.” He hesitates. “At least for someone like me.”
I nod in understanding. I make a horrible teacher. Teaching requires skill sets that I don’t possess, like patience and compassion. I have immense respect for those who can do it, mostly because I tried my hand at teaching at one of the orphanages I volunteered at in Africa. I failed miserably.
I find myself telling Asher, “I tried to teach once. I was at an orphanage in Djibouti. The head of the place thought it would be a good idea for me to teach English to the kids, since all of the other volunteers either spoke French or Arabic.” I chuckle. “It was a disaster. I made half of the kids cry by the end of a one hour class period. They ended up moving me to the kitchens, where my only interactions with a living being were with an elderly woman who never talked to me.
�
��After a while, I finally had enough of her silence and demanded that she speak to me.” I wince. “When she signed something back with her hands, I felt like the biggest bitch in the world. There I was, hating her for not talking to me, and she was mute the whole time. What’s worse was I couldn’t even understand what she was signing. It was in Somali Sign Language.”
Asher and I are in our room now. He’s taking off his clothes, getting ready to shower, but he pauses to give me a sympathetic look. “What’d you end up doing?”
I avert my eyes as he takes off his boxers and heads into the bathroom. I don’t see his package, just a very, very firm backside, but I’m still breathing heavy after.
How can he be so comfortable naked?
I like my body, but I don’t have the kind of body confidence he possesses. I wish I did, but I doubt most people do anyway. The world will probably be overrun by nudist colonies if that ever happens.
I clear my throat and raise my voice, so he can hear me in the bathroom. “I left.”
I was ashamed of myself then, and I’m ashamed of myself now. Like I said, when things get tough, I usually run away.
“What’d you say?” Asher shouts from the shower.
I sigh. He turned the showerhead on and probably can’t hear me over the noise. But what does he expect me to do? Go into the bathroom so he can hear? I don’t even want to repeat myself, and I don’t know what will come out of my mouth if I see him naked, full frontal.
“I said, ‘I ran.’” I repeat, louder this time.
“Huh?”
“I ran!” I’m yelling now.
“Come again?”
“Ugh!” I curse under my breath, get up and enter the bathroom, his nudity be damned. When I see him, I don’t even bother catching a glimpse of his private parts. I stare him dead in the eye and say, “I. RAN. Is that what you want to hear?! That I’m a runner? That I run from everything?”
What I see in his face staggers me. A look of understanding passes between us, but Asher also seems unperturbed by my outburst.
I briefly consider that he pretended not to hear me, so he could see me admit my cowardice face to face. The thought makes me angry.
I’m shaking in fury when he looks me in the eyes and says, “But you didn’t run from me.”
I reel back from him as if I’ve been slapped. He’s right. I didn’t run from him. Is it because I have more to lose now? A degree? A future to think about? A better option? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m sick of running. I ran from foster home to foster home. I ran from Steve. I ran from one country to the next. I ran from Rogue.
But I didn’t run from him.
I’m not running now. I’m dealing with my problems, acknowledging them and finding solutions. I’m trying to be a better person, and like it or not, he’s been a part of that process. Even if he is both the cause of my problems and the solution.
He gives me a knowing look that would have sent me running for the hills had we not just discussed my embarrassing running habits.
“What do you expect me to say to that?” My voice is a whisper, but I’m not surprised that he hears me over the sound of the showerhead.
His blue eyes pierce my soul. “Why aren’t you running now?”
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sometimes even to
live is an act of
courage.
Seneca the Younger
“No,” Asher says for the fifteenth time.
“Are you serious?!” I demand. “You can’t just trap me here, Asher. I’m getting stir crazy. My voice doesn’t even sound like my voice anymore. I never agreed to stay cooped up in your tower like I’m freakin’ Rapunzel or something.” I laugh sardonically. “Do I need a prince to come rescue me? I’ll be sure to ask René once he dethrones you.”
Usually, I wouldn’t talk to Asher like this, but between the stir craziness and the fact that he has actually been letting me get away with talking back, I don’t pull my verbal punches.
Asher sends a scowl my way. It’s ugly and beautiful all at once. “You can leave once Tommy comes.”
Tommy is my new stylist. Asher hired him the day after I moved into his place. I woke up that morning to a gorgeous, well-groomed Asian man pressing measuring tape around my breasts.
The first words out of his mouth were, “Girl, I wish I had tits as big as yours.”
Then, he pulled me out of the bed and proceeded to measure my body in places I didn’t know needed measuring. Two days later, he came back with a bunch of fabric for fittings, but I haven’t seen him since. And I also didn’t realize my freedom depends on him.
“Tommy?!” I say, though it’s more like a yell. “Oh, my goodness! You are such a jerk! This is about my clothes?! You didn’t seem to have a problem with how I dress when YOU TOLD YOUR COLLEAGUES THAT WE’RE ENGAGED!” I wince, embarrassed by how shrill my shouting got towards the tail end of that sentence. Because I can’t help myself, I add, “Unbelievable!” and stomp my way to the gym.
I was floored when I found out that Asher’s gym isn’t just a gym, though it also has all the standard equipment and more. It’s a UFC gym, too, with fighting equipment, a sparring ring, and enough punching bags for me to punch and kick away my anger. That’s been useful lately, since I’m angry a lot now.
Because after I realized that I didn’t run from Asher, I also realized that I’m not as afraid of him as I initially thought I was. It’s like the fear that was there only existed because I let it, but once I recognized that it was just a construct, it evaporated. It also helps that, lately, he has been pissing me off to the point where even fear can’t stop me from standing up for myself.
Hell hath no fury like a woman trapped, or whatever the saying is.
I’m not afraid of Asher, which is good for me and bad for him. It’s good for me, because I’m able to stand up for myself now. It’s bad for him, because he’s giving me a lot to stand up to. First, he hired Tommy without asking, which is awesome and akin to having my own fairy godmother, but that’s not the point. He didn’t ask me if I wanted new clothes. He just decided I did.
Then, when I tried to go to class on Monday, he told me that I can’t. No reason was given, just a “no.” I tried to leave anyway with Xavier hot on my heels, but apparently there’s a biometric scanner to access the elevator.
And guess who doesn’t have access?
Me.
When my glare cut to Xavier, he held up his hands and said, “Can’t do it. Gotta pay the bills.”
I growled and stomped my way back to Asher, where I demanded he let me out. When he gave me an infuriating “no” again, I lost it, kicking and punching whatever part of him I could. I didn’t even scratch him, which only pissed me off even more. Instead, he stepped around me, easily lifted me up by the waist, dropped me into the gym, and told me to “have at it.”
Two Sundays have passed since then, and that has been our routine every day since. I wake up and ask if I can leave. He says, “No.” I scream and yell until my throat hurts, then I try to escape. I inevitably fail and stomp back to him.
Because my voice is usually gone from my morning scream sessions, I resort to kicking and punching. He drops me off in the gym, where I kick and punch every bag in sight. Eventually, Xavier gets tired of my poor form and teaches me to fight properly. I’ve even gotten better.
Yesterday, when one of my punches landed on Asher’s stomach, I swear he smiled for a second before it was gone. Today, I’m not even bothering to escape. I head straight to my very own pink punching bag, which Asher surprised me with yesterday. I may have printed out a picture of his face on the office printer last night and taped it to the bag for target practice. I’m actually excited to test it out.
If Asher really wants to make it up to me, he’ll either let me out of here or have a punching bag that looks like him custom made for me. Because as fun as punching a picture of him is, it’s certainly not the same.
When I�
�m done with my fighting, I head to the office and log onto Asher’s desktop, which is way faster than my laptop. It’s a Black Enterprises product, after all. I open up the picture of Asher on Photoshop, a close up of his face I found on the internet, and edit some bruises onto his face. I digitally give him a busted lip and a black eye, because I can. When I print it out, I smile and proudly show it to Xavier, who rolls his eyes.
It’s ridiculous. I know. A few weeks ago, I was attending labs at a prestigious Ivy League research university and turning in insightful essays on the practical applications of MITE research in the Human Genome Project. Today, I’m photoshopping bruises onto my warden/fake fiancé’s face, because I can’t do it in real life. I’m also proudly showing it to my bodyguard, who doubles as my prison guard, like I expect it to be framed on the fridge or something.
Wait…
I reboot the printer, print out another copy and write a giant “A+” at the top right corner in red Sharpie. I hear Xavier groan when he sees what I’m doing, but I ignore him. I take the tape with me, because Asher doesn’t strike me as the type to have refrigerator magnets laying around. I’m taping my masterpiece onto the shiny, stainless steel surface of the gigantic hunk of metal that’s our fridge when Asher descends from the stairwell with Monica trailing closely behind like the little brown noser she is.
Obviously, my relationship with Monica is the one thing that hasn’t changed. Well, if possible, we hate each other more now. She scowls at me every morning when she goes into the bedroom to wake Asher up at 5 A.M. like an annoying human rooster.
She doesn’t like that I sleep on the bed while he sleeps on the floor, but I guarantee she would like it even less if we both sleep on the bed… because I absolutely refuse to sleep on the floor. Hell, I think Asher deserves to sleep on the floor for holding me prisoner here. I certainly don’t feel bad about our sleeping arrangement.
“What are you doing?” Asher asks, approaching Xavier and I.
I take a couple steps back and admire my master piece, mentally patting myself on the back for a job well done. I tilt my head to the side, like I’m admiring priceless artwork at the Louvre, and say in a heavy, fake French accent, “Ze black eye is wonderfulzee done, is zeet not?”
Asher Black: A Fake Fiance Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 1) Page 14