Chapter Three Imani #2
Sloane taps on a new link, which takes us to a socialite gossip site where we’re immediately bombarded with photo after photo of Teddy slinking out of bars and restaurants with a beautiful woman on his arm. Sometimes two.
‘Charming,’ I mutter, my eyes landing on a photo of him stumbling out of some London club, sunglasses on at night, a cigarette dangling from his lips like he’s a cliché from a bad indie film.
My father would have a heart attack if I’d ever been caught like this in front of a camera, but it seems Georgios couldn’t care less.
Sloane nods in agreement. ‘He’s basically a walking red flag dressed in designer clothes. The stories I’ve heard about him from girls at shows? Ugh.’ She rolls her eyes again. ‘Let’s pray he doesn’t become your brother-in-law.’
Just the thought makes me shudder.
Sloane scrolls to the bottom of the page and hits the VOUVALIS tag, pulling up every article about the family hosted on the site.
There are pages and pages about Georgios, Andreas and Teddy, but next to nothing on Asher.
The closest we get is little more than a footnote about a failed attempt at opening up a new location in Grenada four years ago.
‘… Asher Vouvalis declined to comment on the abandoned plans to bring the Vouvalis name to the famed spice island. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, plans to open two new resorts, headed up by Vouvalis Sr, in Jamaica and Barbados, are well under way…’
And that’s it. Not a peep more.
Georgios and Andreas’ business dealings are everywhere, Teddy’s half-drunken smirk is plastered all over social media, but Asher? Asher is like a ghost. If I hadn’t sat directly opposite him myself this morning, I might even be doubting that a third Vouvalis boy even exists.
‘It’s like he doesn’t even exist,’ Sloane murmurs, now currently absentmindedly scrolling through an anonymous gossip page on Instagram. ‘But I guess his low profile works in our favour.’
She’s right, of course. But why isn’t there anything about him?
I’m probably considered solidly C-list in the socialite world – compared to Sloane’s glitzy A-list status, anyway – and even I’ve got a handful of carefully planted, tasteful, stories in the gossip rags.
I suppose this is why my father even entertained the idea of marrying me and Asher off in the first place.
No matter how desperate he gets, just the thought of seeing a photo of me on Teddy’s arm, drunkenly stumbling out of a seedy club at 3am would be enough to send him into an early grave. Not out of any fear or love for me of course, but because of how the optics would affect the Davies name.
I suppose Andreas wouldn’t be the worst option in the world for a scheme like this, but it’s clear he’s been following in his father’s footsteps – and that includes the occasional dodgy business deal or two. I can see why my father would want to keep the Davies name at arms-length away from that.
And then there’s Asher.
Graduated from a good university and then seemingly disappeared.
I have to assume he works in some capacity in the family business, but otherwise he’s a blank slate in our world.
No one really knows anything about him, and that means my father and Georgios have the freedom to create whatever story they want when it comes to us.
But that also means I’ve got that freedom as well, and I intend to take full advantage of it.
‘Oooh! Got him!’ Sloane squeals excitedly before shoving her phone in my face.
She’s about two hundred posts deep on the anonymous Instagram gossip page and, nestled between an off-guard shot of Sloane herself stepping out of a black cab, and a blurry shot of a reality TV star looking very cosy with an up-and-coming singer, is a photo of the three Vouvalis brothers at a charity gala.
Sloane taps on the photo and enlarges it.
It’s clear the main goal for whoever took the photo was to capture Andreas and Teddy.
They’re in the forefront, leaning up against the bar, grinning and milking the camera like it’s second nature.
They look good, too, but my focus isn’t on them.
Next to Teddy, looking like he’s out of his comfort zone and doing his best to shy away from the endless flashing bulbs surrounding them, is Asher.
The photo is clearly a few years old, so he looks slightly younger than the man I met today, but he’s no less handsome.
Like his brothers, he’s wearing an exquisitely crafted tux – Ralph Lauren, according to Sloane – that shows off broad shoulders and a trim waist. His skin is warmer than his brothers, a soft shade of brown where theirs is more golden, and his chocolate-brown curls fall just a little messily across his forehead; a few strands hanging loose directly between dark, green eyes.
And that smile.
It’s not confident or cocky like his brothers, but almost a little nervous. Like he’s not sure whether he should actually be smiling at all. Somehow it’s both charming and vulnerable at the same time.
It suits him.
‘You know,’ Sloane says thoughtfully, ‘he’s not bad-looking at all. I mean, I’ve definitely had worse exes.’
Categorically, she has not but I get what she means.
I glance back at the photo and feel my lips start to curve into an involuntary smile. ‘Yeah. He’s not bad.’