Chapter 7 #2
The last one is a no-brainer. After three hours of boring people and bland food, I am more than ready to go, even if it means returning to that drafty old cottage.
But now that we are finally free and in the car, Asher couldn’t feel any farther away. He’s right next to me, staring straight ahead with his eyes on the road, but his mind is somewhere else.
I don’t know Asher that well. Sure, I know basic facts and random trivia that anyone with a phone or internet connection could find out.
I know his birthday and his height. I know all of his number one hits, and I know he’s known for being a bit of a recluse, even before the downsides of fame pushed him to seek privacy.
But I don’t know him.
I don’t know what his favorite book is. I don’t know if he likes scary movies or bananas in his smoothies—which, by the way, is disgusting.
I don’t know what makes him happy.
Is he happy?
Gravel crunches under the tires as the car comes to a stop. The headlights illuminate the old stone building, then dim as the engine cuts off.
There are no lights except the faint glow of the car’s dashboard. When we both get out and the doors slam shut, the dashboard flickers out, and we are suddenly plunged into darkness.
Neither one of us thought to leave a light on inside.
“Shit,” Asher curses from the other side of the car. “Hold on, Merc. Let me walk over and help you. I know my way around fairly well.”
I stubbornly take a step toward the front door, or at least where I think it is. My heel sinks into the mud leftover from the midday rain.
I nearly cry. I saved for months to buy these shoes.
As I struggle to yank my ruined shoe out of the mud, my other foot slips forward, and all of a sudden, I’m airborne.
“Oh!” is all I have time to yell as my arms flail, and I pitch forward and land on—
Strong hands grip my waist. “I’ve got you.”
“Asher?” I place my hands on his shoulders, trying to steady myself.
“Aye. Were you expecting someone else, then?”
I bite my bottom lip to keep from grinning, then realize he can’t actually see me. Or can he? That was a quick save. “No. I mean, thank you.”
“Just saving myself the trouble of a muddy floor is all.”
“Yeah, well, you haven’t seen my shoes.”
“Leave them outside. Mac can retrieve them in the morning and have them cleaned.”
The thought of leaving my shoe babies outside in the cold makes me sad, but I reluctantly agree. That is, until I try to lift my foot and it doesn’t move.
“What’s wrong?” Asher asks, clearly unable to see the source of my struggle.
“Do you have quicksand out here or something?”
“No,” he answers. “Why?”
“Because my shoe is stuck,” I whine. “My super expensive, grown-up shoe!”
There’s a beat of silence, and then his big-ass hand slides around the back of my knees, and I’m lifted right out of my shoes.
I’m momentarily stunned.
By the feel of his hands on my bare skin. By the way his hot breath curls around me like smoke, and by how utterly safe I feel in his arms.
“Um…” I swallow, coming back down to earth. “What about my shoes?”
He snorts out a laugh. “Leave them. We’ve got more important things to deal with.”
Leave them? Leave them!
“Like what?”
“Like, how the hell are we going to break it to your family that we’re dating?”
Wait. What?
ASHER
In hindsight, picking her up was a bad idea.
It didn’t seem like it at the time, but the moment my palm slipped over her smooth skin, I swear something short-circuited in my brain.
I could blame it on my less-than-stellar sex life. It’s been well over a year, but when a woman has to sign legal documents before she can suck your dick, it really takes some of the magic out of it.
But no, it’s not the sex—or lack thereof.
I’ve been tempted before, but not like this.
As much as I try to deny it, Mercury has always been…different.
Even before we met, I had always been keenly aware of her.
I used to stare at this picture in her father’s office. It was from a family vacation. She must have been a sophomore in college at the time and so fucking pretty.
I felt like such a creep, and that was barely three years ago.
She is still so damn young.
She’s barely starting out. She has a whole career ahead of her, and if I do this—if I ask this of her—how will it affect her future?
Will anyone ever take her seriously in the music industry again?
In one of our initial conversations, she told me she uses her mother’s maiden name professionally so that the bands she works with don’t associate her with her father.
“I want people to listen to me because I know what I’m doing, not because my name is on the door.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“It can be,” she agrees. “It should be, but right now, I need to be sure.”
Would she ever be sure after my name is permanently attached to hers?
Christ, I can’t do this to her.
“What do you mean we have to tell my parents?” Merc asks for the second time. I set her down just moments earlier, and she wasted no time before she started asking questions.
So far, I’ve ignored both her attempts, shrugged off my coat, and am currently attempting to start a fire. It’s fucking freezing in here.
“Asher!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her as I start stacking the logs. “I changed my mind.”
“You—” She huffs. “You changed your mind? On what?”
“Just call it a moment of insanity. But the good news is I got us out of the dating thing, so…”
I stare into the soot-black void of the fireplace until, suddenly, I see a pair of feet beside me. The pink toenail polish is cute as hell. Against my better judgment, I let my gaze drift up her bare legs.
Her cheeks instantly turn red. “I feel like I’m missing some context here. Can we back up? Please?”
It’s the please that makes me cave. Not because she asked nicely, but simply because she asked. So many people have demanded things from me over the years—record producers, agents, and now my parents.
Mercury is simply asking, and it feels so fucking good to have someone to talk to that doesn’t have an agenda or something to gain from what I have to say.
I finish lighting the fire, hoping it will warm the chill in the air, and take a seat on the old sofa. Mercury joins me, tucking one foot under her leg.
She’s patient as I take a breath and finally say, “My father is dying.”
Her eyes widen, then soften instantly. Her hand lifts like she’s going to reach for me but decides against it. I feel a twinge of disappointment. “Oh, Asher. I’m so sorry.”
I give a halfhearted shrug.
“Is that what your mom wanted to talk to you about?”
I nod. “Among other things, yes.”
“No wonder you were so quiet afterward. I wish you had told me sooner. I could have faked food poisoning or said I was jet-lagged.”
“It’s okay,” I answer with a hollow laugh. “I’m not sure how to feel about it. I’m still in shock, I guess.”
“That’s understandable.”
“All this talk about duchesses and balls…” I swallow. “It hasn’t been in jest. Turns out they’ve just been preparing me. I’ll be inheriting my father’s title sooner than I realized.”
“But I thought you didn’t want it?”
I just shake my head. “I was a fool to ever think I could walk away from this. There’s a reason why they call the royal family an institution. Nobility is no different. There are rules, and I can’t be the one to break a five-hundred-year-old tradition because I didn’t feel like it.”
The gears in her mind seem to be spinning. “But they surely can’t expect you to marry a duchess? That part was just a joke, right?”
“Maybe not a duchess, no. But they do want someone at my side to—”
“To what?”
“To makeover my image from the photo leak.” And a decade of debauchery.
“But none of that was your fault. Hell, most of those photos weren’t even recent. A lot of those girls have even come out and said they haven’t seen you in years.” None of those photos were recent because the only time I let a woman take a picture with me was when I was young and dumb.
“It doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done.”
“So you’re just going to go along with this? With everything they tell you to do?” Her voice is shaky and full of emotion. “Wait, what did you mean when you said we’d have to tell my family we were dating?”
“Nothing. It was a stupid idea.”
“Tell me.”
“No,” I say firmly. “It’s too much.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “How do you know? You haven’t asked.”
“I just do, Merc. I’ve lived in the public eye for years, and you’re—”
Her brow rises. “I’m what? Too young? Too na?ve?”
Too special, I almost say.
“No,” I answer. “None of that. It’s just too much to ask, especially when you came here to bring me back to LA.”
“That’s not why I came here.”
My brow furrows. “Isn’t that why Lance sent you?”
“Sure, but I never promised them I’d bring you home.” I stare at her, confused. “I told them I would come and make sure you weren’t alone and that you knew you had people fighting for you, and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.”
My stomach twists at the passion behind her words.
“Merc, this is going to be a lot. Balls, charity events, endless people. That red carpet event we attended for your father?” I remind her, trying not to let my mind linger on the way her gown clung to her every curve.
If she hadn’t been struggling in front of the cameras, I would have found another excuse just to get close to her that night.
“That will feel like a cakewalk compared to what we’ll face. ”
“Then I guess we’d better get started.”
“You have a career and a whole life back in LA. I can’t ask you to just drop that.”
“You aren’t asking. I’m offering.”
I look away before surprising myself by saying, “There would need to be an end date.” I can’t believe I’m even considering this. “I need to know you’re not stuck here forever.”
She appears to think about it for a moment before she nods. “Okay, what about six months?”
I shake my head. “Too long. What about three?”
For some reason, she appears almost hurt by this suggestion, but nods anyway. “Okay. Three.”
“And I want you to find a way to work…if you want to,” I add, knowing how important her career is to her.
Her expression softens. “I would love that.”
“Good.” But then I immediately follow it up with, “Are you sure?”
“Asher, I can do this,” she declares. “And I can do it a hell of a lot better than some debutante duchess who doesn’t know a thing about you.”
I try to hide the smile tugging at my lips. “A debutante and a duchess are two vastly different things.”
The look she gives me says she doesn’t give two shits. Frankly, neither do I.
“What will we tell your family?”
She shrugs. “The truth. They’re not going to believe anything else.”
She has a point. She’s only been here a day. Trying to convince them we somehow fell for each other in less than twenty-four hours would be impossible. “Hendrix won’t like it.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“And your father? He’ll know what this means?” That I’m not coming back…
She lets out a sigh. “I’ll talk to him.”
“No.” I reach out and take her hand. A tiny gasp escapes her lips. “We’ll talk to him. We’re in this together.”
“Right,” she says softly. “Together.”
As I stare at our joined hands, suddenly nothing feels scarier than the idea of her and me.
Together.