Chapter 13 Asher
ASHER
The next morning begins gray and rain-soaked.
I wake before Emma does, her fingers tangled in my t-shirt, one leg thrown over my knee.
I watch her sleep, slow and regular, and try to freeze the moment in my head.
In the real world, sleep is a commodity, rare and precious.
Here, it’s just a byproduct of being with her.
I slip out of bed, pad to the window, and gaze down over the Paris rooftops.
I think about last night, the urgency of it, the way we clung to each other like castaways.
I think about what happens next—if you let yourself admit you want something, how quickly it can be taken away, and how, in this business, every good thing comes with an expiration date.
My phone is on the nightstand, lighting up every three minutes with notifications—press, PR, God knows who else. But I don’t check it. I just stand there, letting the city in, and try to make sense of how I feel.
I’m still there when she wakes up, sits on the edge of the bed, hair a wild tumble, shirt half unbuttoned. “You’re brooding,” she says, voice raspy with sleep.
“I am,” I concede. She walks over, stands next to me, and leans into my arm.
“Nervous?” she asks.
“Excited,” I tell her, because it’s true.
If you scrape away all the layers—the acting, the PR, the endless effort to seem effortless—what’s left is a kind of thrill I haven’t felt since I was a kid at a county fair, sneaking into the ride you’re way too small for, holding tight and hoping you survive.
She looks at me, then really looks. “Last night… that wasn’t for the cameras, right? That was just us?”
I’ve rehearsed a dozen ways to answer, but in the end, I say it straight: “It’s never just the cameras. I’m not that good an actor.”
She laughs, tension breaking. “Good.”
And that’s it. We just stand there, holding on. It’s not dramatic, not cinematic. It’s the opposite of what the world will want from us. It’s real.
I let her go, wander to the shower, and by the time I’m out, she’s already got a pot of coffee going, wearing nothing but my t-shirt and hotel slippers. I have the idiotic impulse to take a picture, but I know it’s a memory that will stay burned behind my eyes for longer than any photo.
We share coffee, croissants, and an outrageous amount of hotel jam straight from the jar. She’s already halfway into her phone, scanning emails, texting with Jessie, confirming and canceling things in rapid succession. I take her foot in my lap and start massaging, just to see her squirm.
“I have to wear five-inch heels today,” she says, not looking up from her phone. “You are personally responsible for my inevitable orthopedic surgery.”
I squeeze her ankle. “I’ll carry you.”
“Do you promise?”
“Of course.” I mean it. I’d carry her through fire, through crowds of screaming fans, through the most absurd gauntlet of public scrutiny, just to get here again: her, me, a hotel suite littered with chocolate wrappers and silk and whatever else we managed to lose along the way.
I can’t tell her, not yet, how much she’s starting to mean to me, but I’m getting closer to it every hour.
The suite is still icy with morning air, and the rain hasn’t let up.
I pull her close and let her press her feet into my thighs to steal my heat.
She keeps texting, but leans into my shoulder, as if the contact is as casual as breathing.
I watch her, searching for a single sign that last night was just a fever dream, that I’ll wake up and be back to the version of my life that made sense.
There isn’t one. Everything in her face says this is real.
Around ten a.m. I actually check my phone. There are three missed calls from Craig, two from the head of production, and one from a number that’s almost definitely a gossip columnist’s burner. I take a deep breath, dial Craig, and try not to say anything idiotic when he answers.
“Well,” he says, “I assume you’re alive, because whatever hellscape of debauchery you and Emma got up to last night is all anyone on the internet is talking about.”
“We just had dinner,” I say. “And fell asleep early. I’m wholesome now.”
He snorts. “TMZ has you two making out in the middle of Rue de Rivoli, and someone got a shot of her lipstick on your neck. The comments section is… spirited.”
Emma makes a face at me across the table, bites into her croissant, and mouths, “Wholesome?” I stifle a laugh.
“Can you get ahead of it?” I ask. “Or do I have to do the morning shows?”
“Both,” Craig says, with the grim satisfaction of someone who loves the game more than he’d admit. “There’s a presser at noon. Your job is to look hot and in love and keep your hands mostly above the table.”
I look at Emma, who’s found the same photos on Instagram and is grinning at the phone like a cat. “Don’t worry,” I say, “I’ve got the easiest co-star in Paris.”
After I hang up, I lean back in my chair and just watch her. She’s scanning the internet with the curiosity of someone famous long enough to love and hate it. Her hair is still a mess, my t-shirt off one shoulder, mouth painted with hotel jam. She catches me staring, puts her phone down.
“Are you going to survive brunch with Jean-Paul Bressard and his army of publicists?” she asks.
I sigh. “It’s either that, or get blacklisted from every film between here and Cannes. But I’d rather stay in the suite and see how many times I can make you come before room service cuts us off.”
She nearly spits out her coffee and sets the mug down with a clatter. “Is that a threat or a promise?”
“A public service,” I say, and stand, pulling her up by the wrist. She laughs, half protesting as she tries to shield her leg with the hem of the T-shirt; I hoist her onto the table, slide a hand up her thigh, and kiss her so hard the croissant crumbles between us.
“Don’t,” she says, voice low. “Don’t make me go out there and pretend we’re saints.”
“Fine,” I say, “but only if you let me fuck you first.”
She cups my jaw in her hands and pulls my mouth to hers, and the taste of jam and coffee and her tongue is so heady I nearly forget where we are.
We do make it to brunch, barely. We even make it look good—her in a black suit that looks painted on, me in a cashmere sweater that hides the new love bites on my chest. We do an hour of thinly veiled threats and opportunities with Bressard, his A-list wife, and two streaming execs who are clearly competing to see who can flirt with Emma more shamelessly.
She carries it all with grace, with wit.
I sit back and watch her command the room.
After, in the car, she tugs my hand onto her lap and says, “You know, you never told me what you really want.”
I study her profile, the sharp angle of her cheekbone, the bruised softness at her mouth where I kissed her too hard.
“I want this,” I say. “You. Me. And for none of it to be a fucking lie. I want to prove everyone wrong.”
She goes quiet for a block, thoughtful. “I want that too,” she says, and looks out the window, city lights painting her eyes a hundred shades of gold.
We get back to the Ritz around sunset. For a minute, I think she’s going to say something profound, but she just yanks me out of the car by my sleeve, laughing.
Upstairs, in the elevator, she runs her hands through my hair and says, “Every woman who saw you today wanted to fuck you.”
I press her against the walnut paneling, hands at her waist. “Every man in Paris wanted you.”
She smirks. “Maybe we let them watch next time.”
We’re only half-joking. There’s such a voltage in her that it feels plausible. As if we could do anything, say anything, survive whatever the world throws at us next.
The doors open, thank God, before I do anything stupid. We barely make it to the suite. The second the door shuts, she’s on me, mouth fierce, hands up under my shirt. I turn us, slam her against the back of the door, and grind my hips into her until she groans.
She kisses me hungrily. “I want you to ruin me.”
I haul her up with both hands, her legs wrapping around my back, and stagger us to the bedroom without breaking the kiss.
Our clothes come off in a chaotic blur: jacket, sweater, her blouse, her bra—everything landing in a trail from foyer to bed.
The last scrap, the perfect black underwear, I leave in place so I can snap it against her hip with my teeth.
She arches up, hair wild on the pillow, and just looks at me, eyes dark.
“Why does it feel like this?” she says. “Why do you make me insane?”
I don’t have an answer, so I pull her panties aside and slide two fingers inside her. She’s already soaked, and the way her hips grind up to meet my hand tells me what she wants more than words ever could.
“You’re shaking,” she says.
I drag my thumb up her clit, slow, until her whole body trembles. “So are you.”
She digs her nails into my shoulders. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Even when you’re gone. It’s a little fucked up.”
I kiss her, slowly. “Doesn’t feel fucked up to me.”
She shudders when I drop to my knees at the edge of the bed and slide my tongue along her thigh.
Her legs go wide for me, her hands in my hair.
I eat her until she’s gasping, every breath a stutter, her whole body arching off the bed.
When she comes, it’s so intense she has to bite her own hand to keep from screaming.
She pulls me up by the hair, mouth frantic on mine. “I want you inside me. Now.”
Seconds later, I thrust into her. There’s no slow build—only raw, instant need.
She clings to my shoulders, urging me deeper, nails raking my skin.
I fuck her hard, grinding out all the words I can’t say, all my fear, all my longing.
It’s desperate and beautiful and ugly with longing, and when I come, it’s with a broken sound, forehead against hers, neither of us letting go until the shudders stop.
After, she holds my face in her hands and just looks at me, breath catching. There’s a tear at the corner of her eyelash, as if the truth is too big for her to carry. I wipe it with my thumb and kiss her eyelid.
“You scare the shit out of me,” she admits, so quiet I almost miss it.
“Right back at you.”
She laughs, shaky. “I don’t even care anymore if it’s real. I just want it all the same.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
We stay like that, twined together, until the city goes black and the only light is the neon halo of the Ritz sign spinning on the ceiling.
I wake up before dawn. I always do. I stare at the ceiling, the elaborate crown moldings, the soft hum of hotel HVAC. She’s curled against my back, one arm heavy around my waist, breathing smooth and even. I don’t ever want to move.
But I do. I ease out of bed, careful not to wake Emma, and pull on last night’s jeans. The city is still dark, rain painting the sidewalks silver. I text Craig to ask if there’s a car for me, but I don’t wait for the answer.
Something in me is afraid to wake her. Like if I see her eyes, I’ll say everything I’m not supposed to.
I pace the suite, restlessness and happiness and dread all tangled up, until the sunlight finally cracks the horizon. Then I crawl back in beside her and fold her into my arms. She wakes with a soft noise and burrows her face against my chest, no barriers at all.
She looks up at me, eyes searching. “You okay?”
I nod. “Couldn’t sleep.”
She touches my jaw, gently. “Want to talk about it?”
I shake my head, not trusting myself. “Just wanted to watch you.”
She blushes, actually blushes, and I file that away as the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.
The rest of the day is more interviews, more photos, more chaos, but it all feels distant, like a movie I’m half-watching from a safe seat.
The only things that matter are the spaces in between, the way her hand finds mine under the table, the look we give each other in the car that says everything.
That night, we fuck again. Her thighs tremble around my hips as I push into her with agonizing slowness.
Every inch feels sacred. She arches beneath me, skin flushed rose-gold in the lamplight, nipples hard against my chest as I trace the delicate curve of her collarbone with my tongue.
When she comes, her body clenches around me like a fist, and I follow her over the edge with a broken groan.
We both pretend not to notice the tears that spill, mine or hers, but afterwards we just hold on, silent, until eventually the world shrinks to nothing but the damp sheets and the thundering of our hearts against each other’s skin.
It’s only day three of the press tour, and already I know this is either the best or worst decision I’ll ever make.
But for now, I let myself believe it's the best.