Chapter 1 Asher
ASHER
ONE MONTH LATER
My desk phone buzzes. “Your father would like to see you,” Matthew, my personal assistant, says through the intercom on my desk phone.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, but he doesn’t sound happy, if that helps.”
I roll my eyes and hold in a groan. What now?
I’ve had a shit morning. One of our subsidiary companies had an accident in their warehouse last night and five people were sent to the hospital.
They’re all okay, thank god, but that’s the second time in the last six months that something like that has happened.
This is not something I take lightly, and I won’t allow the employees back on the floor until we can figure out what’s going on—their safety is not worth the risk.
But I don’t have time to be distracted by whatever it is my father wants when I need to get to the bottom of this.
“Tell him I’m busy.”
“No can do, he’s adamant.”
“Did you tell him what Declan and I are dealing with, with Greenspan?”
Declan is my brother and the COO of our company.
He’s in charge of all our companies’ operations, and he’s assured me that the proper protocols and procedures are in place, and yet these accidents keep happening.
It’s a major problem and it will only get worse once the board hears about it.
They already consider Greenspan a liability because it’s a research and development operation, so as of now, not only does Greenspan not make profits, it’s bleeding money like a damn severed artery.
Whatever my father wants, I really don’t have time for it right now.
“He knows, and he said this takes precedence.”
I shove away from my desk and mutter under my breath as I exit my office and head to my father’s.
My father stepped down as CEO of Langford Holdings six months ago and passed the reins to me.
He hasn’t retired yet, but is staying on for the first year as the transition of CEO shifts to me.
So, while I technically hold all the power, he still holds a lot of sway in the company for six more months.
Not that I’m eager to push him out; my father and I get along well, and he’s taught me a lot about being CEO to one of the largest companies in the world, but with our problems with Greenspan this morning, my patience is waning quickly.
“You wanted to see me?” I bark as I walk into his office.
He’s at his desk, reading what looks like a magazine. He looks up from it, and the glare in his eyes could burn.
“This was brought to me this morning,” he says, tossing the magazine onto his desk. “Do you know what it says?”
I groan internally. With these magazines, it could be anything.
“It’s an interesting story about you having an affair with a married woman. A Charlotte Edwards. There are even pictures of the two of you kissing in a restaurant. And a few more of her exiting your car, holding your hand. Did you know she was married?”
“No,” I say, annoyed, but not wholly surprised. “She definitely didn’t tell me she was married.”
“Did you even ask?”
“No. I assume that when women come on to me, they aren’t married.”
“Ah, how sweetly naive of you. She came onto you, did she?”
“Why do you ask that?” I snap.
“Because the article insinuates that it wasn’t merely a flash affair. They’re speculating that you pressured Charlotte into sleeping with you.”
“What? That’s bullshit. I don’t have to pressure women into sleeping with me. They’re practically lined up to.”
“Don’t I know that all too well,” my father says in a scathing tone. “And now, because of your habit of taking almost no care to learn about the women you sleep with, you’ve made yet another huge mistake that makes us look bad in the press.”
“I’m sorry we got some bad press over it. It will blow over, just like all the others.”
My father’s face turns to stone. “Just like the all the others,” he repeats, deadpan. “Do you even hear yourself, Asher? Your name has been dragged in these trash magazines for so long that you’ve become accustomed to it.”
“Everyone with money and names like ours gets dragged through the media. Even you, on occasion.”
“You’re right. But the difference is, the articles written about me are always false and easily disputed.
I can’t say the same for you. The media vultures get these articles right more than they get them wrong with you.
But that’s not even the worst part, son.
Do you want to know what the worst part is? ”
“What?” I say, growing irritated. My father gets annoyed with me at times, but I haven’t seen him this upset with me in a while.
“Charlotte Edwards is the wife of Henry Edwards.”
Oh, fuck.
I open my mouth to respond, but there is nothing to say. I won’t even try to make an excuse. Henry Edwards sits on our board. And now I’ve fucked his wife. Of course my father is livid. I’m livid, myself. How could I do something so stupid?
“The board has called an emergency meeting. We’re due in there in five minutes.”
I massage my temples. “Has Henry seen the article?”
“Of course he’s seen it. All of the board members have seen it. And I can tell you now, they are tired of your playboy ways, Asher.”
My father’s words don’t just extend to the board.
They’re just as true for him and my mother.
They’ve made no secret of their disappointment with my lifestyle.
My father wants me to follow in his footsteps, and professionally, I am.
If anything, I’m even more successful than he is, and I plan to not only continue the legacy of the Langford family, but to take it to even greater heights.
But that’s not what he’s worried about. He wants me to follow in his footsteps, relationship wise as well.
And that’s where we differ. I don’t know what he did to deserve my mother, but he was beyond blessed to find someone like her.
Their story is like a real-life fairytale, and what I can’t get him to understand is that he is an anomaly.
Fairytales like his and my mother’s are rare, and they don’t come along to just anyone.
I’ve tried to tell him a relationship like that is just not in the cards for me. He refuses to listen.
Growing up as a Langford, everyone has always known who I am and what family I belong to.
We’re one of the “old” families of New York.
Our fortune was built over two centuries ago, and we were one of the lucky ones to continue to flourish through all the changes of the modern world.
Now we own one of the largest companies on the planet, Langford Holdings, and our empire is known and revered globally.
But there’s a downside to that. Our family is often referred to as American royalty, and that is only heightened by the fact that my mother actually hails from aristocracy on her father’s side.
She is from England, and is closely related to the British monarchy, so between my father’s family legacy, and my mother’s aristocratic title, our family is about as famous as you can get.
There’s very little privacy and very few opportunities to interact with people who don’t already know who I am and who don’t already have motives and money signs flashing in their eyes the minute they meet me.
A decade ago, after a string of girlfriends that would literally try to do anything to become a “Mrs. Langford,” I gave up on finding love.
Fun and casual is all I have offered women since.
And now that I’ve spent ten years tasting the variety of beautiful women this world has to offer without the burden of worrying about relationships, I can’t imagine anything else.
Why settle down when I can have almost any woman I want whenever I want?
Marriage is an outdated institution, and I don’t need it. No matter what my father thinks.
Sighing, I follow my father into the boardroom.
The tension in the air is thick with anger and disappointment as I take my seat at the head of the table, with my father to my right and brother Declan to my left.
My brother Sterling heads up our London office, so his face appears on a screen at the back of the room.
My family’s presence brings me a little solace.
At least I have them to back me. They may be pissed at me, but they would never betray me.
We are Langford’s above all else, and family and legacy is our unspoken motto.
Down the table from me, Henry’s expression could melt iron.
He’s glaring at me with every ounce of hate he has in him, and I can’t exactly blame him.
I feel awful. I never would have slept with Charlotte if I’d known she was married, and I especially wouldn’t have slept with the wife of one of our board members.
But I’d had no idea. Henry is in his early sixties, and Charlotte is in her early thirties, so it never even occurred to me that she could be his wife.
Not that it’s any excuse. As my father said, I’ve not been in the best habit of looking into the women I sleep with before I sleep with them.
That habit has bitten me in the ass more than once.
But never as bad as this.
“I presume you’ve seen the article,” Janet, one of the oldest members of the board, says.
“I have. And while I will make no excuses for my behavior, I do want it on the record that I had no idea Charlotte was Henry’s wife.
” I look at Henry. Shames settles low in my gut, and I don’t really know what the hell to do to make this better, but I have to try something.
“I would like to formally apologize to you, Henry. You have my deepest regrets. I am truly sorry that this happened. I will do what I must to make whatever amends I can.”