Asher (The Casanova Club Book 10) Read online

  My mother was stiffer than Piper as she regarded the way Piper held on to my arm. I liked the contact. And I liked that she needed me right now.

  My mother seemed less impressed. “What sort of name is that? Piper?”

  Piper held my mother’s stare. “Oh. Um. I know it’s odd. My parents thought I was going to be born a boy, you see. And my father wanted to name me Peter. When I was born, they changed it to Piper. Voila.” She shrugged and fidgeted with the skirt of her gown. My mother frowned at her anxiousness. “You know? Peter Piper picked a peck of—”

  “Charming,” my mother said, her nose lifted in the air. Her icy stare flicked to me. “We’ll speak later, Ash. Your father and I have guests to attend to.”

  Chapter 6

  Piper

  Somehow, in a matter of seconds, Asher’s mother had managed to make me feel like the ugly duckling in a room full of swans, not worthy of their attention or their kindness.

  I swallowed hard and avoided looking at Asher at all costs as he stared after his parents. They were making their way off through the crowd. People flocked to them in droves to say their hellos, and the smile the Lady of the House gave the other guests seemed warm and genuine.

  “Well.” I rolled my shoulders and stood up a little straighter as the boning in my dress started poking into my ribs. “We can safely assume your mother hates my guts and thinks I’m a total fraud.”

  Asher winced. “I’d say she starts to grow on you, but I’d be lying.”

  I almost smiled. “Is she always like that?”

  “Indubitably.” Asher tore his gaze from his retreating parents as a waiter passed by. He plucked two more wine glasses from the silver tray perched across the waiter’s forearm and replaced them with the empty ones in our hands. Then he gave me one. “Here. Drink. I find it’s the only way to cope with the general douche-baggery of a crowd like this.”

  I laughed. “I have to admit, this isn’t what I expected.”

  He arched a dark eyebrow at me, and I noticed the way the colors of his eyes shifted like clouds, blue and gray all at once. “What? Did you expect a bunch of royals all in one place to behave nicely?”

  “I hadn’t thought much about them, to be honest. I meant you. I didn’t expect you to be so…” I trailed off, unsure of what the right word was here.

  “Suave?”

  “No.”

  “Handsome?”

  I smiled. “No.”

  Asher ran a thumb along his sharp, clean-shaven jaw and scowled at the crowd in mock thoughtfulness. “Dashing?”

  “Ordinary,” I said. “Is that rude? To call someone ordinary?”

  “Quite the contrary.” Asher grinned. “I consider it the highest of compliments. I’d much prefer to fall in with the ordinary class than the extraordinary class. Look at them. A lot of self-righteous buffoons, if you ask me. Of course, nobody ever does ask me. I’m more of a party trick than anything else.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Asher put his hand in the small of my back and turned me away from the crowd. Then he gestured toward a set of stained-glass doors that led out to a stone balcony. “Walk with me, Piper.”

  Asher guided me gracefully across the floor. We wove through guests, whose head turned as if on swivels to watch us pass. Asher offered a few words of greeting to some of them. I noticed he stiffly ignored others. Before I knew it, we were closing the doors behind us, and my lungs were filling with fresh evening air.

  It smelled like roses and lavender out there. And basil. Asher walked me to the stone banister, where I braced myself and peered over the edge at the gardens below. The grounds were dark, but the occasional light planted in the soil illuminated great tangles of rose bushes and other plants. It was an elegant garden, perfectly kept, and out across the manicured lawn was a hedge maze.

  I should have expected such a thing at a house like this. They were in all the movies, after all.

  Asher sighed dramatically as he put his back to the garden and leaned up against the banister, resting his elbows on it and stretching his long legs out before him.

  I studied the lines of his face, the sharp angles of his features, his jaw, his brow bone, his nose. He was a very classically handsome man. Had I passed him on the street, I certainly would have stared.

  “So,” I said.

  “So.”

  “A party trick, huh?”

  Asher chuckled and nodded. His eyes slid from me to the door we’d come through. On either side were massive bay windows framed in gold curtains on the other side. From where we stood, we could see right into the party still underway inside. “It’s not a secret. I’m not the man my parents want me to be, and the whole family knows it. Hell, anyone in this city with half an interest in the Suttons knows it, too.”

  “What do they want you to be?” I put my back to the banister and copied his stance.

  Asher shrugged. “Anybody else, I suppose. Someone who takes his position more seriously. Who wants what they want.”

  “Which is?”

  “The mundane existence of a royal in London, my sweet Piper. Meetings, lavish affairs like this one, cricket, galas, and pretty women. Not too pretty, of course. That would be an invitation for trouble.”

  “And an English girl,” I stated.

  His cool blue gaze rolled lazily to me. He definitely had his mother’s eyes. “Yes. An English girl. I assumed by now, my mother would have gone through them all and exhausted all her options for suitable ladies for me to date. But she keeps pulling them out like rabbits from a magic hat.”

  “It sounds tedious.”

  “It is. And it’s exhausting, too. The same conversations over and over. The same expectations. I realized a long time ago I wouldn’t find the love of my life in one of these ballrooms. Or in London, for that matter.”

  “And is that what you’re looking for?” I asked. “The love of your life?”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  I shrugged. “I spent a month with both Easton and Cooper. I can assure you, not everyone is looking for the love of their life.”

  Asher threw his head back and laughed.

  The sound rolled across the stone balcony and out into the gardens. It rolled through me, too.

  When Asher had himself under control, he wiped the corners of his eyes with his knuckles. “Piper, you’re delightfully funny. You know that?”

  “I try.”

  “I feel for you. Spending so much one-on-one time with clowns like that. It’s a surprise you’re still standing and had enough nerve to keep going with this competition.”

  “They weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not,” I said, fighting against a fresh bout of laughter. “I mean it. My time with each of them started off a little rocky, but by the end of the month, I would consider us friends.”

  “Friends,” Asher mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Not lovers?”

  He was bold. Very bold. “No. Not lovers.”

  He cracked a wry grin. “Two down. That means I have nine potential competitors. That’s a little less daunting than eleven.”

  I hid my smile with my hair as I bowed my head and turned back toward the gardens. “Have you ever been in love, Asher?”

  He turned with me, and we both stared out at the expanse below. “No, I don’t think I have. Have you?”

  I bit my bottom lip and nodded.

  Asher was quiet for a moment. Then softly, he asked, “Are you in love now?”

  Time slowed down as I worked up the nerve to look at him. “I think so,” I whispered.

  He nodded and folded his arms on the banister. “It’s all right, Piper. You don’t owe me anything. And I knew coming into this so late would put me at a disadvantage. Trust me, I’m not naive enough to think I had this in the bag just because of my bloodline. I’m not like those fools.” He tipped his head toward the mansion, toward the “fools” inside. “It is what it is. Besides, a gi
rl like you probably wouldn’t want to throw her lot in with a guy like me, anyway.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You’d be in over your head here, Piper. Can you imagine having my mother as your mother-in-law?”

  I worked to hide my grimace. “I’m sure she’d come around eventually.”

  “She’d be more likely to push you out of the family.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. A commitment to me is a commitment to this family and the responsibilities that come with being a royal. And I understand if that’s asking too much. If you wish, I can call Jackson Lee and have you on a plane tomorrow morning.”

  I blinked. “Sorry?”

  “Look, let’s just be real with each other. There’s no sense in beating around the bush over this.” He faced me directly and looked into my eyes like he was reading the essence of my soul. “If you know this isn’t right and you want to spare yourself from the shit that’s going to come with being with me this month, I understand. I don’t expect you to stay.”

  He was offering me an out. A very easy out. It was a chance to go home for an entire month, collect my thoughts and the broken pieces of my heart and hopefully put myself back together. It was a chance to show up at my family’s restaurant every morning to help out with the workload until they forgave me.

  It was a chance to visit Levi.

  Or some of the others.

  Or none of them.

  I frowned. It wouldn’t be right to bail on Asher. The fact that he’d taken risks to be in the Casanova Club and jeopardized his relationship with his family meant he really wanted this. Or at least wanted it enough to give it a fair shot. The least I could do was the same thing.

  “I don’t want to go,” I said evenly.

  His eyebrows crept upward. “Really?”

  “Really. I want to stay. Whatever your mother throws at me, I can take it. Like I said, I spent time with Easton and Cooper. I can do anything.”

  He laughed again. “Let’s get the hell out of here. What do you say?”

  “Where will we go?”

  “I could really go for a burger.”

  I laughed.

  Asher took my hand and winked. “I wasn’t joking. Now let’s go before someone notices we’re gone and traps me in a conversation about their great-great grandmother’s missing ring.”

  Chapter 7

  Asher

  Since Piper arrived in London on the first, I’d done everything in my power to squeeze in as much time with her as humanly possible.

  That included sneaking out of the mansion like a sixteen-year-old to meet her for brunch on Thursday after she arrived. We sat on a patio sipping mimosas and eating crepes while she told me all about her friend, Janie, and how she joined the Casanova Club in the first place.

  Antoni had arrived to drive Piper back to her hotel and take me back to the estate. After dropping her off, we took the long way around Kensington Gardens to go back to Sutton Place.

  “Did you enjoy your time with her this morning?” Antoni asked.

  I glanced over at him. “I did. She’s quite charming, you know.”

  “But not charming enough to please your mother.”

  “No. Perhaps not. But my mother isn’t the one dating her, is she?”

  Antoni chuckled as the light turned green. He scanned the intersection before pulling forward. He’d always taken his responsibilities as my employee very seriously, including watching out for my safety. “Can you imagine the scandal that would be? Lady Sutton in a relationship with another woman? Heads would roll.”

  “Stop. I don’t need to envision a thing like that.”

  “I don’t know. Your mom is kind of hot.”

  “Enough.”

  He flashed me a devilish smile. “I’m messing with you. Come on. You and I both know no other woman on this planet could put up with your mother. How your father does it, I have no idea.”

  “I believe they’ve slept in different beds since I was born.”

  “No,” Antoni exclaimed.

  “I’d bet money on it.”

  Antoni frowned as we hooked a left to come back down the west side of the gardens. Women pushed babies in strollers, and couples sat under trees cuddled up together. “I think your mother just needs to let her hair down.”

  “I’m done trying to show her what happiness feels like. She’s too concerned with appearances and what people think to indulge in anything that doesn’t improve her reputation.”

  We approached the wrought-iron gates at the edge of the Sutton property. Antoni clicked the remote attached to the visor above the driver’s seat, and the gates slowly swung inward. He coasted slowly down the long winding paved road through the gardens, another opportunity for my mother to show off her taste and class to any and all who came through those gates. The flowers, mostly roses, were perfectly pruned and only in shades of white, red, and pale pink. Soon, when the cold weather rolled in, the petals would curl up and die and litter the grass.

  Mother would not allow guests until the grounds and garden crew prepped the property for the cold winter season.

  “Have you told Piper about the masquerade?” Antoni asked as we approached the open courtyard before the mansion.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to scare her off. One party was enough. I’ll tell her about the ball later.”

  “Do you think she’ll come?”

  “I hope so.”

  The car came to a stop, and Antoni draped his wrists over the steering wheel. “Do you need me to drive you tomorrow?”

  “No, that’s all right. I think I’m going to whisk Piper away from her hotel room for the day.” Antoni watched as I took off my seatbelt and slid out of the car. I paused in the doorway and leaned back in. “Take the rest of the day off, will you? I’m going to be tied up in the house for the rest of the afternoon. You might as well enjoy yourself. At least one of us can.”

  My friend gave me a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll tell you all about it later, and you can live vicariously through me.”

  “What are mates for?” I grinned. Then I closed the door and turned toward the house as he pulled away.

  I slid my hands in my pant pockets as I walked the rest of the way across the cobblestone courtyard to the front doors. Our doorman pulled them open for me. I couldn’t recall his name. It was something simple and short like Bert or Ron or something, but there was no sense in remembering because my mother had a tendency to fire the help whenever they made a simple misstep.

  For example, if Bert or Ron were to open the door two seconds too early or two seconds too late, she’d have him banished from the grounds, and his replacement would be hired within the week.

  The heels of my oxfords clipped against the foyer floors. Sometimes, I wondered if my family had never updated all the stone specifically so they could hear when someone came in. Specifically, their rule-bending child.

  I was making my way to the base of the stairs when a head poked out of one of the sitting rooms off the foyer. My father.

  He was dressed comfortably in slacks and a navy-blue sweatshirt that matched his slippers. He smiled when he saw me. “Good morning, son. Come sit with us a minute. It feels like we haven’t seen you in weeks.”

  “You see me daily.”

  “Quality time, son. Quality time. Come. It’s just me and your mother right now.”

  I was under no illusion that this was going to be “quality time”, but I moved toward the sitting room anyway and, upon entering, took a seat on the sofa across from my parents. My mother wore a pair of flowing black pants and a loose blouse cut high on the neck. She was the epitome of class, even at this time of the day on a Thursday.

  I crossed one leg over the other and waited expectantly.

  “We’ve been wanting to talk to you all week, Ash,” my mother said. She held her head high as she spoke. Her back was straight, and her gaze was cool. Calm. Calculating.

  “About?”


  “About the girl you brought to the dinner party on Monday,” she said stiffly. I could hear the distaste in her voice.

  “What about her?” I asked. I knew I was poking the bear. Questions like this always led down paths I didn’t like.

  My parents exchanged a look. Then my father said, “She’s an American.”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “A New Yorker to boot.”

  “She’s simple,” my mother said.

  “There is elegance in simplicity.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” my mother said shortly.

  I sighed, uncrossed my legs, and leaned forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “Then by all means, tell me what you meant, Mother. Or would you prefer to engage in this tiresome back and forth where you make broad statements and expect me to know your real intent.”

  My mother licked her lips. “She is an inappropriate person for you to spend time with. And so publicly.”

  “Because she’s American?” I asked dryly.

  “Because she’s bad for your reputation,” my mother said.

  “I don’t give a damn about my reputation. Only you care about that nonsense.”

  “You can do better, son,” my father said. He was leaning back in his corner of the sofa like he didn’t really want to participate in this conversation. “It’s understandable that a girl like her would be appealing to someone in your position. She’s beautiful, and she seems sweet, but you have to be honest with yourself. She’s not suited to a lifestyle like this.”

  This was normal behavior on his part. If given the chance, I was sure he’d have left this room before I entered. But my mother would have ripped a strip off him if he wasn’t there by her side for this. They’d been the same since I was a boy. A united front.

  I’d desperately wished for a sibling when I was growing up. I wanted someone to share the burden with. Someone who would take half of their attention off of me.

  Someone who could fill the shoes my parents expected me to fill.

  I stood. “Look, I appreciate your concern, regardless of how misplaced it is. But I’m not going to call this off with Piper. We’re just starting to get to know each other, and she’ll be in London until the end of the month.”