Page 10 of Scandal
Plus, if I’m being completely honest, I might need a friend right now too.
I don’t exactly have many.
My coworkers are nice, and I have a few neighbors I talk to every once in a while, but the kind of friends like Hen has? The ones you depend on like family?
No, I don’t have that kind of friend.
Does Asher?
I pull up my laptop, and before I type his name in the search bar, I make sure I close the privacy curtain. I don’t know why, but looking him up online feels wrong now that I’ve met him in real life.
But I need to understand what I’m getting into. So I do what I always do when faced with a challenge.
I research.
The number of results is overwhelming. Photos, news articles, fan sites, and everything in between. Asher Knight is beyond famous. His name has been synonymous with rock legends like Mick Jagger and Robert Plant ever since he and his boarding school friends decided to skip college and form a band instead.
“That must have pissed off his parents,” I mutter under my breath, remembering Asher once saying something at one of the Manic concerts about being distantly related to the king. I’m not sure he was joking or…
“Not joking,” I whisper, seeing a whole section of Asher’s Wikipedia page dedicated to his family’s lineage.
I know Wikipedia isn’t always correct, but this seemsverydetailed. And lengthy.
According to this, his father, Stuart Knight, is the Earl of Dunloch and the Viscount of Blackstone, titles bestowed on their family by Queen Elizabeth I.
Queen Elizabeth, are you kidding me?
Under quick facts, there is a note that his great-grandmother was a cousin to the queen, making him thirty-eighth in the line of succession.
What the actual fuck? What is the point of even counting that high?
His mother, Theodora, is the Countess of Dunloch and the Viscountess of Blackstone.
Their family estate, Blackstone House, is located in the countryside, about an hour’s drive from Edinburgh in a village called Iverloch.
Asher is listed as the heir apparent.
Heir apparent.As in, Asher will one day be a lord. Or, wait…an earl? I feel my nerves start to rise, and I try to swallow down the lump in my throat.
Part of me thought he was joking that night at my brother’s concert when he was confronted by Zara’s ex. Part of me thought that when Hendrix said estate, he really just meant a large house.
But this…this is way more than I am prepared for. This is butlers and maids. Staggering generational wealth. This is a six-course meal served on silver trays, with all those extra forks and spoons I always ignore at a nice restaurant.
I may have been born into a family with money, but we are from Malibu. We eat breakfast on the deck in our pajamas. We order Chinese for Christmas Eve, so my mom doesn’t have to stress cook.
When we dress up for award shows, we have the driver pick up burgers on the way home.
We don’t do fancy.
A quiet knock comes from the other side of the curtain. I take a quick breath and answer, “Yes?”
The blonde flight attendant from before pops her head in. My eyes dart to her name tag—something I should have done earlier.
Marcy.
“Just popped in to grab your tray.” She looks down to see my still full and now cold cup of tea. Her brows furrow. “Do you need me to come back, or?—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Sorry, I got distracted.”
