Page 77 of Asher Black (The Five Syndicates)
I think.
Sort of.
So, maybe that means I have four and a half friends?
I shower, blow dry my hair, and put on makeup, keeping it light. Thanks to Eduardo’s lessons, I know that polo is mostly played in an indoor arena during the New York winters, even during the tail end of winter.
So, I pick out a white fitted dress and a fashionable light grey coat to wear over it. I add a pink statement necklace and nude Louboutins to the outfit. Stepping back, I look at my reflection in the mirror. Tommy and Eduardo would be proud.
And then I wait, realizing I still have another fifteen minutes before I have to leave. I pull out the binder with the questionnaires from months ago, anxious about what I might have to know about Asher for tonight. I have all my flashcards memorized by now, but I’m still nervous.
After all, this will be the first time in a long time that we’ve gone out together. On top of that, it’s the first time we’ll be in front of his coworkers after we announced our engagement… which is starting to be less and less believable with each passing day.
I skim through the binder, everything looking familiar until I encounter a bump in one of the binder’s pockets. I didn’t notice it before, but now, there are lines indented into the binder material from being stretched by the folded piece of paper for a long duration of time.
I take it out and read through it. It’s an activity worksheet for getting fake couples used to intimacy in public. My best guess is Monica folded the paper up and hid it here before she gave us the binders. She clearly doesn’t want us touching, let alone kissing like this activity suggests.
I’m still staring at the paper when Asher comes in.
“What’s that?” he asks.
I study him. He’s already dressed for the match in fitted white dress pants, a white dress shirt and a tailored, navy blue sports blazer. There’s a white pocket square sticking out of the coat pocket. The casual polo outfit is at odds with the tenseness of his face.
I put the paper down on the bed and cautiously approach him. “What’s wrong?”
He hesitates, as if debating whether or not he wants to tell me, before he says, “I’m pissed.”
I can’t help but smile. “I can see that. What are you pissed off about?”
“I was on the jet headed to Dubai when I got a call from Monica, informing me that Black Enterprises bought a tent at the charity match today.”
“Okay…” I say, not seeing what is wrong with that.
Charity’s a good thing, right?
Asher’s company is pretty well-known for donating to a lot of causes. Before I met him, I thought it was just PR to distract from his reputation as a mobster, but now I know that he does it because of the way he was raised. He told me one night that Vincent’s generosity helped him escape a grim life, and he hopes he can do the same for someone else. I have never been more attracted to him than I was that night.
“I had to reroute the flight, wasting my time, the pilot’s time, the flight crew’s time and a lot of fuel. We had to drop the fuel into the ocean.” At my sharp look, he says, “It’s standard operating procedure. The fuel evaporates before it hits the ocean. No sea life is harmed in the process, Steve-O. Don’t go climbing any cranes now.”
I roll my eyes at his reference to Steve-O’s SeaWorld protest. “So you’re this mad about wasting time and fuel?”
I know him well enough to know there’s more to it. It takes a lot for him to show his anger.
He exhales. “No, I’m mad because I depend on my staff, on Monica, to keep an eye on things that I don’t have the time to do myself. That includes knowing well in advance when René goes behind my back, buys a tent at a charity event, and invites everyone on the board except me.”
Oh.
He’s mad that René might have gotten an opportunity to further his anti-Asher agenda, and Monica almost missed it. But that doesn’t seem like it’s all of it either. He already expects René to do something like this…
But Monica?
He wouldn’t hire her if she isn’t good at her job. Her slip up must have taken him by surprise. It’s no wonder she was so angry earlier when she informed me about the event.
I study him, looking for a reaction. “That’s not all, is it?”
He looks startled by my keen observation.
I blaze forward, “You’re not
