Page 35 of In Case You Didn't Know

The night air is cool and crisp, a shock after the stuffy Uber ride. I pause on the steps, trying to pull myself together.

Dinner with Myles.

I think I’d rather come face to face with a fire-breathing dragon.

eleven

ASHER

Either I’m a glutton for punishment or I take rejection very, very badly. Quite possibly both. Truth is, since the night I felt her come all over my fingers while she devoured my lips with her own like I was some kind of god, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Francie Salinger.

She’s too young, I tell myself as my cock hardens.

She’s not your type, I remind myself as I fist it, remembering her ragged breaths against my mouth.

She’s way too fucking forbidden, I think as I come all over my hand.

Christ, I need to get her out of my system.

It’s been months now, and every day I’ve been a hair’s breadth away from storming over to her apartment to demand she explain why she left without saying a word.

But I don’t chase. I don’t give second chances. And most of all, I don’t play games.

If she doesn’t want to talk about it, fine. Let her run away.

The next time I see her at a family party, I’ll pretend it never happened.

Even if it did something to me. Even if I woke up the next morning, sheets somehow smelling like her, with a hollow ache in my chest I couldn’t name.

After a long, cold shower, I pull on my clothes. A Tom Ford suit because his tailoring fits me like a glove – I have five of them in different shades of blue and gray – a Brioni white cotton shirt with French cuffs, and a Kiton patterned silk tie that knots like a dream.

When my driver drops me off at the corner of Ellery and Eighth, the sun is just starting to set, casting a salmon-pink glow over the New York skyline.

“Can you come back at ten?” I ask him. I’m not planning on staying long. Truth is, I’d rather not be here at all.

But Myles Salinger was the one who contacted me, wanting my firm to upgrade his security systems. The actual work will be carried out by one of my top teams, but as a family friend, it only felt right that I had the initial meeting with him.

And since he was staying the night in Manhattan, something he told me he hates doing, he suggested we meet for dinner at his club.

The Langston Club is as discreet as it is imposing. A monument to old money and power. Five stories of brownstone rise up from the sidewalk, with Georgian windows and intricate black ironwork that speak to another era. One where men made deals that industrialized America.

A liveried doorman nods at me as he opens the door. “Mr. Salinger is expecting you,” he says. “In the Amber Room.”

For a second, I’m reminded of the Ivory Rooms. Same low-level elegance, completely different purpose. That place is about fucking. This one is about fucking people over.

But they’re both about money. And lots of it.

“Asher?” a soft voice says. The familiarity of it makes my stomach twist.

A tall blonde in a long black dress walks toward me.

“Annalise.” I keep my voice flat. She angles her head like she expects me to kiss her cheek. I don’t.

“Are you still salty with me?” she asks, pouting her lips like she didn’t try to screw me over in every way possible. “Can’t we let bygones be bygones?”

The way she says it – flirty, familiar, like she still thinks she has power over me – makes my blood boil.

“I’m not salty,” I say. “I’m just not interested in talking to assholes.”