A Pitbull song plays through the pool area, and I absentmindedly sway my hips to the melody. I’m not a dancer, at all. I love music but have always been rhythmically challenged. Even still, I am a fantastic seat dancer. Kind of like how I was dancing this morning in Asher’s car. I smile at the thought of Asher letting loose, too. It was a completely different side of him I’d never seen before.
“Enjoying yourself?”
My sashaying hips are halted by the sounds of said fellow seat dancer. If I thought him dancing was a new experience, seeing him in shorts is another. He looks so casual.
Wearing a black bathing suit and white shirt, Asher saunters up to my chair with two drinks in hand. I grab mine from him and take in how his highlights almost dance in the sunlight.
He must sense my embarrassment by the way he quickly settles himself in.
“Glad one of us is having a good time. I just had the meeting from hell. The fucker won’t give in to my offer.” Asher takes the seat next to me, his skin glowing against the crisp white of the lounge cushion.
I sit up slightly. “Sorry the deal’s not going to happen.”
His enigmatic smile crosses over his face. “Oh, it’s going to happen. I always get what I want. Some things just take a little more time.”
He kicks off his shoes and leans forward, grabbing the back of his shirt and hoisting it over his head. The muscles in his back flex as he raises his body back up. His arms pull the T-shirt over his head in what seems like slow motion.
My jaw unlocks at the site of perfectly formed abdominal muscles… six… no, eight of them. I’m thinking this is what the term “washboard abs” is supposed to mean.
His waist is narrow and widens, revealing a broad chest and broader shoulders supported by two beautifully sculpted biceps and forearms. Asher lifts the shirt farther over his head and throws it on the end of the chaise. He’s like Thor, but without the hammer.
Thank God for sunglasses. I place my head back on my chair and wipe the drool from my mouth. I hear Asher laugh, and I hope it’s not at me. I grab my cocktail and inhale it, looking for a distraction.
Seeing my glass empty, a waitress no older than twenty-two saunters up. Before I can ask for a refill, she stops in her tracks to admire Apollo, the god of the sun, sitting to my left. I immediately hate her.
Asher places his hand on mine, and the waitress frowns.
That’s right. He’s mine!
Wait, what? Looking down at our hands, I realize he’s merely getting my attention.
“Let’s have Sex on the Beach,” Asher says haughtily.
My head leaps up. “What?”
His husky laugh penetrates my body. “To drink. Let’s have two Sex on the Beach drinks. Though I like where your head’s at.”
I nod to the waitress, confirming that’s what we’ll have, and she scurries off.
“You’re incorrigible!” I take my hand back.
“God, I love spending time with you.” His smile eases me. “Don’t get mad at me, but I’m going to say something and I have no apologies for saying it.”
I raise my eyebrows in curiosity.
“You look fucking hot in that bikini.”
I am beyond taken aback that my boss thinks I’m hot. Especially since he’s this beautiful, successful, giving man who teaches music to underprivileged kids yet has time to run a multimillion-dollar corporation.
“Thank you. You look pretty good yourself.” I try not give away too much. I want to lick the sweat off his chest, but that would be entirely inappropriate.
Jesus Christ, what is wrong with me?
“I’m glad you approve. And I have to thank the woman who picked out that suit for you. Did you have any trouble with the sizes?”
“Her name is Avalyn, and I’ve already made a mental note to thank her. And, yes, the sizes are perfect. How did you know?”
“Years of practice, I guess,” he says as the waitress quickly returns with our drinks. “Come on, let’s get drunk!”
I lift my files from my lap and hold them in front of his face.
“Work first,” I reprimand.
He lets out a deep laugh. “Yes. I want to hear all the ideas you have in that pretty little head of yours.”
Asher walks us over to a private cabana where we can sit at a table and get some actual work done. It’s beyond bizarre conducting business in a bikini, but when in Rome…
Thankfully, Asher has put his shirt back on and grimaces at my paperwork, confused as to why I’m working without a computer like a Neanderthal. His words, not mine.
I’m pleasantly surprised he likes most of what I’ve completed. If he’s disappointed that I don’t have some things in the final stages, he doesn’t let on. Not surprisingly, he has a few good suggestions of his own. I write them all down with pure anticipation. This concert is going to rock!
When we’re finished, Asher has our private concierge deliver a special meal from Mr. Chow. We spend the rest of the early evening eating sushi, drinking saki, and talking about how we made our respected careers. My career path is shorter and not as exciting, so my contribution to the conversation is short.
The sun starts to set as he tells me about interning at his grandfather’s insistence and learning about buying companies and rebuilding them. I was shocked to learn his first business venture was more about impressing a girl than it was about making money.
“Candy.”
“Candy? Was she a stripper?”
Asher laughs. “No, she was not a stripper.”
“Was she a candy striper?”
“No! She was not a candy striper.” He laughed. “What is it with you trying to ruin the story of my first love?”
“Spill it, Asher. Was she a palm reader?”
Tossing a bite of sushi in his mouth, Asher holds up a finger, his mouth still chewing.
“Candace was the daughter of an executive I worked for. He didn’t think I was good enough for her because I worked as a broker and he had bigger plans for his little princess. You see, even though my name is Asher, I was a troublemaker and people assumed I only got the job because of my grandfather’s connections. Well, actually, that is why I got the job. No one thought I’d amount to much. Truth is I didn’t care if I did or didn’t. All I wanted to do was play music. I wanted to work for a record label, but my grandfather insisted I take a job as a broker.”
I eye him inquisitively. “You don’t seem to me like the kind of person who does what others tell him to do.”
My words must have caught him because his brows furrow with a look bearing a hint of resignation. “At the end of the day, I am an Asher, and with the family name comes great responsibility. My grandfather… he has rules and is very strict about how they should be obeyed.”
From the little I know about Asher, I understand he’s an orphan. A boy who lost his mother at ten years old and went to live with his grandfather, who it seems was a tyrant at home. From my head to the tips of my toes, I am dying to ask him more about his family, but I know with Asher, there is only so far you can go without him diverting the conversation.
“So how did you prove to the girl you were good enough?” I ask instead.
Seemingly grateful for the question, he nods and answers, “By making my first million buying a small textile company and reselling it, which I was only able to do because my grandfather gave me the capital. I don’t like to lie about how I got started. After my first big venture, everything snowballed from there. It was easy to buy and sell, and if all goes well, I will be buying my own record label so I can live my true passion, music.”
“And philanthropy!” I interject.
“And philanthropy. Yes, it’s a large part of my life.”
“So what happened? Where is Candy? Why aren’t you married with kids and living in Greenwich or somewhere?”
He kicks back a shot of saki. “Well, she did want me, but for all the wrong reasons. I knew then that I would never know who loved me for me and not for this,” he says, waving his hand in the air at our surroundings. “I don’t trust people for a reason.”