Page 14 of Always Mine (The Barrington Billionaires 1)
His phone rang. Surprisingly, it was his brother, Ian. There weren’t many subjects on which he and Ian saw eye to eye, so they didn’t speak often. Usually Ian was the harbinger of family news. Hopefully it wouldn’t interfere with the closest thing to a vacation Asher had taken in a decade. “Ian.”
“Asher, Andrew called this morning. He’ll be in Boston near the end of April on a one-week leave. Mom wants everyone to stay over while he’s there.”
“I’m flying over to Europe today. I have a lot going on right now. I’ll be there if I can be.”
“This is important. You know how she gets around this time of year.”
Asher wasn’t willing to reopen the topic of why. More harshly than intended, he growled, “I’ll be there if I can.”
“Make it happen,” Ian said in a tone that reminded Asher of their father, which wasn’t surprising since Ian was Dale Barrington’s clone. Hopefully his political career fared better. “Hey, Mom told me to suggest you bring your girlfriend with you. I didn’t realize you had just one or that any of them would be the type Mom would like, but she’s talked about this one so much I am curious about her. Emily something. She sounds nice. What the hell is she doing with you?”
Asher glanced hopefully at the door of Emily’s house. Any reason for ending the call then would have been welcome. “Do me a favor and explain to Mom that she’s looking for fire where there isn’t even smoke.” It was a lie, but a necessary one. The less his family knew about Emily the better, especially if wedding bells were already ringing in his mother’s head. He never introduced the women he dated to his family, and he wasn’t about to start with Emily. He couldn’t explain how he felt about Emily to himself; he wasn’t about to try with anyone else.
“I’m not explaining anything. If dreaming about you getting married keeps her mind off the past, I’ll help her pick names for your fucking kids.”
“Thanks,” Asher said sarcastically. He understood Ian’s stance, but he wasn’t about to encourage it. Most of the time their mother was upbeat and active. During April of every year for the last twenty-seven years, though, she’d teetered on depression. As young children, he and his siblings had been afraid of the depth of her grief. As adults they understood her pain was from a loss that had an anniversary. “Tell her I’ll be there.”
“Should I say you’re bringing anyone with you?”
“No, because I’m not,” Asher said and hung up on his brother as soon as he saw Emily exit the door of her home. She shot him a tentative smile he found adorable, considering how intimately they knew each other. He pushed off the side of the car and met her halfway up her path. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
She searched his face before answering. “Yes and no.”
She didn’t volunteer more, and he didn’t push her to explain. He walked her back to the car and helped her in before walking around to his side. Once they were on a main road and headed toward his home, he took her hand in his and laid it on his thigh. It was a simple touch but one that elicited a strong reaction in him. She belonged with him, to him. He wasn’t normally a possessive man, but that was the only way he could describe how he felt around her. Although he’d read her background check, it only skimmed the surface of what he wanted to know. “You’ve never mentioned family beyond your mother and grandfather.”
Emily’s hand clenched on his thigh, then relaxed. “I don’t have any.”
“What about your father?” Asher asked. He didn’t like to think of her without a network of family. Although his family drove him crazy most of the time, they would be there for him if he needed them.
Emily pushed a wayward curl back into her ponytail. “My mother met him during the one year she went to college. She said they loved each other very much but his family didn’t approve of her. They saw her as a burden. They couldn’t have known her at all because she wasn’t—not one day of her life.”
The idea of any man tossing Emily and her mother aside filled Asher with an anger that had no outlet, so he kept it where he kept the rest of his emotions, locked deep inside. “Did you ever meet him?”
Emily’s hand shook slightly below his. “I thought about it once. I have his name, and I considered tracking him down, but I decided not to. If he loved my mother at all, he did a poor job of it. Why would I think he’d make a good father?”
The touch of sadness in her voice moved him in a way not much else did. He was a man of action who allowed himself very little time for deep reflection. In some ways, he and his brother Andrew were more similar than either liked to admit. When the then eighteen-year-old Andrew had announced he had joined the Marines, not many people in their circle had understood why he would choose to risk his life when he could have safely lived off his trust fund. Asher had understood. There had been a feeling of quiet desperation in their home when they were young that none of them acknowledged, but each of them overcame in their own way. Asher and Andrew had each gone to battle: Asher in the business world and Andrew on actual battlefields. Normally discussing family issues brought Asher back to a time when he’d had less control over his life, and therefore, he avoided those topics with his friends and most definitely with his female companions.
It was different with Emily. He felt her sadness as if it were his own, and it confused him. It took listening to her talk about her museum and her family for him to realize how little he cared about anything outside of work. He loved his family, but he didn’t go out of his way to see them. He was too busy. “Your father might not know you exist.”
Emily’s expression hardened. “Then shame on him. If he never cared enough to look in on my mother to make sure she was okay after he left her, then he doesn’t deserve to know about me.”
It was a harder stance than he would have imagined Emily taking on any topic, especially one of family. The way she passed judgment on her father left him feeling unsettled. Emily had strong ideas when it came to what was important to her and often her beliefs were in direct opposition with how he lived his life. “I would have thought you’d advocate forgiveness for all.”
Emily gave him an odd look. “Then I guess you don’t know me very well.”
He laced his fingers with hers. They were quiet for a moment and her comment hung in the air. He was used to women trying to impress or flirt outrageously with him. More often than not they talked about fashion or the latest gossip. Emily wasn’t like that. She was . . . real, and it took some getting used to.
Emily was the first to break the silence. “What about you? You’re the oldest of six? It’s hard to imagine you with your family.”
He raised an eyebrow as he asked, “Why is that?”
Emily waved her free hand in the air. “I’ve probably watched too much television. When I imagine a big family, I picture everyone sitting around an enormous table and teasing each other mercilessly.” She looked him over. “Laughing.”
“You don’t think I’m funny?” he asked with a straight face.
Emily met his eyes and said, “Tell me a joke and I’ll let you know.”
That was a part of Emily he enjoyed. She pushed him beyond his norm. Asher wasn’t known for his humor, but he wasn’t one to back down from a challenge either. “What makes every snowman smile?”
Emily shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Snowblowers.”
Emily’s expression remained as serious as his then she burst out laughing. “That is the lamest joke I’ve ever heard.”
Asher remembered thinking the same thing when Andrew had told it to him. “One of my brothers considers himself a connoisseur of one-liners, and his time in the Marines has only added to his repertoire.”
“Are you close to your brothers?”
“Not very,” Asher said, and in that moment the admission wasn’t one he was proud of. From the outside his family looked as close to perfect as any family could. His parents were still happily married. Each of his siblings had done well in their chosen careers. They hardly
fought. They weren’t a big enough part of each other’s lives to have anything to argue about. It was his parents who pulled them back together again and again. Without his parents, Asher was reasonably certain interactions with his brothers and sisters would be nearly non-existent.
“Tell me about them,” Emily requested as if she could sense the conflict within him.
