Page 61 of From Asher, With Love

I press my hand to my forehead. “Asher…” I croak. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much this means to me.”

The frayed edges surrounding the place in my heart for Asher slowly start to mend. I don’t know what this means for us. For years, I held so much anger toward him for the way he left. And when he came back into my life the anger was all too real. But now, I’m realizing that while the anger was still alive, so was the love I had for him.

“You mean a lot to me, Charleigh.” He reassures all my thoughts with that single sentence.

Then… silence. There’s silence between us, and I know if he were here, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from kissing him.

“Listen.” He exhales heavily. “I have a board meeting here in a little while, and another meeting with a client after, but once I’m all finished up I’ll come down to shop to help move the flowers over or anything else you might need.”

I drop my shoulders. “Thank you, Asher.”

“You’re welcome, Little Flower.”

When I hang up, I place my phone on the table and get back to work, until I notice Julianna and Selene aren’t moving. I look up to find four gorgeous, wide eyes staring at me.

“Don’t.” I point a stiff finger at them before wagging it around the room. “We’re not talking about this right now. We have work to do.”

But when I look down and shove another flower in the vase, I can’t help but smile.

An hour later,the girls and I have finished arranging the last bouquet and gathered a few of them to take over to the Trinity Hotel for our first run. A few minutes after ending my call withAsher, I walked the three buildings down the hotel and told the front desk clerk who I was. She showed me all the refrigerators in the kitchen before taking me to the staff entrance at the back, which would make it easier to use. The refrigerators were more than enough for the sweet sixteen order and all the flowers I hadn’t been able to fit, regardless. I decided to close the shop for the day, considering I knew this would probably eat up most of my day.

I’ve just completed my second run over to the hotel when my phone rings in my pocket. I’m hoping it’s Asher, but my chest deflates when I see Cyrus Temper’s name instead.

“Hello?” I answer.

“Hi, Charleigh Keeler? This is Amanda at Cyrus Temper’s office. I’m connecting you with Mr. Temper now.”

I pull the phone away from my ear, confused with her introduction. “Oh, um, okay.”

Barely a second passes before I hear Cyrus on the other end. “Ms. Keeler,” he practically sings. “How are you?”

The tone in his voice is odd. In the times I’ve spoken with him, Cyrus is a fairly stiff man. In a way, he reminds me of my father. He is always in business mode, but today, he has a bit of personality. “I’m doing okay. Better now than earlier, actually. How are you?”

“You never emailed me back with your thoughts on the listings I sent you. Unfortunately, a few of them are off the market now.”

I blink rapidly. Apparently, we’re skipping the artificial pleasantries.

“I’m sorry I never got back to you.” I press my hand to my forehead. “I’ve been incredibly busy.”

He huffs, then clicks his tongue. “Well, that’s precisely why we were looking for a bigger shop for you, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes.” I swallow. “But I?—"

“It looks like I have a few other listings I can send your way,”he interrupts. “The market is tightening, so we’ll want to jump on these as soon as possible.”

I open my mouth to tell Cyrus I’m reconsidering working with Asher. In our first meeting, I briefly told him I was working with another agent, and when he pressed me on who, I caved and told him it was Asher. He hasn’t brought him up since, but I didn’t miss the way his jaw clenched at the mention of his name.

My confession sits at the edge of my tongue until Julianna bursts through the door with the biggest fucking grin I’ve ever seen on her.

She whizzes past me, scoops up two more bouquets, looks directly at me, and winks. “Asher Egan must love more than just you riding his trouser snake for him to book this hotel for you. Wow.”

Panic climbs up my neck, and my jaw drops. My hand flies to cover the bottom of my phone, but I know I’m already too late. There’s no way Cyrus didn’t hear Julianna’s big mouth just now.

“Oh, my God,”I mouth to her.

She shrugs and silently giggles. “Oops.”

I gape at her while she leaves me standing in the middle of my shop, dumbfounded. I hadn’t even told her about me sleeping with Asher. I refused to tell Julianna and Selene earlier, sticking to what I meant when I said we had work to do. They dropped the subject, but they must have gathered something happened between us for Asher to go to these lengths to help me out. At least Julianna has figured it out. Selene’s been hard at work, carrying armfuls of flowers over to the hotel, barely taking the time to look up from her feet, talking only long enough to tell us she was able to convince her sister London to come to Julianna’s birthday party.

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