Page 20 of Because You Loved Me

Asher was pretty sure his little sister would not consider that a reasonable excuse for forgetting a detail such as a mysterious envelope under such circumstances. It wasn’t normal for Asher to forget such details. Then again, Noa wasn’t a normal woman.

Just thinking about the curvy blonde with the luscious lips and the way she’d lit him up the night before filled him with regret that their night had ended early and rather abruptly. Based on the way she’d been kissing him, he’d been so sure the evening was going to end very differently.

Then again, he’d been wrong before. Even if it didn’t happen very often. Still, maybe she was still in the hotel and he could?—

“Asher?” Kat’s voice snapped him back into the present. “I thought maybe you hung up on me. What the hell is going on over there?”

“Sorry.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I got distracted.”

“From this? Seriously. What else could be more important right now?”

Asher didn’t bother answering her, but went directly for the closet, found the jacket he’d worn the night before, and pulled out the envelope he’d folded and stuffed into his inside pocket. “Got it.”

“What does it?—”

“Give me a second.” He shook his head with a chuckle and slid his finger under the flap of the envelope.

“I’m so jealous you got your letter already,” Kat continued to ramble. “All I want is to hear from him, and of course I’m last. I can’t believe you aren’t even the least bit curious.”

“It’s not that I’m…” He didn’t bother finishing the thought. Truthfully, since hearing his terms the night before, he didn’t give a fuck what his father had written about it all, because there wasn’t anything hecouldsay that would justify the move he’d pulled off from the grave.

Asher put the call on speaker and put his phone on the counter as he dumped the contents of the envelope next to it. “Just let me…”

“What is it? What does it say? I mean, you don’t have to tell me. I just?—”

“It’s…” Asher picked up the piece of paper that was quite obviously a copy of a property deed with his name on it for an address he wasn’t familiar with.

“What, Asher? What is it? Did you get your letter already?”

He ignored his sister and picked up the single key, unremarkable in every way besides the fact it was included in the envelope.

“Asher? Hello!”

“I don’t…” distracted, he typed the address for the property into his phone and his map app dropped a pin in what looked to be a rural area off a forestry service road just out of town. “I don’t really know what it is,” he answered truthfully. “But I guess I’m going to find out.”

* * *

Noa could hear the soft piano strains of an Ed Sheeran song as she made her way down the hall to the top of the stairs that would lead outside to the ceremony site.

She peeked out the window to look out to the ceremony site down below that the mothers had selected. She had to admit, it was gorgeous.

The lodge itself was a massive log building with a river rock fireplace as the centerpiece of the grand lobby; it sat at the base of the ski hill. The decks and rock patios behind the lodge were surrounded by towering pines and larches that turned bright orange in the fall. The creek ran through the property, spilling into a small but picturesque waterfall, right next to the lower patio.

Benches with cozy blankets had been set up facing the now-frozen waterfall, where a large wooden arch, covered in pine boughs and holly berries, had been placed for the ceremony.

At the end of the aisle, the sign declaring “Allesandra & Ryan Forever” sat. Her mother had insisted on using her legal name for the wedding despite the fact that she hated it. “One day you might want to go by your legal name,” she’d given as a reason. As if there was even the slightest chance of that. Or that it mattered at all.

It wasn’t the big, over-the-top wedding Tom and Olivia had wanted, but there were at least seventy to eighty people out there.

So many people to bear witness to her union. Hermistake.

But it couldn’t really be a mistake when you knew exactly what you were doing. It’s not as if she were under any illusion that marrying Ryan was going to be something it wasn’t. It was for their families. Their future. It wouldn’t be awful. It wasn’t like she was being forced into an arranged situation or anything like that. Ryan was a good guy. Agreatguy.

And it wasn’t as if she were in love with anyone else. Or was ever likely to be. It had never been her dream to be tied down to a husband. She didn’t believe in the whole idea of love. Not really.

So why was she hesitating?

Her nerves didn’t make sense. They’d talked out all the details. Together, they’d gone over the pros and cons of their arrangement and every time, both she and Ryan came out well on the side of the pros. They were going to work together, one day take over their fathers’ law firm, travel together, and build a life that would be enviable by anyone.

---