It hurt, though. Afterwards, talking with Beatrice in the patient room, he felt a distinct pang of regret. And arousal. Just a few minutes earlier he'd taken Jessika upon the very table on which he now sat. His imagination created evidence out of nothing, concocting an obvious wet spot on the table and convincing him that Beatrice was spending far too much time staring at the trash can. He didn't actually think she looked at the trash can more than once, and only with vague disinterest, but...
"Asher," Beatrice said. "I really think we should find another doctor. I don't think this place has the right amount of prestige for our liking."
He sighed. "There's no place better. Doctor Fairheart is one of the best, too. She has a very high success rate with this and she knows what she's doing. I did my research and she answered my questions satisfactorily when I spoke with her on the phone the other day. It was just a fluke with the lock. It's nothing to worry about."
"But her tone," Beatrice said. "She's so... so... uncouth!"
Asher laughed. "I'm sure you'd like her if you got to know her. Shall I invite her to dinner? That might be nice, don't you think? Jeremy can join us, and Jessika, of course."
"Ugh. Please don't even joke about that. The next thing you're going to suggest is we all gather in the living room and watch a movie together while eating pizza."
"That would be nice," Asher said, thinking back to when he'd done that exact thing with Jessika just a few nights past.
"Why can't you be serious?" Beatrice asked. She furrowed her brow and glared at him. "Maybe I'm overexaggerating a tiny bit, but I still don't know if we can trust her. I just wish you'd be more serious, though. This is a very serious procedure and a life-changing event. Do you want to have some child with severe deformities? I don't know about you, but I couldn't handle it. I just couldn't."
...
With the doctor's visit behind me, and Beatrice apparently calmed down enough to have a normal conversation, the rest of the day passed uneventfully. I went back with Jeremy to Asher's guest house. Beatrice and Asher went to the main house, presumably to talk or something. How should I know? I was glad to be away from her, since it gave me time to think and it made me less nervous.
"So, sounds like you had a great time," Jeremy said.
I rolled my eyes while he grinned at me. "Why is she like that?"
"Couldn't say." Jeremy shrugged. "I guess she's always been that way? She's the kind of rich person that you can tell is a rich person, because she won't let you think otherwise. Asher's kind of obvious when he suits up, trying to look nice for business, but otherwise you probably couldn't tell. Like when he plays basketball he just looks regular, you know? Beatrice never wants to even consider being regular, let alone looking it. That's just how she is."
"I guess I can understand," I said. "I mean, I don't really understand it, but maybe if I were rich I'd understand better. I suppose when you have the money, you can do whatever you like. Not that it's right, but why should she care? She's rich."
"Right. Yeah, that might be it."
I sighed and fell onto the couch, staring at the ceiling. "I want some cheesecake," I said, completely out of the blue.
"Oh yeah?" Jeremy asked.
"Yes. Caramel pecan turtle cheesecake like they have at The Cheesecake Factory sometimes. Mmmmm..."
"You want to go?"
"...with the chocolate icing swirls on the edge and the lines of caramel drizzled on the top and..."
"Look, lady, you want to go get some food or what? I'm starving over here after driving some chick around all day and I could go for a bite to eat."
"Did you just call me a chick?" I asked.
"If the shoe fits."
"What kind of shoe does a chick even wear? Are we talking about a baby chicken or are you being some chauvinist pig?" I couldn't help but grin, even though I tried to say everything as serious as possible.
Jeremy smirked. "If you were a chicken, this might be easier. You could just lay an egg for Asher and let Beatrice sit on it."
"That wouldn't be nearly as fun as hav**g s*x with him," I blurted out.
Jeremy nearly died laughing. "You really need a boyfriend or something. Pining after a married billionaire is probably not the best use of your time. You know it's never going to work out, right?"
I frowned a bit. It was true, but... "Probably. I know."
"Ah, well, they used to say the world was flat, too. You never know?" Then, holding out his hand to help me off the couch, he said, "So, food?"
"Can we have the cheesecake first?" I asked. "And then our meal. Then more cheesecake, maybe."
Jeremy lifted me off the couch. "Are you pregnant already? Should I get you some pickles and ice cream, too?"
"Ugh, no." I jumped up and ran to the door. "Actually, do you think they make pickle cheesecake? I bet they do somewhere. I don't want any, but I think that'd be interesting to try. At least once, you know? To say you did it."
"I think I'd rather never say I tried pickle cheesecake," Jeremy said as he opened the door for me. "Let's stick with the caramel pecan turtle variety."
...
Dinner was nice. Jeremy and I talked about this and that while we ate. I relented and accepted the fact that dessert should come after dinner, but not without a bit of a fight. Not much of one, but a little. It didn't matter too much, since my Santa Fe salad and grilled chicken and avocado club sandwich more than made up for the lack of a cheesecake appetizer. The cheesecake was delicious, though; I ordered a piece to go.
And then Jeremy paid for dinner with one of Asher's credit cards. I felt bad and I wanted to pay, but I didn't have a lot of spare money at the moment.
"Eh, don't worry about it," Jeremy said. "As long as we bring back something for Asher, he won't mind. He's a cheesesteak and apple crisp sort of guy, so I'm sure he'll be happy."
"I guess," I said. Still, that didn't make me feel better about it.
We left. In the car, Jeremy said, "I feel bad sometimes, too, but that's how Asher likes it. I mean, what are we supposed to do? He gets upset if he finds out that I paid for something like this on my own. And then what? I feel bad all over again. It makes him happy to pay for food and stuff like that, so why not?"
I sighed and tried not to frown, tried to think of it from Asher's point of view. "I suppose. It is nice to treat friends sometimes. Me and my friends do that. We don't go anywhere fancy, though. To the movies or whatever, that kind of thing."
"Yeah," Jeremy said. "It's almost the same, I think. Kind of."
Once we arrived back at the Landseer estate, Jeremy tossed me a key. "There you go, lady. Your very own key. Don't lose it, it cost two bucks."
"Whoa!" I said, pretending to be impressed. "Big spender."
"Yeah, I know." He grinned. "I'm going to bring this food to Asher. I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good night."
"You too."
I waved and Jeremy waved back, then he started walking down the gravel pathway to the main house. I stood in the chill evening air for a moment, holding my take-home cheesecake container, thinking. I had a lot to think about lately. I was probably doing too much, I decided. Too much, except I felt compelled to do it all, too. Something, a feeling, maybe women's intuition. Or maybe just naive stupidity. Either one probably fit.
Trudging towards the guest house, I shuffled my feet and kicked at the gravel walkway. My casual heels scuffled against the hardened path when I kicked at it with the toes of my shoes, and my progress towards the house was slow but it gave me a little more time to think. If Beatrice saw me, she might think I was some child or something. Look at Jessika. What is she doing? She's ruining perfectly good shoes and acting immature to boot.
Oh well. I didn't really care what she thought. She couldn't be much older than me, and yet she acted like she was. Except, of course, when I heard her in the bookstore. Then she sounded happier, almost chipper. Granted, she was with Solomon and plotting against Asher, so it wasn't exactly the right kind of happiness, but I knew she could be a different person. Why wasn't she, though?
I opened the door to Asher's guest house with the key Jeremy gave me and stepped inside. Kicking off my shoes and leaving them to the side, I locked the door and left the key on the kitchen counter. Now what? Life was so hectic and today had been more hectic still. I desperately needed to relax.
The library sounded perfect, so I went downstairs. Flipping the light switch on, I breathed in deep and admired the shelves around me. It really was a perfect kind of place, I thought. Not the best ever, nothing like a classic library, but it was quaint and quiet and hidden away. The perfect spot for relaxing. It was a good place to think and prepare.
Right now I just wanted to read, though. I did like the book I'd browsed through the other day, so I decided to look for the first. Kushiel's Dart, I guess? I assumed Asher had it, and it was probably somewhere by where the second book had been, but I didn't notice it when I first checked. I walked over to the shelf, one of the ones in the middle, and scanned through the bindings looking for familiar script.
Maybe it was on one of the bookshelves to the left or right? The one on the right was the shelf that swung open, the one that Asher came through the other night. Quite a surprise, that; I hadn't expected anything like it. I perused the shelves, looking for the book, and...
My God. Everything fit. I didn't know how I hadn't thought of this before.
The bookshelf swung open somehow with a mechanism built into the floor. I'd seen the casing and watched Asher push it into place that night after he'd slipped through. And obviously the hidden doorway behind the bookshelf led to a passageway that went to the main house. Presumably only Asher knew about this, or maybe a select few others. It seemed like the kind of thing he might keep secret, though how should I know?
That didn't matter so much, but what did matter was the privacy of it. The passageway was a perfect route into the main house. I could use it to sneak in without rousing suspicion or making myself known. And, once inside, I could go to Beatrice's room and look for any clues or evidence about her and Solomon's plans. On her computer, or paperwork in her desk, or whatever. I didn't know what exactly I needed to find, but if I could do this thing and get inside her room I thought I might find something.
Maybe if I was lucky there was a hidden door in Beatrice's room, too. I imagined some fancy wardrobe like the children in The Chronicles of Narnia used, with a loose backing that opened up into Asher's secret pathways. Probably not quite as magical as C.S. Lewis's version, but curious nonetheless.
Also, there it was. I snatched up Kushiel's Dart and carried it over to the blanket-covered couch. Plopping onto the cushions and covering myself with blankets, I opened the book and started to read.
This was going to work, I told myself. Read some, relax, rest up and give myself time to think, and then tomorrow when Asher left for work and Beatrice went out to do whatever she usually did, I'd sneak into her room and scope the place out.
I was positive I'd find something. What was the worst that could happen? A lot, actually. I needed to be very very careful.