His Absolute Insistence: A Scandalous Billionaire Love Story (Jessika, #2) (6 page)

"Last night," he continued, "my wife and I held a small company celebration at our home.  Sometime in the middle of the evening a fire broke out.  The police voiced a few concerns about the situation surrounding the fire and the events preceding it.  As law enforcement officers, I absolutely understand why they would want to investigate all possible angles.  Regardless, I have no reason to suspect foul play.  Nor do I know who or what caused the fire.  It could very well have been something natural and accidental.  I trust the investigating officers will have further reports at a later date."

The woman lifted her hand in the air again.  Asher wanted to deny her, but no one else was raising their hand now.  Instead, they wanted to see where this woman was going with her line of questions.

Asher sighed.  "Yes.  Go ahead."

"Are you aware that your Director of Public Relations, Lucent Storme, is currently missing?  Do you know where he is?  I had the good fortune to arrive at the scene of the fire early in the evening and heard murmurs of him and a woman known as 'Elise Tanner' having gone missing.  Many of the officers on duty were quietly asking about his whereabouts, too.  I did some digging late last night and this morning, and I tried to contact Mr. Storme for further information, but all calls went unanswered."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at," Asher said.  "What's your question again?"

"Your Director of Public Relations is missing and presumably wanted for questioning by the police about the fire at your home last night.  Before Mr. Storme accepted a position with Landseer Enterprises, your previous Director of Public Relations caused quite a stir when his plot to sabotage your company was revealed.  As I remember it, he was also having an affair with your ex-wife.  Is it possible something like that is happening again?"

"What's your name?" Asher asked.

"Hanna," she said.  "I'm with—"

"Hanna, alright," he said, interrupting her.  "I'm entirely unsure where you're going with any of this.  If you'd like to investigate the incident with Solomon Royce, you should be able to do so easily enough.  There are plenty of news articles and interviews about that exact situation.  Other than that, I don't know what to tell you.  Have you looked into the whereabouts of any of my other corporate directors?  They all attended the party last night, as well, and I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea where they are at the moment.  We had no immediate plans for any huge business meetings today, so it's a definite possibility that they've all decided to work from home, take a break, or any number of things.  I value each and every one of my employees, and I honestly believe that they have the best interests of Landseer Enterprises in mind in everything they do."

Asher breathed in deep, then continued.  "The company may bear my name, but everyone who works there is a huge part of it.  I'm sorry that you couldn't get in touch with Lucent.  He's a valuable asset to the team, and all of the directors rely on his judgement, as he also relies on theirs.  I'm unable to say any more than that, because for the most part I just don't know.  I don't know where he is, for the same reason that I don't expect him to know where I am.  I trust all of my employees to get the job done, and if they're unable to do so, I trust them to either figure out a way to do better in the future or to ask for help.  Until someone asks, I'm going to assume they're doing fine.  Is that an acceptable answer?"

She smiled, though it didn't look altogether friendly.  "Of course, Mr. Landseer."

"Is it safe to say that I've answered everyone's questions for now?  Can we leave it at that for the time being?  I understand if there are follow-up questions you'd like to ask me, but I'd prefer if we could leave that until after I've had a chance to look into these sensationalist reports about me and my wife.  At the very least, I'm sure they'll provide some temporary amusement."

The members of the media talked among their small crews for a moment.  Cameramen and reporters muttered this and that, and a few of the small teams spoke with other teams near them.  The woman who asked most of the questions kept staring at him with an odd glimmer of interest in her eyes, though.  She obviously wanted to ask him something else, or to bring up some other random angle of accusation, but she held back for whatever reason.

Good, Asher thought.  He didn't want to deal with it.

He stepped down from the bench before anyone could protest.  Walking off to the side of the hospital, away from the entrance and the crowd, Asher pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed his preferred taxi service.  After a brief conversation, the taxi dispatcher told him she'd have a taxi for him within five minutes.

Fair enough.

I
sat in the back of the car reading one of Asher's books while Jeremy went into a local all day breakfast and pancake restaurant to get us some food.  I would have gone in with him—I wanted to, actually—but that might not have been the best idea right now.  This place wasn't the busiest restaurant ever, but seeing as a mass of news reporters was on the look out for me, it paid to be prudent.

Unfortunately prudence and patience was boring.  Asher left a Kindle in the back seat of this car, for who knew what reason, and apparently it had a bunch of business non-fiction on it.  Which, I thought, was probably why he left it here, because it was boring.  He had one novel, and it was good, but not quite to my preferences. 
Dune
was science fiction of a sort, with maybe some fantasy speculation added in?  I wasn't really sure.  I read a couple of paragraphs, stopped and looked to see if Jeremy was coming back yet, read a few more, stopped, and continued that for who knew how long.

Eventually Jeremy showed up carrying our take-out in a paper bag.  I stuffed the Kindle into the back seat pocket and followed his path with my eyes.  It was just food, but it was more exciting than sitting here being bored.

He opened the driver's side door and handed me the bag, then sat and started up the car.  I took our food and tore through it, checking both the styrofoam containers to figure out which was which.  I found mine, practically ripped it out of the bag, and put it in my lap.  Jeremy had barely started driving out of the parking lot before I stuffed a piece of pancake covered in apple pie topping, cinnamon, and powdered sugar in my mouth.

"Classy," he said.  "No fork or anything, huh?  Just rip that pancake into pieces and shove it into your mouth.  Real classy, Jessika."

"Shut up," I said, my mouth full of food.  It might have sounded more like "Shuft uph" but I didn't care.  I plucked up a soft gooey piece of apple and plopped it into my mouth.

"I don't even know what that is," Jeremy said.  "It doesn't smell like any sort of breakfast, though.  More like dessert.  Actually, it smells like a pie.  It looked like one, too.  Just a giant pie pretending to be a pancake, shoved into a box, and now being shoved into your mouth.  Definitely a healthy adult breakfast, that's for sure."

"I'm hungry!" I whined.

"Yeah, yeah," he laughed.  "Just don't eat mine, alright?"

"What'd you get?" I asked.  I asked this while already putting aside my own take-out container and rifling through the bag to check his.  "Ooh, what kind of omelette is this?  Is that spinach?  What's the sauce on top?  You got sausage, too.  Can I have one of your sausages?  I didn't think to get a side of sausage."

"You realize you're asking me if you can have a sausage, but I can see you in the rear view mirror and you're already eating it?"

I was... nibbling.  That's it.  I was nibbling on his sausage, but once he caught me I bit off half of it and put the other half back.

"Just eat the whole thing!" he said, laughing.  "I don't want a half-eaten sausage.  I thought they fed people in hospitals?  You're going rabid or something."

"I'm not sure what happened," I said, finishing off the other half of Jeremy's sausage.  Satisfied for now, I put his food back in the bag, and mine, too.  "I don't remember a lot.  Asher said they sedated me, and I woke up for a bit last night, but then we slept after that, and in the morning um... it got a little hectic from there.  I don't remember eating anything since the party, so I don't think I did."

"Ah," Jeremy said.  "I guess that would explain it.  Well, I'm glad to be of assistance?"

I smiled and put my hand on his head, scratching lightly.  "Thank you so much, Jeremy.  Seriously, I mean it.  I know it sounds dumb, but thank you.  You're always there for Asher.  You're there for me, too.  You don't have to be, but you are.  You're a great friend."

"Yeah, yeah," he said.  "I mean, Asher pays me, too, so it's not like I'm doing everything for nothing, either."

I rolled my eyes at him, not caring if he couldn't see it.  "I'm almost positive most of the things you do aren't exactly in your job description.  You're a nice person, and, yes, maybe Asher pays you to drive him places, but even if he didn't he'd still want you around."

"True," Jeremy said.  "You make a really good point.  He pays me to drive him places, but I don't think anyone's ever paid me to drive you places.  I'm thinking a thousand dollars an hour is a reasonable rate, right?  You're married to a billionaire, so you should be able to afford it."

"Are you blackmailing me!" I shouted at him, laughing.

He laughed, too.  "I've got to eat, you know?  I have to buy two or three meals for every one I want to actually eat, since someone keeps stealing my food.  The world is getting really cutthroat lately.  It's crazy.  Gas prices, too.  They just keep going up."

Glaring at him, trying not to smile or laugh, I flung open his take-out container and snatched another sausage.  Wielding it like a weapon, I thrust my hand between the front seats.  Without missing a beat, Jeremy turned his head to the side, grabbed the sausage with his mouth, and started chewing.  We drove onwards, moving down quiet side streets away from the center of the city.

"Thanks," Jeremy said.  He chomped, eating the entire sausage in one go.

I didn't know where we were going, but this area looked familiar.  I hadn't been here in just over a year, but I remembered it well.  "Where are we going?" I asked.

He shrugged.  Once he finished chewing and swallowing his food, he said, "No idea.  I was just going to drive around until you said something."

"I have an idea but it's kind of weird sounding," I said.

"Weirder than giving some nurse your shoes and then hobbling over to the car like the ground is lava?" he asked.

"There were rocks and little pebbles and things.  It hurt!"

"I could be wrong, but I think that's why people don't usually give their shoes away to random strangers when they don't have a spare pair on hand."

"Her name is April and she's very nice.  I didn't have anything else to give her."

Jeremy grinned.  "It was a nice thing to do, but maybe not that well thought out.  It reminds me of something Asher would have done."

I smiled.  That sounded nice.  Asher was a little gruff sometimes, coming across as closed off in public, but I thought it was more because he didn't always know how to handle situations.  No matter what Jeremy said, Asher probably wouldn't randomly give someone his own shoes, but he'd do something else.  Something different.

When I first met Asher, he'd... well, long story short, he'd ruined my shirt.  Within an hour or so, he bought me something to replace it, though.  He never told me he was going to, nor did he show up to give it to me himself.  He just did it.  Some people loved giving other people presents to see their reactions, or maybe to get gratification from being thanked, but not Asher.  He disliked that sort of thing.  He didn't want to give people things for any reason of his own, and he had told me he felt awkward doing it, too.  He just wanted to give gift and show his appreciation because he was truly thankful, that's all.  He didn't expect, nor want, anything in return for it.  Knowing they liked it by seeing them use whatever it was he gave them was good enough for him.  He preferred it that way.

Asher might not give anyone his shoes, but he'd send them a box with a pair in them.  I didn't give April my shoes because I wanted her thanks, either, though.  I didn't really know why I did it.  At the time it seemed like the right thing to do.  And now I had no shoes.

I could get more soon, though.

"Turn left here, alright?" I said.  I leaned forward, ignoring the fact that I should be sitting nicely and with my seatbelt buckled.  Pointing, I showed him the direction I meant.

"I hope you realize I know which way left is?" Jeremy said.

"You're really grumpy today, huh?"

"I'm not grumpy," he said.

"Do you want to order a pizza?"

"What?  We just got breakfast.  Seriously, how hungry are you?  Are you alright?  Are you..."

He didn't finish that thought, but I knew what he was going to say. 
Are you pregnant?
  No, I probably wasn't.  Asher and I had been trying for awhile now with no results.  I was a little sad about that, but it didn't matter.  It didn't change how much I loved Asher, or how much he loved me.  It didn't change anything at all.

"Right there," I said, pointing again.  "Right, I mean.  Turn right at that spot um... right there."

"Right," he said.

"Are you agreeing with me or are you confirming directions?"

"Perhaps."

"What's that even mean?"

He laughed, though it sounded more like an enigmatic cackle.  I huffed and sat back, giving him space so he could do the driving on his own.  I just wanted to help!  I didn't think that was so bad, was it?

Jeremy turned right at the right place.

"Where to now?" he asked.

"You see that blue sign a couple buildings down?  There's a sort of alley there on the left.  Turn down that and um... it goes to a small parking lot, kind of.  It's really small.  Way at the back there should be a spot labeled with an—"

"Eight?" he guessed.

"Yes."

From my vantage point in the back, I saw him lift one brow through the center rearview mirror, but he didn't say anything.  That was well and good, though; I didn't really know how to respond if he did.