His Absolute Insistence: A Scandalous Billionaire Love Story (Jessika, #2) by Cerys du Lys Page B

grinning.  "That's a lot to ask."
    "Everything," I repeated.  I jumped on him and squeezed him in a hug and he hugged me back.  "Asher, I love you so much."
    "I love you, too," he said, his arms wrapped tightly around me.  "Let's go eat.  We can try and see about talking about everything while we do.  How's that sound?"
    "Maybe we can do it in pieces," I said.  "Maybe I can learn more about you every day and you can learn more about me, too.  I think that would be nice."
    He smiled.  "I think so, too."
    ***
    A sher and I talked during dinner and it was nice.  We always talked during dinner, but usually we ate at the mansion.  The dining room there was more like a large dining hall, and while we only used a small part of the table, it extended much further down the room than I thought was normal.  Part of the dining room in the mansion was for mingling and talking, either before or after dinner.  And, we ran the risk of having people intrude on us every night, too.
    They didn't mean to and I understood that, but it didn't make it any less awkward for me sometimes.  How was I supposed to have an intimate conversation with my husband if one of the cooks might come in at any moment and bring us more food?  I asked about that once, though in a slightly less antagonistic way.  I just asked if maybe they could bring all of the food at once so they didn't have to keep bringing it throughout the meal.  I didn't think it was too much to ask, and I asked Asher, not the kitchen staff. 
    He asked them later and the head chef balked, stating that to do that would mean leaving the food unattended and cooling on the dining hall table.  The food wouldn't taste nearly as good if they did that.  Perfection, ruined.  And for what?  It wasn't a problem, he reassured Asher, and then me.  Oh, no, they didn't mind doing it at all.  Bringing out platters and trays of food throughout our meal was definitely agreeable to their preferences.
    I sort of understood.  They had some sort of obsession with cooking and food, and that was fine.  Before I started writing more, I would read all the time.  I used to have my own book review blog, too.  It wasn't anything special—just a little hole in the wall site on the internet where I talked about the books I'd read—but I enjoyed it and I wanted to make it the best I could.  So maybe it was like that for the kitchen staff, too, except more professional.  That didn't really help me, though.
    Here, though, in my apartment with all of the food prepared, with just me and Asher, it was different.  The kitchen stood just off to the right of the front door, if it could even be called that.  More like a hallway than a room.  An island type of counter (or perhaps a peninsula?  I wasn't sure if that was an actual type), connected to the far wall, vaguely separated the kitchen area from the living room.  I owned a cheap couch that split off the majority of the living room from an area I liked to call my dining room.  In actuality, the living room and dining room were one and the same if not for the couch acting as a divider.
    And... that was it.  It was just a small circle table and four chairs.  Asher and I sat next to each other, close to the peninsula counter.  I put the prepared food on the counter so we could grab it easily from the table if we needed more.  Then we ate our food.  Quiet, companionable, talking about this or that.  Nothing in particular.  I got to pretend that this was normal, that maybe life was always like this.  Maybe I didn't work for some billion dollar company in the startup literature segment, and maybe Asher wasn't some billionaire CEO tourism tycoon.
    I could be a secretary, instead, working in an office.  And Asher might be... I didn't know.  Construction worker?  Possibly too dirty.  Police officer?  Who knew?
    I didn't really want to be a secretary, and I loved being a writer.  I didn't want Asher to be anything different, either.  It