I didn’t see Asher at the office for the next few days. Rebecca just said he was busy and left it at that. I tried my best to charm her and ferret out more information, but her loyalty to Asher was unbreakable. She had a set of assignments, ostensibly from Asher, for me to work on in his absence. I did my best, but found myself unable to concentrate. Was he avoiding me? Had I done something wrong? Had he?

I knew he was probably uncomfortable with what happened, given that my uncle was his boss, but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to worry much about that sort of thing. If anything, it likely would increase the fun and excitement for him. I know he didn’t actually need the job, the money from his family meant he didn’t need any job. But from everything he did and said, he enjoyed it and wouldn’t want to risk losing it. Maybe that was why he had disappeared, to give some space and make sure that things didn’t go any further than they already had.

The rest of the week passed by in a haze of mindless research and writing. The assignments that Asher left were mainly memos on weird and unrelated topics, from deep dives into the elements of insurance contracts to challenging evidence of criminal conspiracy. Nothing to do with the case I was supposed to be working on. It felt like busy work. And if he wasn’t even going to show up to talk to me about it and probably had no intention of reading any of it, I didn’t see why I should waste my time working hard on it. So, I dragged it out, read the news, played games on my phone, and otherwise clock-watched as the days ticked by.

On Friday afternoon, I was getting ready to pack up my things and head home for the weekend when Asher walked past my desk as if nothing was wrong. He waved to Rebecca and gave me a curt nod and then disappeared into his office. Part of me wanted to just ignore him, to accept that he was just another asshole who wasn’t worth my time and to go home and enjoy my weekend. But I couldn’t. There was something wrong. Whether it was instinct or insight or some kind of delusion, I was certain that something was going on. There was no way the guy that I had been with on Monday night was this cold, this unfeeling. I had to know why he was acting the way he was.

Rebecca rose as if to stop me as I popped up behind my desk and took a few purposeful steps toward Asher’s office, but I paid no attention to her. I pushed the door open and crossed the room to stand right in front of his desk. He looked up at me, surprise written all over his chiseled features. I had been angry, annoyed, and irritated for the past few days. I had said all kinds of things to him in my head, told him off for being a jerk, for disappearing without a word, for ignoring me. But standing in front of him, looking at him, my tongue grew heavy and my lips seemed stuck together.

I berated myself for my cowardice. Was it cowardice? I didn’t feel afraid, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to yell at him the way I had wanted to just a few minutes before. Looking across the desk at him, the only thing I wanted to do was kiss him.

“Did you need something?” he asked, polite and reserved. His manner, so casual, drove me nuts.

“Where have you been all week?” I didn’t want to launch into anything too personal too soon. If he wasn’t going to even acknowledge the night we spent together, if it meant that little to him, then I wasn’t going to open myself up either.

“I’ve been working.”

“Well, aren’t you supposed to be, like, mentoring me? I haven’t seen you since Tuesday morning and even then you only said five words to me. If you don’t want me interning with you, you just have to say something, but I need more from you if this is going to go forward.”

He sat there and stared at me quietly for a few moments. It felt like minutes. His face gave away nothing about his thoughts or how he felt. I began to squirm inside. I knew I was in the right, but his calm quiet unnerved me. Finally, he broke the silence.

“What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

“Um…I…I don’t have any plans.” I was so taken aback by the question that I fumbled for an answer.

“Good. Go home and get changed.”

“Wait, hang on.” I was flustered by the sudden change. One second, I was laying into him for ignoring me and the next, he was taking me out to dinner as if I hadn’t said anything. Or did he ask me out because of what I’d said. Not that he even asked me out, he just assumed I would want to go out with him. I mean, I did, but that wasn’t the point. Indignation battled with desire. I wanted to go to dinner with him, but I was upset with myself that I wanted to.

“Where are we going?” The desire won out.

“Somewhere nice. So…a cocktail dress will do. Maybe wear your hair up. I will pick you up at your apartment at eight.”

I left the office with a little ball of excitement tingling in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was my confrontation that led to him changing his behavior, but I took it as a sign that being direct and saying what I wanted was the right thing to do. Even if this guy made my brain turn to mush and my insides fill with swarming butterflies, I had to state my desires if I wanted them fulfilled. The other night, it seemed like he could read every subtle signal my body offered, but I couldn’t expect that to translate to every other aspect of life.

---

Back at my apartment, I went through the handful of appropriate dresses that I owned and settled on a black lace over black sleeveless dress. The skirt flared out from the waist, which made my waist and legs look slimmer. It was a bit wrinkled, so I brought it into the bathroom with me while I stepped into a steaming hot shower. I had been carrying so much tension and emotion throughout the week. Asher’s distance at the courthouse, and then his absence for the rest of the week, had made me questioning everything about the night we’d spent together. I knew I shouldn’t build it up too much. I knew from the way Rebecca looked at him, from the way Reyna Martinez, the prosecutor, laughed at his jokes, that he had probably been with both of them before. Or if he hadn’t, that they were thinking about it and he knew it. That kind of guy, you couldn’t assume he was going to call you the next day.

The hot water calmed me down, settled my nerves. I decided that I was going to make sure that I didn’t let myself get too far down the rabbit hole with Asher. He would be fun, nice to spend an evening with, but nothing more. He was certainly charming, but it was the easy kind of charm that he spent liberally on anything female. I had to remember that when he was talking to me, smiling at me, making me feel like I was the only woman in the world, that every woman he talked to felt the same way.

He was downstairs at exactly eight o’clock, just as he’d said. He didn’t call, honk his horn, or ring the bell. He was just there. Expecting me to be on time as well. I looked out the window and saw him leaning against his car, a Jaguar, I thought, though I wasn’t great with cars. He wasn’t tapping his toe or checking his phone; he was just waiting patiently. That was one of the things I had noticed early on about him. His discipline. No matter the situation, he always appeared to be in control of himself. It was a manner of being that made you comfortable around him. You never had to worry that he would just fly off the handle or act out of anger. As I gathered up my purse and jacket, I felt a twinge. That was what made his lack of communication that week so galling. He was so deliberate, he must have been deliberately cutting me off.

No matter. Like I told myself before, I wasn’t going to fall into the trap of expecting more of him than he was able to give. I would just take what good there was to offer and not worry about the rest. He opened the car door for me, like a gentleman, and we sped off downtown.

Asher handed the keys to the young guy in the red jacket at the valet counter. He held my hand as I followed him through a maze of corridors. The building we had stopped in front of didn’t look like much, but then again, there were all kinds of new bars and restaurants popping up in downtown LA. As recently as fifteen years ago, the downtown area was completely dead after six when all the office workers went to their homes to the north and west. But billions of dollars in new development had led to as close to a real city feel in Los Angeles as anything it had ever had.

We turned a corner and went down a wide staircase. It took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the low light, but the restaurant that emerged from the gloom was beautiful. A large open space in front of a U-shaped bar was filled with small tables at standing height. The walls were lined with tufted leather booths in curved alcoves.

“Good evening, Mr. Dean,” the hostess greeted Asher by name. Of course, they knew him. Or maybe he made it a point to take me to a restaurant where he knew he’d be recognized. Was he trying to impress me? As we followed the hostess across the room and through a door marked ‘Private’, he was doing a fairly good job.

A narrow hallway led to another door, old wood and stained glass. The hostess opened the door and stood aside to let us through. Asher placed his hand on the small of my back and encouraged me to go first. When I walked through, my eyes opened wide. It was a private dining room with a small table that appeared to be carved from a single piece of wood, its roots still visible and the edges left organic. For as dark as the bar was, this room was luminous, bathed in a soft orange-yellow light. A Tiffany’s stained-glass chandelier hung from the high ceiling, whose vaults were painted with frescoes. The room looked like it had been transported from the twenties.

Asher pulled out my chair and I sat down. The hostess left and we were left there alone.

“She didn’t give us any menus,” I said, unsure how else to begin the conversation.

“No need. The chef is preparing something special for us tonight.”