Loving Ashe - Book 1 of the Celebrity Series

Boys Have Baggage, Too

"Whoa! Wait a minute," Riley interrupted, sitting up on the couch. "What's this about 'wooing'? Since when did you even start using that word?"

"Since you've been watching all those Jane Austen and Gaskell movies at the house," Paige scoffed. "Besides, I can't think of any other word right now. Wait! What about 'court'?"

"Is that what Clint did? He courted you?"

"You know he did, Ri," Paige replied and Riley knew Paige was right. She still remembered the endless gifts of jewelry and designer clothes, even trips to the Hamptons and the Bahamas and even Paris and Marbella, with Riley in tow. "I know he's twenty years older than me, but he knows how to treat a woman right. He'd do anything for the boys and me. So, about Ashe...so I asked around—"

"I can't believe you're spying on him," Riley exclaimed.

"Did you know he's a country boy?" Paige continued as if Riley hadn't spoken. "He's the son of a sheep farmer and a school teacher up in northern England, Yorkshire, or something like that. I had to look it up. They apparently talk funny over there."

"Who told you this? Is it online?"

"Betty told me," Paige replied. "She's got the dish on all her clients—not that she's going to blab to the papers or anything."

"But she'll blab to you."

"Only because I asked her," Paige said. "She told me that Ashe is a wonderful guy, really caring and thoughtful. His fame hasn't gone to his head, like someone you and I know."

Gareth.

"Okay," Riley said, sighing. "Tell me something I don't know."

"He had this girlfriend. Betty said that they were together for three years. I mean, she just got him as a client because of Sentience, so she's getting the old news second-hand from someone else—maybe his manager, Collette or something. He brought his girlfriend along on location to Tanzania last year."

"You said, 'had' a girlfriend," Riley said slowly. "But I thought his girlfriend was Isobel."

"I think they might even have a kid together," Paige continued, her voice hushed as if for dramatic effect. "But don't quote me on that. Sometimes Betty gets her juicy tidbits mixed up because she handles so many clients, like that time she told me Brad was gay when she meant Tom."

This time, Riley stood up and began to pace the floor. From the corner of her eye, she saw Miss Bailey emerge from under the bed, stretch and approach her. She sat back down and waited till Miss Bailey hopped onto her lap.

"So what about this girlfriend?" Riley asked, a knot forming in her belly. She remembered Ashe telling her he'd last been in a relationship six months earlier, but he hadn't said anything about having a kid.

"She died," Paige said. Riley pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling a gasp. "She was sick, I don't know what with, but that's why the promotions for Sentience were delayed. I heard that ticked Gareth off since it messed up his schedule. Ashe only came back to work three, no, four weeks ago, around the time you both went to Lee's for noodles."

Riley sighed. "Is this where you're going to tell me that he's bad news? That there's something else about him, and I need just to step away? What if Betty got her gossip mixed up?"

"Then she got her gossip mixed up. Big deal," Paige said. "Look, Ri, I know this sounds mean, but it's best that this is nipped in the bud now instead of later. What if he's only using you as a rebound thing or something? I mean, I'm sorry for the guy. He might just be lonely. He could even be in mourning."

"He's on the rebound. He's lonely. He's in mourning," Riley said. "What is it, Paige? Make up your mind. What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know," Paige replied. "Clint likes him. He thinks that Ashe seems trustworthy. 'Solid' was the word he used, and that's something—if Clint says someone's 'solid.' He never takes to anyone—"

"That's because everyone is a possible investment potential for him, Paige," Riley said. "Not that it's a bad thing for Clint, but that's just Clint for you. And I'm honestly glad that he, at least, is the voice of reason in all this because you are not making any sense."

"I'm sorry Ashe had to go through his girlfriend dying and all that, but if he's in mourning, or on the rebound, don't you think this infatuation should end now, Ri? For your sake. Maybe later, after enough time has passed and he's still interested in you, it could be okay—"

"—for him to court me?" Riley asked.

"Maybe," Paige said. In the background, Riley heard Clint's voice asking Paige to get back to bed.

"Paige, listen to Clint," Riley said. "It's late, and you're not making sense. Maybe tomorrow it will all make sense to me but for now, it's not."

"There must be a mourning phase somewhere before he should even start seeing someone seriously—unless all he wants from you is sex, then, of course, all bets are off," Paige rambled on. "And if that's all you're after, I don't blame you, but I hope you don't sleep with him just so you can take a peek at his dick, you know. Besides, you don't want to be just a notch on his bedpost, right? I'm sure he's a proper English boy and all—even if he grew up on a sheep farm."

"You're saying that like it's a bad thing."

"I don't know," Paige said, yawning. "Is it?"

"I give up, Paige. Good night."

After hanging up, Riley powered up her laptop and did the one thing she realized she should have done long before now, and that was to learn as much as she could about Ashe Hunter. After all, she just had two make-out sessions with him in one night. Surely, major gossip sites would have the dirt on Ashe, or maybe fan forums dedicated to him where fans discussed his every move like they did with Gareth.

She had run one search about Ashe when she first met him, but only after Paige had told her about the full-frontal nude scene he'd done for his first movie. When she went online, the only thing she'd searched for was just that—footage of his full-frontal scene—and when she found a looping GIF, she'd gawked like a teenager who'd never seen a big dick before.

As the search results loaded up on her screen, information about Ashe was sparse. One journalist wrote that Ashe was an 'insanely private person.' An article in a major men's magazine stated that Ashe had been born and raised in Reeth, a small Yorkshire town and that he was discovered by a theater actress while visiting London with friends when he was about eighteen. He'd been offered a modeling contract a year later through her connections.

In the magazine's website, Riley found herself staring at Ashe as he modeled suits and tuxedos like a true fashion model, scowling as he leaned against a door-frame, or looking pensively toward something off the page. Riley couldn't take her eyes off his lips, his jaw, and his eyes. His six-pack abs. Then her gaze moved to his hands, and she sighed as she remembered the way he'd cradled her face when he kissed her.

She clicked the back button on her laptop and scanned the search results on the page. She typed Ashe Hunter girlfriend and waited with bated breath for the results page to pop up. That search rendered few results though it came up with a lot of pictures—pictures of him with fans taken while he shot movies on location, or walking out of some restaurant with a co-star such as Isobel Reign, always wearing a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes. In some pictures, Riley recognized Collette walking beside them.

Then Riley saw a picture of herself standing with her back to the camera, hailing a cab outside the hotel as Ashe stood watching her, his face in profile. It had been taken the night they'd first met when they'd been talking outside the hotel. She scanned other photographs, looking for similar shots of the same evening, but there weren't any that she could find easily, which meant that she was all right as long as no one recognized her. No one would put two and two together and figure out that she'd been at the hotel to meet Gareth, only to run into Ashe instead.

Even Paige wouldn't be able to figure that one out. Or at least, that's what Riley hoped.