“I don’t have a Mommy fetish,” I defended.

“A Mommy fetish?”

I shrugged and dragged my eyes back to the side window.

“I don’t know. There’s such a thing as a Daddy baby girl fetish, I just assumed there was a Mommy one, too.”

Asher’s soft chuckle filled the car and I fought the need to cover my ears to block out the glorious sound.

“You didn’t look at my file?”

I should’ve been grateful for the change of topic, but I felt disappointed.

Elise.

“I looked at Adam Newcomb’s file,” I reminded him. “He’s a real estate investor with a net worth of twenty million. He owns a BMW and a beach house. He was born in Beverly Hills and graduated from Berkley with a degree in business.”

When the silence became uncomfortable, I glanced over at Asher and found his lips pinched together and tipped down.

When he finally spoke, he sounded sheepish and embarrassed.

“Yeah, that was all bullshit. I’m from Wichita, Kansas. I graduated from Wichita State. Before Wilson recruited me to Takeback I worked for the FBI for about thirteen years. I live in North Idaho but that’s recent. Before that, Takeback was headquartered in Arizona. I drive a truck and have a small house tucked in the woods. And I’m not worth twenty million, not even fucking close. I have an older brother. He’s married, has three kids, and lives in a huge house thirty minutes from my parents.”

Holy Christ on a cracker, that was a lot of information. I was a little stunned by his honesty, though I was more curious about the bitterness I heard when he talked about his brother and parents.

“Are you not close to your parents?”

“I talk to one or the other or both of them at least once a week. They use the time as their opportunity to tell me how well my brother’s doing. Thriving medical practice, great kids, smart wife, big house on a golf course. It’s their passive-aggressive way of reminding me, I, too, could’ve had a big house and money had I not turned my back on the profession they’d picked for me.”

Jeez, his parents sound like real gems.

“What profession did they have picked out for you?”

I was probably pushing my luck but I was desperate to know anything and everything I could about Asher.

“Doctor. My father’s a GP and my brother’s a pediatrician.”

“I can’t picture you as a doctor.”

“No?”

Once again, his laughter filled the car but this time it was sharp and without humor.

“No. And I can’t see you doing something as boring as sitting behind a desk brokering real estate transactions or in a boardroom negotiating land deals.”

“What can you see me doing?”

I didn’t need to think about my answer, so I didn’t. I blurted out my answer instead.

“Something not boring. No suits, no lab coats, no desks. That would be torture for you. Something that challenged your mind but also was physical. You’re a natural protector so a cop fits or a firefighter. I could see you working construction or a mechanic or something as equally stereotypically male. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a doctor—your father and brother had to have worked hard to earn their medical degrees—but that is so not you. And you do not strike me as a man who wants to live on a golf course. A house in the woods fits you, so does the truck. The BMW’s nice.” I paused to look around the posh leather interior. “But it’s too showy and you don’t strike me as a man who gives a shit what others think.”