Page 45 of Siren's Game

His expression seems to soften, the wrinkles wander from between his eyebrows to the corner of his eyes as he smiles, and God fucking damnit, they're right that I was blushing when he did that. I never even realized.

He really is a good actor.

"Well, speaking of the devil." Millie nods toward the door to our dance studio where Asher pops his head inside, his face lighting up when our eyes meet.

Fuck. No. Not now. This just cannot be happening. Absolutely not.

I can’t believe this self-absorbed actor with the humor of a toddler makes my heart flutter and warmth creep into my cheeks. No fucking way.

He waves me over to him and to my own annoyance, I realize that a small smile is tugging at my lips and my heart is doing a series of somersaults inside my ribcage. Fuck.

"Hey, what's up?" I ask him when once I am a bit closer to him and don’t need to shout through our rehearsal room.

"Can you step out for a bit?" I raise my eyebrow at him, but he just grins right at me, not revealing what’s going on.

I look at Mike, but he just makes a shooing motion with his hands. Guess I have my answer.

"Apparently, I can."

"Perfect." He opens the door wider and pulls me out into the corridor where I'm suddenly facing two more people. "My parents came over and I wanted to introduce you."

My heart starts beating wildly in my chest, but for a vastly different reason now, my blood turning ice-cold and the hair in my neck standing up.

What the actual fuck?

I force myself to breathe and shoot Asher a glare, but he's completely oblivious, talking to his parents.

"Mom, Dad, this is Kayla. Kayla, these are my parents, Jade and Ellis." I force myself to put the smile on my face and offer both of them my hand. His dad shakes it, but his mother immediately pulls me into a hug. I freeze, muscles tensing in her hold, but she pays it no mind.

"I'm so excited to meet you! We have heard so little about you yet," she says and shoots Asher a glare. I begin to relax, only a tiny bit.

She seems nice, with her blonde bob, bright orange blouse and earrings almost half as big as her face, but that doesn't change the fact that I am in no fucking mood or even position to fucking meet his parents?

"Likewise." I do my best to sound cheerful, even though all I want to do is rip Asher a new one. Or run away, hide in a corner and cry because I’m so fucking overwhelmed right now. "So lovely that you're visiting your son at work."

"Actually, Van asked me to give them a tour," Asher can't help but point out. Hell fucking yes, at least I have a quick out.

"Well, that's nice." I roll my eyes, making his mother chuckle. "While you do that, I'm afraid I have to get back to my own work. It was so lovely to meet you."

I give them a little wave and shoot Asher another glare once I turn around to walk back inside.

That bastard has the gall to look at me with wide eyes and raised eyebrow, like he has no idea what he did wrong. At least he seems to understand that I'm angry. I mean, I can't exactly tear into him in front of his parents, butholy fuckam I angry. Not even my parents themselves ever managed to evokethatkind of fury in me.

"See you later,Honey."

He flinches at the nickname, or at the venom in my voice as I say it, but before he can answer, I close the door behind me, leaning my back against it and looking to the ground, letting my hair fall in front of my face and taking a few calming, deep breaths.

"What was that about?" Millie asks curiously when I finally gather myself enough to walk up to her and I shake my head.

"Asher had the grand idea to introduce me to his parents while I'm sweaty from dancing and without any warning," I grumble.

Mike takes one look at me, then bites his lips to not break into laughter and shakes his head, before turning around and walking back to his bag.

"Five more minutes," he shouts, and I give him a thankful thumbs up through the mirror and turn back to Millie.

"Wait, his parents?” Her eyes are wide as saucers and her mouth drops open. “What the hell are his parents doing here? Wait, does he know?”

I nod and her mouth pops open in disbelief. “Wow, what a dick. But why didn't I know we can bring our parents? If mine knew that, they wouldn't have booked their trip to England."

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