Chapter 316 Cassie and Franklin matchmaking again

Chapter 316 Cassie and Franklin matchmaking again
"There are rules," Cassie said, and the way she said it pulled the room's attention toward her, not forceful, just certain.

Around them, the music dropped to something lower and more ambient, as though the room itself understood that what was being said deserved to be heard clearly.

"For getting involved with anyone who's part of this family." She let her eyes move across the room, unhurried, touching each face just long enough to make sure the message was landing.

"If you break a heart in here, you're not just dealing with one person. You're going against all of us. And we will cut you off."

She said it with warmth. But nobody in the room made the mistake of thinking she didn't mean every syllable.

Asher absorbed this without so much as blinking. He sat with it for exactly a beat, and then the corner of his mouth pulled into something that was equal parts amusement and genuine appreciation, the expression of a man who has just been told the terms and finds them completely reasonable.

"Well," he said, easy as breathing, "birds of a feather flock together. If she came up running with your family, then I already know she's a good woman."

His eyes moved back to Thelma, patient and steady, carrying none of the performance that lesser men put into moments like this one. "So what do you say? Will you at least tell me your name?"

Thelma's smile arrived the way nervous smiles do, a little sideways, a little uncertain, like it wasn't entirely sure it had permission to be there yet. "Thelma," she said.

"Great." He said it like the word meant something. Like her name, specifically, was great. "Thelma, can we give it a try?"

Thelma turned toward Cassie with the instinct of a woman who has learned to check in before she commits to anything, and Cassie, who had been watching all of this with the careful attention of someone who takes these things seriously, stepped in.

"Keep in mind," she said, looking at Asher directly, "that Thelma lives here in Atherton. And you are a very long way from home."

"So am I," Jonathan said from across the room, his voice carrying just enough to be useful without overstepping, and the quiet smile he exchanged with Victoria beside him made the point without needing any elaboration.

Asher gestured toward him gratefully. "I agree with him completely. The distance doesn't bother me. Honestly, I'd enjoy the travel, and there's something good about having a reason to move."

He paused, then added with the measured, forward-thinking calm of a man who has already thought three steps ahead,

"And once things get serious enough that we're talking about something permanent, we figure out where to land. She doesn't have to be the one who moves." His gaze shifted briefly to Cassie. "You've got a branch in Chicago. If it came to that, you could transfer her. Right?"

Cassie pressed her lips together for a moment, turning it over. Then she exhaled slowly and looked at Asher with the expression of a woman rendering a verdict she has thought about carefully and isn't going to dress up more than necessary.

"Alright. I'll be honest with you," she said. "I never particularly liked you before. Mostly because you were friends with my ex-husband, and that association didn't exactly work in your favor."

She held his gaze evenly. "But I do know that you don't play games with women. That counts for something." She let the briefest pause land before adding, pleasantly, "And if you ever do prove to be an asshole, we'll slice it right off."

The room lost itself completely. Laughter came up from every corner, full and unrestrained, the kind that bends people forward and makes them set their drinks down before they spill something.

Thelma was still laughing when she said it. "Okay. I'll give it a try."

Asher was on his feet before the sentence had fully finished leaving her mouth. He crossed the small distance between them with the unhurried, satisfied energy of a man who has just closed a deal he's been working on patiently and earned it, settling himself into the open space beside her with a grin that he wasn't even trying to tone down.

The room was still warm with laughter when Nathan raised an eyebrow from his seat, his gaze moving around the room with open amusement.

"It's something, isn't it," he said, mostly to the air around him, "how Cassie always ends up being the matchmaker." He shook his head slowly, something fond and entertained moving across his face. "I'm just sitting here waiting to see what happens with the other two."

The shift in attention was immediate and collective. Every eye in the room found its way to Violet and Lucien at roughly the same moment, with the quiet, expectant energy of an audience that has been watching a story build and is ready to see where it goes.

Lucien didn't seem rattled by the attention. He'd been patient all evening, patient in the specific way of a man who knows what he wants and has made his peace with waiting for the right moment rather than manufacturing one.

He looked at Violet directly, his voice dropping just enough to carry the sincerity of something said for her and not for the room.

"I've made it pretty clear where I stand," he said. "More than once. You know I'm not coming at this sideways." He paused for a beat. "Will you give me a chance?"

Violet's hands moved slightly in her lap, the small, restless tell of someone working through something they haven't quite resolved yet.

"I've never been in a relationship," she said, and the honesty in it was so unguarded it quieted something in the room. "I haven't been in my career that long either. I might not be ready for any of this. And the age gap—" She glanced at him, then away. "You've got to be at least seven years older than me."

"Seven years is nothing," Lucien said, and the ease in his voice wasn't dismissiveness, but rather the calm of a man who had already considered this and arrived at a conclusion he was comfortable with.

"And I'm not asking you to have everything figured out before we start. That's not how it works."

He leaned in just slightly, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes steady on her face. "I'm patient. There's no rush here. I just need one thing from you. Don't go looking at other men while I'm away working. I'm telling you that upfront because women don't catch my attention easily, and you did. That means something."

Something in Violet's expression softened at the edges, not all the way, not the kind of softening that means the wall has come down, but the kind that means a door has been found and acknowledged. A small smile worked its way across her mouth.

"Fine," she said. "It's not a marriage proposal. If it gets to be too much for me, I can walk away?"

"Exactly," Lucien said, and the breath that left him was long and slow, carrying the particular relief of a man who has been holding something carefully for a while and has finally been told he can set it down. "No one's trapping anyone. You walk in with both eyes open, and if you need to go, you go."

Violet nodded, and the smile stayed.

The room had just begun to resettle into its comfortable warmth, conversations picking back up at the edges, glasses being refilled, the pleasant hum of an evening finding its rhythm again when Violet's voice came back in, quiet but carrying, and landed in the middle of it like a stone dropped in still water.

"I guess everyone's probably wondering what's going on with Sienna."

The room went still.