Of the Middleburg, Virginia Ashers. Horse breeders and land owners. American landed gentry. Royalty in a land without royals. Olivia had never met him, but she had seen photos of him all over her grandmother’s house. One day he would be known as “Senior” when his son and Olivia’s father, James Franklin Asher, Jr. was born. He would die in a car accident in 1941 at the age of forty-seven. Her grandmother would mourn his death for the rest of her own life and Olivia’s father would swear there had never been a better man. Her family would reap the benefits of his wise counsel for years to come. But today he’s only a nineteen-year-old boy with elementary driving skills. This isn’t the story Olivia had always heard about the way her grandparents had met but she did recall it had been in Washington, D.C. In all of the chaos he had offered to drive them back to the Willard. Olivia was so stunned she took him up on his offer and he managed to get them back to the hotel in one piece.
