How to Blow It with a Billionaire

by Alexis Hall

  “Well,” he drawled, “I did warn you that I’m a cruel and selfish person.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He paused. And gazed down at me with eyes that had nothing in them at all. No light. No warmth. Nothing. “Because I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to see me as you did. Not as the monster I am.”

  “God, Caspian. You’re not a monster. You’re an abuse survivor.”

  There was a long, long, increasingly unpleasant silence.

  Then, in his coldest, sternest voice, “This isn’t working. I’ve enjoyed our time together, but we’re done.”

  “Wait. What?”

  But it was too late. He’d turned on his heel, and was fucking gone.

  I threw myself out of bed and pulled on the nearest pair of pajama bottoms. Ran after Caspian into the hall.

  “What the fuck?” I cried. “Seriously, what the fuck was that?”

  Caspian’s attention flicked my way. He was utterly calm, but there was something terrible about it. Like shatter-proof glass, holding its shape when it’s nothing but cracks.

  “You’re leaving me because I won’t tell you you’re evil?”

  “No, Arden. I’m leaving you because you want me to believe things I cannot believe. Accept things I cannot accept. Be someone I cannot be.”

  No. No. This couldn’t be happening. The world had gone slow and watery. I felt like he’d hit me. Except, y’know, inside. Right where there was nothing to protect my most naked, tender parts.

  Tears were slipping down my cheeks and stinging the corners of my lips. “That’s not true. I just want you to see that you’re kinky, not twisted. And hurt, not broken.”

  “You may use the flat for as long as you like,” he said. “And if you need money—”

  “Shut up about the fucking flat and your fucking money.”

  “Very well.”

  Oh God, how could he look so perfect, arranging his cuffs like he was goddamn stock art: handsome young businessman in formal wear adjusting sleeves while standing in luxury interior.

  And I still couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

  Except Caspian was walking away from me.

  I lunged after him and caught his arm. Spun him round. Gazed up at him pleadingly, my eyes heavy, and my face hot and wet and sticky from crying. “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s nothing to understand.” His expression didn’t change. His tone gave me nothing. “I can’t do this, Arden.”

  “Please, can’t we—”

  “I thought you would hate me and there could be nothing worse. Instead you pity me and that I cannot bear. I will not have you make me weak.”

  Very gently, he peeled my hand away. Turned. Walked.

  My skin burned from his already fading touch. “Caspian?”

  He paused.

  I could barely speak, my mouth was so full of tears, and my heart this helpless lump of rubbery meat flopping in my chest. “Can you promise me one more thing?”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “Can you maybe…think about seeing a counselor? Nobody should feel the way you do.”

  He half turned, his face all shadows and blade-sharp angles. “How I feel is not your concern.”

  “You need to talk to someone. Please give yourself that.”

  “Therapy is not a magic spell. But for your information, Nathaniel arranged for me to see someone when were together.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did it?”

  “Weekly for over a year.”

  My head was full of white noise. Every breath I took snapped like icicles in my throat. “Well, y’know something? Whoever you saw? They did a piss-poor job.”

  The door opened. Closed.

  And that was it. We were done.

  Chapter 29

  Everything hurt.

  The hours were wild horses. Dawn broke around me. I spent most of the day on the sofa, crying myself out of tears, watching the sky turn tauntingly through shades of silver and gold.

  I tried to be brave. To be strong. To be less fucking pathetically embarrassing.

  But my inner Scarlett O’Hara was AWOL—tomorrow being another day seemed scant fucking consolation.

  And while I sometimes tormented myself with idle fantasies of Caspian coming back, of sweeping me into his arms, full of sorrow and declarations of eternal devotion…I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  I wasn’t sure I could ever bear pain like this again.

  * * *

  Later…later…later…

  My phone bleeped.

  And, like a fool, I scrabbled for it. Wrecked with hope with fear with hope.

  It was Nik: I MOVED MY FOOT!!!!!

  * * *

  I slept and didn’t sleep and the hours sped and sluggished by.

  And, finally, I rang home.

  Hazel picked up. “What’s wrong?” she said, before I even had a chance to speak.

  I took a deep breath, then another. Terrified of saying it. Of making it real. Of breaking the strange, still twilight of my grief. “He left me.”

  It was all I managed before I started crying again.

  The line crackled as Hazel shouted: “Rabbie, get the car.” And then to me, “You sit tight, Ardy. We’re on our way.”

  I didn’t tell them they didn’t need to come.

  Because they did.

  They really, really did.

  * * *

  The next day, I took a shower. The water hardly touched me. It just ran over my body.

  Afterward, I put clothes on.

  Because I vaguely remembered that was the sort of thing people did.

  * * *

  Text from Rabbie: nearly there! They must have driven for twelve hours straight.

  It didn’t take me long to pack. I briefly considered breaking everything in the apartment. But then I didn’t.

  I rang Bellerose. “I’m moving out.”

  “Arden…”

  “I’ll leave the phone and the credit cards and everything on the table.” I sounded weird, even to me. Like one of those Star Trek episodes where a crew member gets taken over by an alien brain parasite.

  “All right.”

  “And thanks for…y’know.”

  “I was simply doing my job. You don’t have to thank me.”

  “Well, I just did, motherfucker.”

  He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m not the most socially adept of people.”

  “You don’t come across as socially inept. You come across as really mean.”

  “I’m that too.” He paused. “In any case. You have been…that is…you are…a person in my life toward whom I did not feel…complete revulsion.”

  “You what?”

  “Keep my number.”

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  I thought about calling Nik. But I wasn’t ready to talk and he had enough going on.

  * * *

  I texted Ellery, though.

  No way was I letting her find me gone for the second time.

  * * *

  I was standing on the pavement with my bags at my feet when Rabbie and Hazel arrived. The car, which looked dingy in Kinlochbervie, looked borderline derelict in the middle of Kensington. But I’d never been so fucking relieved to see it.

  We were strictly business. No questions asked. Just getting my stuff piled into the boot. And then Hazel and Rabbie swapped sides, and I crawled into the backseat. One of Mum’s quilts was waiting for me there and, never mind it was the middle of summer, never mind the glass-ricocheting sun glare, never mind that it was already stifling in the car, I wrapped myself up tight-as-tight. And I swear to God, I could smell the sea.

  And then we were off.

  Hazel opened the glove box and a dusty jumble of CDs clattered onto her lap. “What have we got, then? Lord of the Rings? Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Winnie-the-Pooh? The Code of the Woosters?
Murder Must Advertise with the last disc missing?”

  I thought about it a moment. “Lord of the Rings, please.”

  The familiar music washed over me. And then the equally familiar words: Long years ago, in the Second Age of Middle-earth, the Elven-smiths of Eregion forged rings of great power.

  I closed my eyes.

  I was home.

  * * *

  Hazel must have texted ahead because, when we wheezed into Kinlochbervie some twelve or thirteen hours later, Mum was waiting for me on the doorstep.

  And I dived straight into her arms.

  * * *

  I spent a lot of time in the attic room—Mum’s room—curled up in the bed under the eaves. The first place I’d spent the night with Caspian Hart. I listened to the whispers of the sea. Caught the dapple of the fairy lights in my cupped hands.

  And cried and ached and grieved.

  Tried to let Caspian go.

  Honestly, I wanted to hate him. But how could I, when he already hated himself? And with such unassailable fervor that he’d rather believe he was a monster, than accept he could be hurt.

  I’d probably watched too much Disney. But wasn’t love supposed to be strong?

  Except I’d loved and loved and loved.

  Loved with all my heart.

  And lost long ago.

  * * *

  Every night, Mum came in with our old copy of Father Brown. Read to me until I fell asleep, just like when we used to wait for my dad to come home.

  It was weird, at first, not having to whisper.

  Not having anyone to fear.

  * * *

  Eventually I remembered there were things I should have been getting on with. I was starting a new job in a couple of weeks—a job I’d been incredibly happy and proud to get—and I had nowhere to live.

  So I sat down with Rabbie, and he helped me figure out my tax bracket and what my take-home pay would be and all that stuff. I thought I could stretch to around seven or (at a push) eight hundred a month for rent, and still leave enough for grown-up things like bills and travel and food and toothpaste.

  Not much for fun, though.

  But I guess this was life when you weren’t dating a billionaire.

  In any case, I thought eight hundred quid a month would be loads. I wasn’t expecting to move into a palace or anything but I thought it might stretch to a nice little apartment somewhere. That could, hypothetically, look similar to the one Sarah Jessica Parker had in Sex and the City.

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite accounted for London. And the fact I wasn’t the quirky protagonist of an American TV show. It turned out there were garages—and not even nice garages—beyond my budget. And the only residential properties I could afford were spurious house shares or dreary little studio flats. Places with only one or two pictures on RightMove—usually a bare mattress jammed against a stucco wall or an exterior shot of a concrete block or, in particularly dire cases, a photo of the loo. Seriously? Those were the best images somebody could find? I mean, maybe if I’d been an Elizabethan time-traveler the fact I didn’t have to poo out of the window would have been a major wow factor. But, child of the post-Bazalgette era that I was, I was inclined to take indoor plumbing for granted.

  Oh God. Caspian had spoiled me. He’d made ordinary life look…really rubbish. And left me stranded between worlds. Alone.

  * * *

  I was sitting on the swing, swaying in a desultory fashion, and watching the horizon eat the waves. And then the back door opened.

  My heart shattered like someone had thrown a rock through it.

  But it was Ellery who stepped into the garden. She clomped toward me, hands in the pockets of her hoodie. Scotland suited her. Made her eyes as clear as the sky and the sea.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. Surprised I was even capable of speech.

  “Taking in an exhibition at the Tate Modern.” She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Came to see you, dipshit.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  She shrugged. “Guess Caspian fucked you over, huh?”

  For a moment or two I didn’t say anything. The wind was sharp and salty-clean like the first sip of an exceptional margarita. It felt good simply to breathe. Let the air scour you. “Well, we’re not together anymore.”

  “You’re better off without him.”

  “I don’t think it’s a question of better or worse. But not being with him hurts.” I toed the ground, pushing myself a little higher. “You know about Lancaster Steyne, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. They didn’t even try to hide that shit from me.”

  “But none of it was Caspian’s fault. You get that, right? He was young and vulnerable and messed up. And betrayed by someone he trusted in the worst way possible.”

  Another Ellery shrug. “Sure.”

  “Sure? Is that all you can say?” My voice cracked. And, suddenly, I was back at One Hyde Park with Caspian. Losing him all over again.

  “What the fuck do you want from me?”

  “I don’t know. Understanding. A little compassion, maybe?”

  “Screw compassion. I mean, if what happened to him was soooo terrible, why wouldn’t he put a stop to it now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She gave a nasty laugh. “Oh come on, Arden. He’s probably already with him. He always goes back to Lancaster.”

  I stopped swinging. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry anymore.

  Ellery’s hand brushed my shoulder briefly. “He’s fucked up. He fucks everyone up. I’m sorry.”

  “He’s so unhappy,” I mumbled.

  “You’re not the first person to try and fix him.”

  “I just wanted to be with him.” I leaned into her and while she made an irritated noise she didn’t move away. “And it seems cruel beyond reckoning that a man with such power over his world could have so little over himself.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Tragically ironic. And you know what else is tragically ironic?”

  “What?”

  “The fact you’re sitting here in the arse-end of Scotland, with nothing, and nowhere to go, and probably no clue about anything, trying to make me feel bad for the guy who treated you like shit.”

  “Hey now,” I protested. “He offered me money and the apartment.”

  “Like you were going to take it. How long was he with you? Did he know you at all?”

  “We were kind of in the middle of an argument at the time.”

  “Right. But it’s been over a week.”

  It had. And I’d told myself I wasn’t hoping for anything. Except I must have been. Because now I felt silly.

  Ellery kicked the tree moodily. “Stop feeling sorry for him. I expect he’s feeling sorry enough for himself. Or Lancaster’s found him a new whipping boy.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Did you really come all the way to Kinlochbervie to say I told you so?”

  “No.” She pulled her hood up and disappeared into its shadows. “I came to ask if you want to live with me.”

  I nearly fell off the swing. “Live with you?”

  “Yeah. Thought I should move out. Do some shit with my life or something.”

  “What sort of shit did you have in mind?”

  She kicked the tree again. And then, apparently finding the shelter of her hood inadequate, caught the strings and yanked them so tight that only a tiny window was left for her face. “Thought I might go Bartók on some English folk songs. Try to bring them back into the popular consciousness or whatever.”

  “Um. How?”

  “Well. I thought I’d start by playing them.”

  I gazed at her, slightly shocked. “That sounds amazing.”

  “Right? I found one about baby murdering.”

  “Wow. Yes. People need that in their lives.” I clutched my chest. “How can we, as a culture, have let our babymurdersongs whirl away upon the slipstreams of time?”

  She ma
de an odd muffled noise. I think she might have been laughing. “Is that a yes, then?”

  “Do you even have a house for me to move into?”

  “Yeah, I do. Just bought it. Although it’s not…exactly a house. It’s more of a space.”

  Oh dear God. I was going to end up living in a derelict power plant or a disused Tube station. “You should charge me rent, though.”

  “Hell yes, I will.” She emerged slightly from her hoodie. “I’m not Caspian. You don’t get to pay me in sex.”

  I gave an outraged squeak. “That was not our arrangement.”

  “Rent’s £750 a month, bills included.”

  It was so perfect for me I suspected she’d put far more thought into this than her manner suggested. “That seems unreasonably reasonable for London.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s going to need some renovation. And there’ll be a lot of babymurderingsongs happening.”

  “I guess…I guess I’m in.”

  She gave me a flat look. “Okay then.”

  “You know what this means, right?”

  Now her gaze became distinctly wary. “No. What?”

  “Hug time.” I bounced off the swing.

  “Oh don’t. Do you have to?”

  She grumbled, but she let me hold her. Even gave me a brief, grudging squeeze in return.

  And, afterward, we sat on the grass together. Watched the sunset crack the sky like an egg, spilling gold and scarlet and purple across the shifting waves.

  I still felt miserable. Lessened. Turned into ribbons of myself: thin enough for the light to shine through.

  But I also knew that I was going to be okay. Maybe not today or tomorrow or even the day after that. Probably not for a long time. But it was there. Waiting for me. Just a step beyond the horizon.

  When Caspian left me, I thought I’d lost so much that I’d lost everything.

  Except I’d found something too.

  A piece of truth, as smooth and bright as sea glass.

  For all his wealth and power and beauty, I had something Caspian Hart would never have. Would never be able to accept.