by Alexis Hall
“And your circumspection will be generously recompensed, pending the proper legal assurances.”
“Legal assurances?”
“Just a few standard and nonintrusive nondisclosure agreements.”
The conversation was getting away from me—thundering off like an out-of-control train down unintended tracks. “You don’t understand. I don’t want money and I will never, ever go to the papers.”
A very slight pause. “Then why are you calling me?”
“Because Boyle’s hanging around again. I thought you needed to know this stuff.”
A longer pause. “Arden”—Finesilver’s voice softened—“I cannot help Miss Hart unless she allows me to do so and you are no longer under Mr. Hart’s protection.”
“But—”
“You may, however, be certain that I will continue to safeguard my client’s interests. And I recommend that you continue to ensure that yours align with his.”
“I told you,” I muttered, “I won’t go to the papers.”
“Forgive me, but my profession does not reward the assumption that people will keep their word. Which is to say, if you find your morals wavering, you shouldn’t hesitate to contact me, and I will shore them up with material benefit.”
Boyle, with his sly glances and nasty insinuations, had made me feel pretty fucking dirty. But this was way worse. “Right. Okay.”
“Was there anything else you wanted, Mr. St. Ives?”
I should probably have escaped with what remained of my dignity, but bitterness got the better of me. “No, thanks. You’ve more than satisfied my need to feel cheap and blackmaily.”
“That was not my intention.”
“Then I guess it’s just a bonus.” Finesilver started to say something else, but I cut him off. “But for the record I only phoned because I wanted to get rid of Boyle.”
“I’m afraid I’m not in a position to advise you.”
“Yeah, you’ve made that very clear.”
He sighed. “Start on the IPSO website. Clause three of the Code of Practice. Goodbye, Mr. St. Ives.”
With a click, he was gone. And I was left in a park, in silence. This was turning into an incredibly shitty morning and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.
God, I wished I hadn’t called Finesilver. Not only because he’d treated me like shit—which, admittedly, was his job—but because it had reminded me how far away Caspian was. I mean, I knew he was. I’d long since stopped harboring secret hopes he’d come for me again, the way he had once upon a time as I sat on a swing in Kinlochbervie. But the gulf between us had grown so impossibly vast that I wasn’t a person to him anymore. I was a problem to be contained.
A mistake he’d made once.
And that hurt most of all.
Chapter 3
I pulled myself together, put on my happy face, and bounced into the office. Said my hellos. Did a tea round. Then got sucked into a really intense conversation with Tabitha England-Plume (the Features director) about her mum’s artisanal marmalade. It was made from the fruit grown in the orangery of their stately home and named—in acknowledgment of the fact Tab came from legit aristocracy—Lady Marmalade.
Finally, though, I made it to what had become my workspace. As was the Milieu way, it was clutter free except for a copy of Debrett’s, which I’m glad to say I’d never looked at. Not even when I was super bored. That was the weird thing about living your dreams: sometimes the living part was just kind of routine.
I logged into my email and got stuck in. And then began circling the issue of actual work. There was this piece on micro bags I was supposed to be writing copy for. Except I couldn’t think of anything witty or interesting to say about them. These are very expensive and unfit for purpose. Hmm, wait. Maybe there was something about lack of adequate storage being a status symbol. Too small for convenience. Too rich to care.
Hurrah. I was a genius.
Or, at least, adequate at my job.
“Smiling, poppet?” drawled a voice. “Thinking of me?”
I glanced up to find George Chase, photographer and self-identified rake, leaning in the doorway, watching me with her usual air of faint amusement. And, in high-waisted, wide-leg satin trousers, a white shirt, and purple jacket thing with black velvet lapels that was practically frockcoat, looking so fabulous it hurt.
“Teeny tiny handbags, actually.”
She laughed. “You need to get out more.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Oh, I can do far better than that.”
“Can you?”
“Always.” She twitched a wicked eyebrow at me. “Get your coat. We’re going on an adventure.”
A major component of my job was doing what people needed me to do—whether that was grabbing someone lunch, or finding a prop for the cover shoot, or compiling a top list of llamas who looked like the Duke of Edinburgh—and I’d played assistant to George a couple of times now. Much to the chagrin of some of the associate editors, since “gay for George” was pretty much an office meme. Not that anybody was mean to me about it—Milieu wasn’t that sort of place. Although I can’t say I was massively delighted when I discovered there was a wager for when I’d sleep with her. I was semi-tempted to bet on myself for never. Except George was ridiculously hot and never was a long time to wait for a payout.
* * *
A few minutes later, I was sitting next to George in her classic Jaguar roadster as she drove slightly too recklessly for my comfort through the London traffic.
“Where exactly is this adventure?” I asked.
“It’s a shoot for next year’s List.”
I gave her a severe look. “I’m starting to feel this excursion has been over-sold to me.”
“Don’t count on it, poppet.” There was something in her tone I couldn’t quite read—a touch of regret, maybe? “I’m taking the pictures, you’re doing the interview.”
“Okay. Sure.”
It was actually a fairly straightforward assignment. The top ninety of Britain’s most eligible people required only a couple of sentences, usually about how good they looked in a top hat or what dukedom they’d inherit, and a photo dug up from the Milieu archives. But numbers one-to-ten got their own a little feature. And the questions were standard, so as long as I didn’t call someone my lord, instead of your grace, or break a Ming vase on my way out I’d be unlikely to fuck things up.
George drummed her fingers lightly against the steering wheel. “Look, I’m sorry to spring this on you. But it’s Caspian Hart.”
There was nothing in my head but silence, like when a grenade goes off in a movie, and then everything explodes. Except without the explosion. Just the moment before stretching forever. “Oh.”
“He’s gone from seven to three.”
“Yeah. Well. I guess not being with someone would help with that.”
“You know something? You don’t have to do this. I’ll tell Mara to back off.”
Mara Fairfax was the editor-in-chief. She’d hired me, and was always friendly when our paths crossed but, given she was the most important person at Milieu, and I was the opposite of that, I wasn’t sure there was all that much off to back. “This was her idea?”
“Obviously, Arden.”
“And she knows I used to, um, date Caspian?”
“Do you really think,” said George with an affection so comfortable, so unabashed, I wondered if she’d even noticed it was there, “she got where she is today without the will to exploit every opportunity revealed to her?”
An ache in my shoulders made me realize I wasn’t just tense. I was braced. For an emotional reaction that wasn’t coming. “But…but…wouldn’t I be the worst person in the world to send? There’s no way he’d want to speak to me.”
“He probably wouldn’t want to, no.” She shrugged. “But giving people what they want rarely yields interesting results.”
“And this would be interesting?”
“Well, it couldn’t be more boring th
an his usual interviews. Have you read any?”
I shook my head. I’d seen a couple, here and there, but I’d never managed to actually get through one. Too much business talk.
“He gives so little of himself away. My gas bill has more humanity.”
For some reason, this made me smile: it was so like Caspian. “He’s different when you know him.”
George’s expression grew wry. “You’ve just made Mara’s point for her. Thankfully, my priorities are different.”
“I thought your priorities were sex and art.”
“And not traumatizing poppets unnecessarily.”
I wasn’t sure whether I felt patronized or protected. Maybe both. “I have to ask: what would necessarily traumatizing me entail?”
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”
“I can never tell,” I grumbled, “if you’re threatening me or flirting with me.”
She shot me an alley-cat grin. “Fun, isn’t it?”
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”
“You little minx.”
We’d reached the financial district. Not my favorite bit of London, I had to admit. It was almost as if the centuries had been smoothed away with the buildings themselves, leaving nothing but smooth glass, like blinded eyes, reflecting the steel-gray nothing of the sky. Or alternatively: it reminded me of Caspian, so all I was seeing was my own emptied-out heart.
George pulled over in the Barad-dûr-esque shadow of Hart Financial Services. “So what’s it to be?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Nobody’ll think less of you, either way.”
I peered up at Caspian’s place of business. His twenty-first-century fortress, coldly gleaming. “I might.”
“There’s no shame in love or pain.”
“Well”—I pushed open the car door and scrambled onto the pavement—“I’m sick of both.”
And I marched in like I fucking owned the place.
The effect of which was slightly diminished by the fact nobody really noticed or cared, and I had to stand in the lobby like a lemon while George got her camera bag.
But then we were in the lift, being whooshed up to Caspian’s floor in that tiny glass bead. And it was impossible not to remember the first time I’d done this. I’d been furious then, but so full of hope.
No hope today.
Just the determination to look Caspian in the eye, and feel whatever I felt, and know I’d keep living after.
That I was okay.
George nudged her shoulder gently against mine. “If you need to run away screaming, pull your ear or something, and I’ll cover for you.”
“I won’t need to.”
“What can I say?” She smirked me. “I’m a fan of safewords.”
And so she managed to make me laugh as the doors opened, admitting us into the vestibule outside Caspian’s office.
It hadn’t changed. Which was to say, it was still as intimidating as hell. Glass and marble and blah blah blah. And Bellerose, at his desk, looking like a terribly severe angel.
“Hi.” I waved in a check me out not being totally destroyed kind of way.
His head snapped up. And, wow, he was looking rough: dark circles under his eyes, cracked lips, acne rashes across the tops of his cheeks. “Arden. I…”
“We’re here from Milieu. We’ve got an appointment.”
“Yes, I know. It’s …” He scraped a lank lock of hair away from his brow. “Actually, it’s fine. Go right in.”
I should probably have been squirrelling my emotional energy away for, well, myself. But, for all his sharp ways, Bellerose had been oddly kind to me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He frowned, reverting to his more typical mode of Impatient with Arden. “Of course I am.”
“Are…are you sure?”
For a moment, he stared at me, his expression almost pleading. But all he said was, “Mr. Hart’s in his office.”
And so I had no choice but to let it go.
Press forward.
Caspian’s door loomed. I took a deep breath, pushed it open, and stepped boldly over the threshold.
Or, at least. That was the plan.
What actually happened was that I contrived to trip over, well, nothing. I tried to catch myself but to absolutely no avail. And one startled yelp later I was facedown, arse up on the ground.
“Arden?” Oh God. That was Caspian. I hadn’t spoken to him for months and yet his voice—so familiar with its upper-class vowels and its secret promise of warmth—pulled at me like an unfulfilled geas.
Footsteps.
Then someone reaching for me. And I let myself be helped before I realized it wasn’t Caspian.
You see, I knew his hands. Knew their strength, their elegance, and their restless vulnerability. They’d touched every part of me. Claimed me, in both pleasure and pain.
But this was a stranger’s hands. And a stranger’s touch. And it was almost impossible to imagine that these cool, perfectly manicured fingers—the fourth circled by a milgrain platinum band—could ever falter or flinch or reveal too much.
I made it back to my feet. Looked up.
And died in Nathaniel’s honey-golden gaze.
“Are you all right?” he asked, with the easy solicitude of the victorious. “Did you hurt yourself?”
I opened my mouth and waited for words to happen. They didn’t.
George stepped forward, her body briefly blocking mine. “Your assistant said you were free. We’re here about the interview.”
“Darling”—Nathaniel cast a look of amused exasperation in Caspian’s direction—“I thought you canceled that?”
He frowned. “So did I.”
“Well,” said George, “you didn’t. And I’m a very busy woman, so can we get on with it?”
Holy shit. This was the bit in a mafia movie where all the characters started pointing guns at each other and yelling. I mean, apart from the guns and the yelling. We were all too British for that.
But some pretty frosty looks were happening, let me tell you.
Nathaniel aimed his at George. “Do you talk to all your subjects like this?”
“Only the very special ones.”
“I must apologize.” It was odd to hear Caspian being conciliatory but, I guess, someone had to be. “The thing is, I…that is…I’m afraid I’m no longer an appropriate topic for this particular article.”
“What do you mean?” Oh. That was me. In the world’s smallest voice.
He’d been standing behind his desk, crisscrossed by silver-edged shadows. But now he stepped forward, his hand coming up self-consciously so he could adjust his tie when it didn’t need adjusting. And there it was: a dull gleam on his fourth finger. A ring to match Nathaniel’s.
“I’m…we’re…”
“Engaged,” I said.
“Bellerose should have told you. I mean, your magazine.”
My world was a platinum circle. It was manacles on my wrists. A vise around my heart. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Arden.” Nathaniel, soft-footed, came to stand beside Caspian. Took his arm. “A shame about your wasted trip.”
They already looked like a magazine cover. Caspian, exquisite in dark blue pinstripes, and Nathaniel, tastefully casual. A perfect match, equal in beauty and poise and sophistication.
And so wrong in every other way.
I was completely fucking furious with him. And desolate all over again. How hurt did you have to be, how terrified of who you were, and what you wanted, to do something like this? Not just to himself.
But to me. And to Nathaniel.
“We’ll get out of your way.” George gave my shoulder something between a pat and a shake. “You must have a lot to do.”
Except I was stuck. Staring helplessly at Caspian.
Waiting for him, somehow, in a handful of seconds, with nothing but silence between us, to trust, to understand, to change. And at the same time knowing
it was utterly beyond him. I’d lost Caspian before we’d even met. To Lancaster Steyne. The man whose cruelty would possess him for the rest of his days.
And Nathaniel was more fucked up than any of us if he didn’t see it too.
“How about a different interview,” I heard myself say. “The two of you together.”
Caspian gave a convulsive start. “No.”
The smile I produced felt like an alien’s impression of one. “It’d make a wonderful story.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Let’s not be so hasty, my prince.” Nathaniel pressed in closer, and whispered something in Caspian’s ear. And then, “I think it could be rather romantic.”
I shrugged. “Well, have a think about. I’ll leave my details with Bellerose if you want to set it up.”
Then I wheeled round.
And, on barely functioning legs, got the fuck out of there.
About the Author
Alexis Hall was born in the early 1980s and still thinks the twenty-first century is the future. To this day, he feels cheated that he lived through a fin de siècle but inexplicably failed to drink a single glass of absinthe, dance with a single courtesan, or stay in a single garret.
He did the Oxbridge thing sometime in the 2000s and failed to learn anything of substance. He has had many jobs, including ice cream maker, fortune-teller, lab technician, and professional gambler. He was fired from most of them.
He can neither cook nor sing, but he can handle a seventeenth-century smallsword, punts from the proper end, and knows how to hot-wire a car.
He lives in southeast England, with no cats and no children, and fully intends to keep it that way.
To learn more, visit:
quicunquevult.com
Twitter: @quicunquevult
Facebook.com/quicunquevult
Also by Alexis Hall
How to Bang a Billionaire
Praise for Alexis Hall
and His Novels
“Simply the best writer I’ve come across in years.”
—New York Times bestselling author Laura Kinsale