by Alexis Hall
“Enough of this.” Caspian pulled me into his arms and held me, while I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. “Jonas is a despicable man and you are precious.”
I was too far gone to even make a Gollum joke. If anything, the nice things he was saying just made everything hurt even more. “Don’t. I used to love how well you thought of me. But right now, I belong in a fucking dustbin.”
“You do not.” He gave me a little shake. “And if you keep talking like this, I really will have him assassinated.”
I yelped. “Don’t joke about it.”
“I’m not. I hate that he has made you doubt your worth.”
“He didn’t.” I sat up again, drying my face as best I could. “I did. Caspian, I put my family in danger because I was just so fucking desperate to let someone make me feel special.”
He closed his fingers tightly around my wrist, the band on his fourth finger gleaming with a kind of sickly sheen. “No. You made a mistake. That is all. And your family isn’t in danger. I won’t let anything happen to them. I promise.”
“I thought promises were for children.”
“You told me they were for—” Caspian stopped abruptly.
Lovers.
“Can I have that tea now?” I asked. As much for my sake as for his.
Obviously relieved, he handed me the cup.
And I stared into the murky grey-brown liquid, somewhat dismayed. “Um. What’s this?”
“Tea?”
“Are you sure?” I touched a finger to the surface, momentarily dispersing the oily film that had gathered there. “Because it looks dreadful. What did you do to it?”
A flush was creeping over his cheeks. “I don’t know. I followed a WikiHow.”
“You followed a…Have you really never made tea before?”
“Well, as you know, I prefer coffee and”—he gave me one of his more abashed smiles—“other people bring it to me.”
God. I shouldn’t have been capable of finding him adorable right now. But I did. Just a little bit. And then felt immediately guilty for thinking about Caspian instead of my family. Sick with self-recrimination, I took a heedless gulp of tea.
Caspian was watching me anxiously. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?”
“Uh…yeah. Really horrible.”
He took the cup back, seemed to be considering trying it himself, but then just put it down on the table again.
“Look,” I said. “Can you tell me what you’re doing? I…kind of need to know what’s going on. Do I need to call my mum? What if he—”
“There’s nothing he can do that is not within my power to preempt. In the worst-case scenario, he’s already on his way to Kinlochbervie, but he will have missed his opportunity to fly, so he will either need to drive overnight, catch the sleeper, or wait for the morning flight. I, on the hand, have a private jet, which has already departed. There will be people discreetly watching your family’s home within two hours.”
I made a wavery distressed noise I couldn’t quite keep in.
“I know you won’t thank me for pointing out that worrying will sap your spirit to no purpose.”
“Except for the bit where you pointed it out anyway.”
His lips twitched, but his expression quickly grew serious again “Sometimes it does us good to hear things even if we can’t acknowledge or believe them.”
“I…” Drawing my knees up to my chest, I curled my arms miserably around them. “I’m just having a hard time thinking about anything that isn’t what a shitty person I am. Which, now that I say it aloud, is still all about me. Oh my God. Am I a sociopath? Am I a sociopath like he is?”
“Arden,” said Caspian, very gently. “Of course you’re not.”
I turned my head to look at him. “H-how can you be so sure?”
“Sociopaths don’t care whether they’re sociopaths.”
“That seems too easy.”
“I’ve seen very many very clever people waste fortunes by failing to recognise when the easy answer was also the correct answer.” His eyes held mine, nothing but the softest blues tonight and silver spirals as bright as tinsel. “Arden, you need to forgive yourself for this.”
For once, I was the first to look away—hiding my face against my thighs. “No I don’t. I really don’t.”
“It’s the nature of such people to make us doubt ourselves. To make us bear the responsibility for their cruelty. How you feel now is just another of his manipulations.”
“You don’t understand,” I cried. “He said all this stuff about how he didn’t want to let Mum go and I couldn’t help thinking about how I didn’t want to let you go, and all this other stuff about how hard it was living with someone else’s decisions when they hurt you. And I know he’s bad and he was bad to Mum, but when he was talking, it felt like it was the same. And maybe it felt the same because it is the same and I’m—”
“Stop.” He caught my hands, which were plucking restlessly at my jeans. “Please stop. He was clearly leading you to draw those comparisons so that you’d believe his pursuit of your mother was justified.”
I stared at him, trying not to hate myself and failing hard. “And what about my pursuit of you?”
“That is categorically different.”
“How?” I asked, more than slightly pathetically.
“So many ways. Some of which I’m embarrassed to enumerate.” He closed his eyes for a moment and then went on. “Firstly, I’ve repeatedly taken actions that have brought you back in my life. Your mother has done everything she can to keep Jonas out of hers. Secondly, your mother ran away from your father because she was afraid of him. I ran away from you because I was afraid of myself. And finally, you’ve never…you’ve never…”
I nearly said Never what? but then I noticed how still he’d gone.
“You’ve never tried to diminish me,” he went on softly, “or control me or make me into what you think I should be.”
Getting a handle on my emotions was like sifting through stale vomit in order to figure out what I ate last night. My heart was a big ugly splash, all half-chewed bits of shame and guilt and fear. Though worst of all was the hurt. Oh, what the fuck was wrong me? That I could know exactly what sort of person Jonas was, and still be hurt by it. “I…I wish I could believe you but I can’t tell if I just want to let myself off the hook.”
“Please”—Caspian was crouched on the floor again, his hands covering mine—“believe me. You’re the best person I know. I can’t bear to see you like this.”
He still sounded oddly shaken. I glanced down at him, and it was always strange—having Caspian Hart at my feet. I’m sure under any other circumstances I would have been absolutely exultant. “I’m sorry. I’ve dumped a lot of shit on you tonight.”
“I don’t care about that. I would do anything for you.”
“I’m…I’m not who you think I am. This should have shown you that.”
“You’re exactly who I think you are.” His fingers tightened painfully on mine, his voice caught somewhere between fierce and imploring. “Your father can’t change that.”
I gave a shaky not-quite-laugh and uncurled because peering at Caspian over my knees was getting weird. “I don’t know what I did to make you so sure I’m so…whatever you think I am.”
“You didn’t have to do anything.” He leaned forward and rested his cheek against my legs. “You only had to be.”
“Oh, Caspian…” I didn’t know what else to say. In truth, I wasn’t anywhere near as close to accepting what had happened as he wanted me to be, but I’d already dragged enough of the people I loved into the maelstrom of my fuck-up. He was trying so damn hard to console me. The least I could do was let him. “Thank you.”
“Are you sure,” he asked, with just enough lightness that I was pretty sure he was joking, “you won’t let me have him killed?”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“No murder. Zero murder.
Murder count: nil.” Tentatively, I extricated one of my hands from his and petted the soft curls at his brow. I half expected him to pull away but he didn’t, just pressed into me. “I should never have mentioned it.”
“You were hurt and I was unable to prevent it. That is intolerable to me.”
“It’s not your job to protect me from my own stupidity.”
“But”—his eyes flicked to mine—“I do want to protect you.”
“Well, you can’t, because that’s not how things work. And you shouldn’t, because I need to live my own life, and yours is…yours is with someone else.”
There was a long silence. And then, so softly I almost missed it, “I…yes.”
“Though fuck knows,” I admitted, “what I would have done without you tonight. I’m honestly so fucking gratef—”
He silenced me with a gesture. “I don’t need your gratitude. Compared to what you’ve given me, this is nothing. Everything is nothing.”
“I don’t understand. I’ve always thought what I gave or tried to give you couldn’t have meant very much, considering…I mean…considering how easily you threw it away.”
“You must never think that.” He sat back on his heels, hands folded loosely in his lap, eyes steady on mine. “You gave me happiness, Arden, beyond anything I thought possible for someone like me. You made me believe, for a few infinitely treasured months, that I could be free.”
I wanted to tell him he could have that again. All it would take was a word. A look. But it wasn’t the time—for me or for him. So instead I said, “I hope someday you feel that way again.”
And I meant it too. I really did.
Chapter 33
We’d sort of run out of stuff to say, though not in a bad way. There was something peaceful in the quiet, an impulse towards togetherness as powerful on its own as the impulses that had led us to misbehaving in a fire escape not so very long ago. I thought Caspian might go off to do billionaire things, or whatever he was doing in the other room, but he didn’t. He just sat beside me on the sofa and let me rest my head against his arm, while my thoughts turned as helplessly as windmill sails in a gale. Until I found it: a hard, cold crystal of fury at the centre of tumult. And while I was all too familiar with the false comfort of getting angry instead of being sad, this was different. It didn’t feel like strength. It felt like a splinter I needed to pull out.
“When you find him,” I said. “I want to be there.”
Caspian’s whole body tensed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s not your call.” This was…well, not a bluff exactly. But I was overplaying my hand because I couldn’t force Caspian to tell me where Jonas was, and how can I put this, he wasn’t the least high-handed person I’d ever met. A trait I found attractive in certain contexts, and very much the opposite in others, although I also had to accept it came with the territory of being a billionaire.
So basically, I was braced for a row. And then Caspian sighed, his brows pulling tight. “I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t like the thought of him being anywhere near you.”
“I’m not all that keen on being near him either. But I have to know…I have to know it’s over. That he’s not coming for us.”
“And,” he murmured, “you can’t believe me if I tell you those things are true?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Caspian. I trust you more than anyone in the world. But”—I drew in a deep, surprisingly steady breath—“I think I should do this. I started it, after all. I should finish it.”
“You didn’t start it. The way he is has nothing to do with you.”
“Well, I’m still involved.”
His frown deepened. “If you insist on going, then I suppose you must go.”
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. But nothing came out.
“Now what’s the matter?” he asked.
“I guess I’m surprised. I thought you’d forbid it.”
“I would dearly love to forbid it.” He turned to face me, the faintest hint of a smile softening the sternness of his mouth. “But would you let me?”
I shook my head. “No chance.”
“Well then. I see no benefit in continuing to expend effort in pursuit of a futile cause.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I told him, my fingers finding of their own accord the line between his brows and stroking it to smoothness. “I’ll be okay.”
“My concerns are my…concern.”
“Except”—I grinned at him—“I’m telling you right now that you’re expending effort for a futile cause.”
He laughed, sounding almost more startled than amused, as if he’d forgotten he could laugh. “You little monkey. Though if I am to allow this, there will be conditions.”
“Oh, so it’s allow this now?”
“Don’t push your luck, Arden. You already know I think it’s inadvisable.”
“Sorry.” I gave him my best meek look. “What are the conditions?”
“You will be sensible and quiet and allow Finesilver do his job to the specifications I have provided for him. You will stop taking the blame for what has happened. And until there is something to be done, you will take care of yourself.”
The words, which were delivered in his firmest tone, coiled around me as sweetly as chains, and I couldn’t repress a contented shudder at them. “Take care of myself?”
“Yes. Eat properly, drink sufficiently, try to sleep.”
“I’m…I’m not sure I can face food right now.”
“The others, then.”
I somehow started talking to my feet. “It feels all kinds of wrong to be having a nice time when my dad is going after my mum.”
“I’m not suggesting you have a nice time. I’m insisting you stop engaging in unproductive acts of penance.”
“Okay.” Swallowing, I held out my hand to him. “I guess you have a deal, Mr. Hart.”
We shook, his grip a little tighter than it needed to be. Not in a dickhead businessman way, but like he didn’t want to let me go. “Please…if you don’t mind…don’t call me Mr. Hart. It takes me to a place I cannot visit with equanimity.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. It just happens sometimes, because you used to like it.”
“I still like it. But I shouldn’t.”
I gave him a final squeeze before pulling my fingers free. “We shouldn’t.”
“Indeed. We…” He faltered unexpectedly. Cleared this throat. “We shouldn’t.”
“So, um,” I asked, “what now?”
“There’s nothing further to be done tonight. I can call for a car, if you want to go home.”
Not hugely, in all honesty. Just the thought of being alone was terrifying, but I’d pretty much blown all my Caspian Credit already. And besides, I was supposed to be living my own life, wasn’t I? “Okay. And thank you.”
“Or if you would be more comfortable, you can stay here.”
“I can?” I peeped at him hopefully, if guiltily. “Would that be…okay?”
“Why would it not be? Though, be warned, it’s very late and I intend to put you straight to bed.”
I nearly asked, Will you tuck me in? But I remembered just in time I was trying to be a less terrible person. “What about Nathaniel?”
“He prefers to sleep at his house.”
“No. I mean, if I was Nathaniel, I would not want someone who felt towards you the way I do spending the night.”
His eyes widened. “You’ve had a very traumatic experience, and have come to me for help. Surely you don’t think I’m going to take advantage of you?”
“What if I take advantage of you?”
That brought a touch of pink to his cheeks. “Are you going to?”
I gave the matter due consideration. It seemed only fair. “Probably not. I’m not exactly oozing with sexiness right now.”
“In which case, Nathaniel has nothing to object to.”
Somehow I managed not to liter
ally facepalm. “I’m not sure it works like that, Caspian.”
“Go to bed. I do actually need to call him.”
Who would’ve thought being summarily ordered about could be something you’d miss? But I did. Well, being summarily ordered about by Caspian anyway. If I’d been into that sort of thing in general, I could have joined the army.
His bedroom hadn’t changed either—it was still this chill, bed-containing bubble that seemed to float Philip K. Dick style above the overturned jewellery box of the city. I breached the sanctity of the glass-smooth duvet and pulled it up to my chin, feeling about as weird as I had the last time I’d slept over at Caspian’s. Which, hey, looking on the bright side: At least I didn’t feel more weird. It was the lack of intimacy, I think, that gave me the willies—not so much the fact that neither I nor Nathaniel had managed to leave even the slightest trace of ourselves here, but the complete absence of Caspian too. Even the sheets were starkly fresh and scentless. Combined with the expensive cloudiness of the mattress, it made me feel like I was nowhere.
Pushing back the covers, I leaned over the edge of the bed and peered underneath, and was so relieved to see the battered box full of sci-fi and fantasy books that used to belong to Caspian’s father was still there. It was probably the most Caspian thing in the whole place. Definitely the most human. I couldn’t bear to think what it might have meant if he’d packed them away. And besides, I loved the image of him, amidst all this stark design and silence, curled up with some cheesy adventure novel from the eighties. In an ideal world, I would have been snuggled up next to him, of course. But if I couldn’t be, I needed to be able to picture him happy.
“What are you doing?”
Oh shit. That was Caspian. Addressing himself politely to my arse, which was right up in the air. I flipped proper-way-up as gracefully as I could, which was to say not very. “Um, nothing. I mean, just…looking. Around. How was Nathaniel?”