How to Belong with a Billionaire

by Alexis Hall

  “I’m always thinking of you, my Arden.”

  Oh God. Time to be brave. I fucking hated being brave. “That’s where the apology comes in.”

  He tilted his head curiously. “How so?”

  “Because”—urgggh—“because when you broke up with me, I didn’t take it very well.”

  “I treated you badly. I don’t think there could be any expectation of you responding positively to that.”

  “You didn’t treat me badly. We just had, I guess, noncompatible ideas about whether we should be together.”

  He gave a strange, soft laugh. “That sounds almost like something I would say.”

  “I learned a lot from you.”

  “Don’t. I can’t imagine I could have taught you anything good.”

  “You taught me only good things, Caspian. And the way I felt about you, I’ve never felt about anyone. So when it didn’t work out between us, I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I”—he glanced away, biting his lip—“I cannot say I have been wholly satisfied with my own behaviour. But I cannot wholly regret it either.”

  I put my fingers lightly to the edge of his jaw and turned his face back to mine. “I don’t regret a single moment I’ve spent with you. But I do regret that I haven’t respected your choices.”

  “I know you don’t understand them.”

  “I don’t. And I one hundred gazillion percent don’t agree with them. But…” It seemed like a good moment to breathe, so I did, wishing it sounded less desperate and gulpy. “That doesn’t mean you don’t get to make them. And that’s why I’m sorry, Caspian. For getting in the way of what you believe will make you happy.”

  His hand came up, as if he was going to touch me, but dropped again almost immediately—though not before I’d seen how it trembled.

  “I want you to be happy,” I told him. “You deserve to be happy. And so I hope you can understand why…why I can’t see you again.”

  The colour fled his face. “I’m not sure I do understand.”

  “I love you. I can’t pretend not to. But I can move on from it—only not when we keep falling back into each other’s lives. You’re with Nathaniel now. I need to accept that. And so do you.”

  “Must it be,” he asked, in a voice barely above a whisper, “an either/or?”

  “For now? For me? Yes.”

  “I…I…don’t want it to be.”

  “I can’t, Caspian.”

  “Please…” He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and then we were utterly entangled, my arms around him, his around me, our bodies finding their fit as naturally as one breath following the next, his face pressed against the curve of my neck. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t bear the thought of being without you.”

  Oh no. My heart. My already-broken heart. “But what happens if I stay? What are we? What about Nathaniel?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.” He drew me in more tightly still, the clutch of his fingers hard enough to leave bruises. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

  I did my best to soothe him, light touches and long strokes, the soft pressure of my palms against his back, as though I held a wild animal. “I know you don’t. And that’s the problem.”

  “I…I’m lost, Arden. I’m so lost.” He shuddered against me, helpless despite his physical strength. “I haven’t felt this way since my father died.”

  “It’s not too late. You can still choose me.”

  He lifted his head and stared at me, his eyes a wasteland of sorrow. “I wish I could.”

  It took everything I had not to argue. Not to insist (beg) that he could, as I had so many (too many) times before. “I understand. But I have to go.”

  No answer. Just a convulsive movement, too ambiguous to be either resistance or acquiescence.

  “It doesn’t have to be forever. I mean, I’m not waiting for you or some creepy Madding Crowd shit like that.” I managed a vague impression of a laugh. “Maybe when you’re a smug married and I’m over you, we can be friends or something. Just…not right now.”

  His hold on me had loosened, so I was able to pull back. It was only a couple of steps but it felt like a long, long journey. Caspian straightened, repositioned the knot of his tie, the cool grey light from the floor-to-ceiling windows turning him into his own shadow.

  “Then go,” he said. “Before I can’t let you.”

  I’m sure, once upon a time, walking away from Caspian Hart would have been the hardest thing I’d ever done. Now it definitely wasn’t, but it still hurt like fuck. I took it almost gladly, though, because the pain was swift and clean, and I knew I could take it.

  I’d chosen it, after all. And that made it mine.

  As much mine as my love.

  I was weepy and exhausted by the time I made it to the warehouse, but in an okayish welp, these are the reactions that I’m having sort of way. Nothing sleep and time wouldn’t help. Halfway to the ladder to my mezzanine, I tripped over Ellery’s second-favourite boots—which had been left in the middle of the floor—and fell flat on my face.

  Normally, this would not have improved my day. But the fact they were there after nearly two bootless, Elleryless months, and that she’d obviously wanted me to find them, albeit probably not nose-first, filled my battered spirit with genuine joy. She’d been here. She’d come back. Reaching for my phone, I intended to text her something funny and charming and not too desperate about Broderick, but ended up just sending: I miss you. Please come home. And to my surprise, a few minutes later I got back: okay. soon. Which was more than I could have hoped for.

  I had a lot to think about as I crawled gratefully into bed. Like the fact my life had been a long string of fuck-ups recently, including but not limited to cheating with my engaged ex-boyfriend, coming perilously close to losing my best friend, and nearly destroying my family. It wasn’t a time I was going to look back on with pride, but now that I was through the worst of it—please, God, let me be through the worst of it—I was starting to understand that sometimes shit just happened, and sometimes the shit was your fault, but all you could really do was deal with it and live with it and try to own it.

  Though, of course, the dealing and living and owning got way easier if you had people around. People who would stick by you and forgive you and help you when you needed it. And I knew I had that—would always have that—no matter how much it felt like my sky was falling down around me. I wanted it for Caspian too, even it meant he found it with Nathaniel, and not with me.

  It wasn’t the ending I’d imagined for us. Not the one I’d dreamed of and yearned for and nearly lost myself trying to bring about. But it was what we had. It was still our story. And that would be enough for me.

  Chapter 38

  Right then. Dealing. Living. Owning. Not always easy, but it kept me focused, kept me moving forward. Work helped. George helped. Updates from Nik and Poppy’s place in Boston helped. Ellery still wasn’t back full-time, but her boots were often on the floor, and my bread and cereal kept disappearing, which I took as a good sign. As much as I missed her, I certainly had no intention of pressuring her. Check me out: all mature and shit. And thankfully, despite my brain dwelling pretty obsessively on worst-case scenarios for a couple of days, there wasn’t a peep from Jonas.

  Things were quiet, which was what I needed. Without Ellery for them to happen around, the warehouse stopped being a party space and became more of a me in a blanket reading Georgette Heyer on the sofa and eating Galaxy space. Which meant that, when there came a knock on the door one evening, it took me genuinely by surprise—especially because it was too late for an Amazon delivery and I hadn’t ordered takeaway. Probably it was Ellery, returning home in royal state, carrying neither keys nor money, and so I eagerly uncurled and went to let her in.

  Except it wasn’t Ellery. It was Lancaster Steyne.

  “Arden.” He stepped past me before I had the presence of mind to slam the door on his feet, face, or any other physical protuberances he might have posses
sed. “I think it’s time we had a talk, don’t you?”

  Since I wasn’t sure what else to do, I followed him inside. “What could we possibly have to talk about?”

  “Why”—he offered me a mocking smile—“Caspian Hart, of course.”

  This was…this was not happening. Apart from the bit where it definitely was. Lancaster Steyne was in the warehouse. Right now. With me. And I know I’d got my judgmental on recently about other people getting murdery, but there was part of me that quite seriously wanted to go for a knife. I mean, no jury would blame me, right? Or would they—because Lancaster Steyne was a rich, sophisticated, well-regarded pillar of his community, and I was a tiny queer in a purple unicorn onesie who had recently been in the papers for kissing siblings.

  At which point Steyne broke into my bloody reverie with the remark “I would love some tea. Earl Grey if you have it.”

  And I was so completely out of it that I actually went to make him some.

  “No milk,” he added. “I really can’t abide people who put milk in Earl Grey.”

  Under normal circumstances, I might have agreed with him, though I’d have gone with “don’t get” rather than “can’t abide.” As it was, I hastily splashed some into the cup. “Oops. Sorry. Too late.”

  He gave a deep, rich chuckle. “And I suppose were I to request bread and butter, you would give me cake.”

  Oh no. He wasn’t getting around me with a cute literary reference. “You’re lucky you’re not getting a face full of boiling water.”

  “Dear me. Such hostility.” He sounded entirely unconcerned. Which was annoying.

  I brought him his tea and he made me stand there with it while he took his coat off—a velvet-collared Chesterfield that I hated myself for slightly admiring. Underneath he was in a dark grey suit, as crisp and well fitted as any of Caspian’s, though a touch more dandyish, with the French cuffs, and the jewelled cufflinks, and the opulent purple silk of his tie. He looked like a man who knew how to live well, and that thought made my skin want to slough off my bones.

  He picked up These Old Shades, glanced at it with mild amusement, and then put it carefully aside so there was room for him on the sofa. He sat like Caspian, one leg draped elegantly over the other, but with none of Caspian’s restlessness. Steyne’s was a bear trap poise: unyielding and cold and designed to leave you bleeding.

  I handed him his fucking tea. “What do you want?”

  “What I have always wanted: Caspian’s happiness.”

  My mind flipped about like a fish on a hook. “Is that why you raped him?”

  “Raped him?” Steyne repeated, with a blink of what seemed to be genuine bemusement. “What a nonsensical notion.”

  “He was fourteen.”

  He fixed me with those rust-flecked silver eyes of his. “I must say I’m disappointed, Arden. Your views are so terribly parochial.”

  “There’s nothing parochial in thinking it’s wrong to fuck kids.”

  At which pointed he smiled at me. He goddamn smiled. “Nonetheless, I do enjoy your spirit.”

  “Yeah, well.” I folded my arms. “I don’t enjoy you at all.”

  “That will change in time. We have much to offer each other.”

  “You have nothing I want.”

  “You know”—he took a sip of what I hoped was dreadful tea—“that isn’t true.”

  I was having an if looks could kill moment except, sadly, my glares weren’t up to the task. “If you mean Caspian, he isn’t yours to give. And he’s with Nathaniel now.”

  “Do you really think I would allow that pompous little puritan to keep something I’ve put so much effort into creating?”

  “You didn’t create him. You abused him.”

  “I don’t believe that distinction is as meaningful as you think it is.” He put down the tea and leaned forward on the sofa, hands clasped lightly over his knee. “Now, listen very carefully. Nathaniel Priest paid me a visit a few days ago, quite distraught and utterly convinced that Caspian was falling back into, how can I put this, old habits.”

  It took me a moment to make sense of this. Okay, I needed way more than a moment. “I have, like, a million questions already but let’s start with: Why the fuck would he go to the guy who raped his fiancé?”

  “It’s true Nathaniel and I have never seen eye-to-eye, but he did seem rather desperate, and nobody knows Caspian as I do.”

  “You must have fucking loved that.”

  “I’ll admit”—Steyne offered a self-satisfied smile—“to a certain schadenfreude. Nathaniel is, after all, both odious and tedious, a particularly unpleasant combination. Although on this occasion, I almost pitied him. He lives in so small a world.”

  “Is this going somewhere?” I asked.

  “It will be”—Steyne’s voice had acquired a sharper edge—“when you stop interrupting. The point is, Nathaniel was behaving erratically. So much so that I was concerned he might do something rash.”

  I did not like the way this was going. And for someone who complained about being interrupted, Steyne wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information. “Rash how?”

  “Well…” The bastard paused for a long moment that I rode out through gritted teeth. “He somehow got it into his head that Caspian could never be free of me, or of you, until he could be made to see how deeply his needs could hurt people.”

  “Yeah, well, Nathaniel’s been saying that for years.”

  “I think, in this instance, he’s decided that actions will speak louder than words.”

  Okay, now I was officially panicking. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means”—another infuriating pause—“that he intends to show Caspian the other side of his desires by subjecting him to the kinds of punishments he has taken such pleasure in inflicting on others.” Pause. “In public.” Pause. “At a sex party.” Pause. “Tonight.”

  The nebulous dread that had been pooling in my stomach since Lancaster had invited himself into my house coalesced instantly into a monster of pure dismay. I tried to say something useful but all that happened was frantic noise.

  “I believe,” continued Steyne placidly, “Nathaniel thought it would be best to conduct the demonstration on neutral ground. Apparently, he has objections to the room I built for Caspian.”

  I stared at him—my face probably contorted into a series of horrified cartoon circles. “This is…what even is this? It’s a terrible plan.”

  “Oh, I agree.” Steyne smoothed the edge of one perfectly manicured nail. “I expect Caspian will be rather damaged by the experience.”

  Which was when everything snapped into place. “It was your idea, wasn’t it? You lost him, so you decided to break him. To get his own fiancé to break him.”

  “It doesn’t matter where the notion came from. What matters is what happens to Caspian afterwards.” He stopped contemplating his fingers and returned his attention to me, his gaze oddly—disturbingly—intent. “Neither of them will be able to forgive themselves, which will render it impossible for them to stay together. Which means he will need you. He will need us both.”

  “Look,” I said, ignoring the Darth Vader, rule the galaxy as abuser and accomplice shit, “if Nathaniel’s really going to do this, you have to stop it.”

  He just smiled. “You seem confused, Arden. Am I Caspian’s abuser or his savior?”

  “Right now”—I made a wild gesture—“I don’t give a fuck. Just tell me where they are.”

  “Think about it a moment.” Another of those too-hungry looks. “We both care for Caspian, we both have his interests at heart. We could do him so much good if we worked together.”

  Nope nope nope nope nope. With extra nope. And a nope salad on the side. “After we deliberately let something awful happen to him.”

  Steyne shrugged. “I wish it weren’t necessary, but sometimes Caspian needs to be reminded who is he and who he belongs to. It’s time for him to come home.”

  “And it’s time for you to get t
he fuck out of mine.” I was yelling. Possibly waving my arms about. “You’re a fucking monster, I’m never helping you, and I’m through listening to you.”

  “That is a pity.” He rose languidly from the sofa. “You know”—why wasn’t he reaching for his coat, he should have been reaching for his coat—“I would have been perfectly willing to share him, if you were.” Steyne wasn’t as tall as Caspian but he was still tall enough to be intimidating, broad across the shoulders and strongly built in a two plates of foie gras from heavy kind of way. “I even”—he took a few steps forward—“think I might rather have enjoyed it. But now, alas, you have become a problem.”

  Okay, so I’d seen this movie. I mean, maybe I was overreacting, but fuck it, I wasn’t taking the chance. I had my mobile out of my pocket and had hit 99 when Lancaster’s hand closed around my wrist. He gave it what felt like a practiced twist—pain shooting up my forearm until my fingers opened and my phone clunked to the floor.

  “The difficulty I’m having here,” he murmured, “is that I will not allow Caspian to believe that there is anything in his life that I cannot touch. Even you.”

  “Are…you fucking serious?” It seemed, in those few seconds, a lot easier to disbelieve. Because the alternative involved being fucking terrified. “Let me go.”

  The thing is—and under normal circumstances this would have been a massive positive—I had very little experience of being threatened, either physically or verbally. So while Steyne seemed way too at ease with both, I had no idea what to do. I tried to pull away, which didn’t work because he had my arm at such a nasty angle, and then to…I don’t know…strike at him with my free hand, anything to make him release me, but he just caught my wrist again.

  And everything after that was a mess. Disjointed stock motion. Of kicking out at him. Of being dragged, lifted, spun. The sofa knocking me breathless. And his body covering mine until there was nothing but him. His heat all over me like tar. His eyes a dirty metal gleam. The pinpricks of sweat on his upper lip, bright as broken diamonds. I could hear myself screaming in the distance. From some other place I’d lived once, where I’d danced and painted my toenails and worn a scarf the colour of the rainbow. Not this world. Where there was only a man. And the weight of him holding me down. And the smell of his skin in my mouth.