How to Belong with a Billionaire

by Alexis Hall

  And so utterly alone.

  Losing the man he loved in ways he couldn’t hope to understand.

  Chapter 40

  George had masks in the glove box—plain back for her and, by pure chance, silver filigree for me.

  “You do realise,” said George very softly, “he might not thank you for this?”

  “I know.”

  “People can only really help themselves.”

  “Then”—I stared at my Docs, glittering cheerfully from beneath the hem of the gown—“I’m going to help him do that.”

  She laughed. “I’ve never had much patience for people like Hart. Self-loathing is such a masturbatory vice. But I’m starting to think he might have something a little special, after all.”

  “What’s that?”

  Leaning over the gear stick, she kissed me—the gesture oddly chaste. “You, poppet. Now let’s go, or there’ll be no oysters left, and then I’ll be obliged to fuck someone just to pass the time.”

  We left the car and crunched up a gravel drive to what I was sufficiently spoiled by high living to consider a generic Kensington mansion. A word from George to one of the solid-looking gentlemen waiting by the pillar-flanked front door and we were inside.

  “Um.” I took a skittish step closer to her. “Why is everyone staring at us?”

  She helped me out of my cloak and draped it over her arm, a gesture I very much appreciated, since it was some of us are getting naked soon hot in there. “Because I’m me and you’re delectable.”

  I glanced around somewhat wildly—it was all soft light and scarlet gauze, and the gleam of skin on marble floors, with the smell of roses working really hard to disguise the smell of disinfectant. Guests, in various states of dress and undress, streamed endlessly across the entrance hall, and up and down the wings of the staircase, masks and outfits blurring into each other like a trying-too-hard carousel until I lost track of what I was seeing.

  Oh no. “How the fuck am I going to find Caspian in this?”

  “Well”—George drew my arm firmly through hers—“I recommend we start by looking.”

  She was right, but it already felt like an impossible task, and the gathering was just diverse enough that two men together wasn’t, on its own, identifying. We passed between interchangeable rooms and between interchangeable bodies, and sometimes I thought I recognised him, in the curl of someone’s hair or the set of their back, but it was always a stranger, the idea that I could ever have thought they were him rendered crushingly absurd the moment they turned around. Everyone kept moving—shifting, drifting, joining—caught in some ceaseless, incomprehensible dance. And everywhere was the same, a gaudy labyrinth of chaises and cushions, red on red on red, like a too-eager mouth. I mean, I’m sure it was a perfectly okay party if you were into that kind of thing. But it came at me with all the chill of a Hogarth painting. Leaving me half-sick with the smell and the heat, the hiss of silk and the rasp of breath, the shadows of sex writhing on the walls, and the fear I wouldn’t find Caspian.

  And then I did…or I thought I did. Pulling free from George, I ran, slipping on marble and getting tangled in velvet, pushing my way through guests suddenly as unreal to me as mannequins, chasing a glimpse of probably fucking nothing. A butterfly of wishful thinking. On the stairwell, a glimmer of gold hair. Nathaniel? At the far end of a corridor, a backward glance—blue eyes imprisoned behind a dark mask.

  And gone.

  Fuck. Fuck. I searched. Rushed, frantic, from room to room. Ground floor. First floor. Same again.

  Nothing. Nowhere. Vanished. Imagined?

  Finally, I crashed headlong into George. “They were…I saw them…I did…but…I don’t know…”

  She gently wiped the sweat from my nose. “They must have gone into one of the private rooms. Wait here. Remember to breathe. I’m going to have a word with the hostess.”

  I nodded. Waited. Didn’t do so great with the breathing. The passing minutes wrapped around me like the coils of a boa constrictor.

  “The red room.” George appeared in front of me, pressing a key—such an ordinary key—into my hand. “Second door on the left.”

  I gaped at her. “How did you—”

  “Intense personal charisma and promises I don’t intend to keep. Now go. And if you need me…” She paused, evidently reflecting on the fact we’d had to leave our phones behind. “Yell really loudly?”

  “What if you need me?”

  She gave one of her wickedest laughs. “Poppet, I never need anyone. In fact, I’m fully intending to collect the most attractive people I can find and take them home with me. I don’t fuck in places like this. Takes all the fun out of it.”

  “Um…have a nice time?”

  “If nothing else, it’ll reunite me with my personal electronics—meaning I’m easier to contact if something goes wrong after I’ve left. Or for that matter, if you’d like to join us.”

  I gabbled my thanks and fled, key folded so tightly in my hand that the teeth bit into my palm. Found the door. Didn’t dare stop. Didn’t dare think. Just unlocked it and burst inside.

  The seconds stretched out like treacle.

  I saw red hangings. A four-poster bed with red sheets. Walls hung with whips, chains, floggers, crops. Nathaniel, arm raised. And Caspian, my Caspian, hands cuffed to a metal grid, eyes closed, back bare.

  And then I was moving. And time seemed to remember itself, racing to catch up, as if the world had buffered and overcompensated.

  I think I shouted “Don’t.”

  But only because words were a habit. The truest instinct, the deepest, was to cover Caspian’s body with mine.

  His skin was soaked with sweat. Alive with minute tremors.

  Something cut the air. Then cut me. A cane strike, landing with a pistol-sharp crack, across my naked shoulder blade. It was an ugly pain—hot and jagged, like rusted metal—and I made an ugly sound.

  I heard Nathaniel give a choking gasp behind me. “What the—”

  “Arden?” Caspian’s voice was as raw as my scream had been. “Oh God, what have you done?”

  Pain-made moisture was slipping slowly from the corners of my eyes. And I could feel a few drops of something viscous sliding down my spine. Blood? The yellow stuff that sits on top of blood? “What have you done?”

  Suddenly he went wild beneath me, rattling the cuffs against the grid with such force that I thought he was either going to lift it off the wall or break his wrists. “Get these off. Get them off me. Get them the fuck off me.”

  I’d never heard him sound that way before—he’d been angry, yes, even afraid sometimes, but this was a kind of animal panic. The bewildered fury of a tiger thrashing in a hunter’s trap. I pulled away, wanting to spare him the added burden of my weight, and the pain radiating from my shoulder erupted into a frenzy, nearly sending me to my knees.

  “It’s all right,” I told him, wrapping a hand around the honeycomb of the grid to keep me upright. “I’ve got you. Hold still.”

  But I’m not sure he was capable of it, fighting against his bonds, and fighting me right alongside them. I fumbled with the buckles, light-headed, my fingers weak and trembly and useless.

  I tried again, close to tears for real this time. “Please. I can’t—You have to…you have to let me.”

  “Caspian”—that was Nathaniel, sounding exactly as shocked as he deserved to sound—“please, I—”

  I half turned. “Just…shut up. You’ve done enough.”

  To my surprise, Caspian stilled, breathing heavily, hands clenching and unclenching in the cuffs. Which, after a few more seconds of incompetent tugging, allowed me to release him. His wrists were torn up, rubbed bloody and already bruising, but he didn’t seem to even notice. Just grabbed me and spun me round, the stinging intensity of his gaze upon my back enough to make me whimper as if he’d touched me. “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Pushing me behind him, he strode across the room to where Nathaniel was stand
ing and ripped the cane from his hand. “What the fuck was that?”

  “I…” Nathaniel cringed, his face ashen and sweat-speckled. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”

  Caspian snapped the cane over his knee and flung the pieces of it aside. “You know I consider negligence far worse than malice.”

  “It happened so fast.”

  “Then you should have been faster. And these excuses do not reflect well on you.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. Surging forward, I grabbed at Caspian’s arm. “For fuck’s sake. That’s enough. It was clearly an accident. And anyway, he didn’t do anything to me he wasn’t going to do to you.”

  “I had submitted myself to it.” Caspian glanced down at me, his eyes losing some of their icy ferocity. “You had not.”

  It was so not the right time, but I couldn’t help myself: I laughed. Well, it was that or cry. “I’ve never submitted to anything in my life. I’ve chosen. Just like I chose to take that blow for you.”

  A moment of silence, and then Caspian asked, very softly, “Why would you do that?”

  The easiest answer was because I love you. But while that was part of it, the truth was more complex. “Because this isn’t what you want and it isn’t what Nathaniel wants and it diminishes what I want. On top of which, it isn’t going to fix anything. Honestly, I don’t know what either of you were thinking.”

  “Nathaniel thought it would help me control my nature better. And”—the tight little line appeared between Caspian’s brows—“the attempt was the least I owed him.”

  At that, I turned a death glare on Nathaniel. “What, so, like aversion therapy? Except for kink instead of queerness?”

  “No. God. No. I would…I would never—” He went, if possible, even paler. And for a second or two, I thought he might actually throw up. But then he just wobbled over to the bed and sat down, dropping his head into his hands.

  When he looked up again, his cheeks were wet, and he turned his gaze pleadingly on Caspian. “You…you wouldn’t touch me. You said you were too afraid of hurting me. I thought if you could forgive me for doing this to you, you could believe in my forgiveness also.”

  “For the last fucking time,” I yelled, “nobody needs any fucking forgiveness. This stuff’s just sex. It doesn’t need to be diagnosed or explained or justified.”

  Nathaniel glanced my way. “You know it’s not that simple for Caspian.”

  “Because of Lancaster Steyne?” Probably I shouldn’t have spoken quite so bluntly, because I felt Caspian shudder. But for my own sake, I wasn’t letting that entitled abusive prick become my personal Voldemort.

  “For God’s sake,” Nathaniel snapped, “have a little compassion.”

  I blinked. I had moments of feeling sorry for him, but the man’s capacity for self-righteousness was truly impressive. “Compassion? You just literally hit me. As part of some sick plan to fix your sex life.”

  “Please stop this.” Caspian stepped between us, as if he could physically prevent us from wanting to bicker each other to death. “I know you would dearly love to believe differently, Arden, but Nathaniel’s right. I…” He faltered, then pressed on. “I’ve never been able to trust that my desires are my own. If I’ve always had them, if they are indeed, for better or worse, a part of me. Or if they’re…they’re Lancaster’s…and by indulging them I am only surrendering to him.”

  “Oh, Caspian.” Unthinking, I reached for him, cupping his face gently between my hands and drawing it down to mine. “It doesn’t matter where your desires came from. They aren’t his because you aren’t him, and you’ll never be him. And he can’t control or keep you or hurt you anymore.”

  “But,” he whispered, “what if I don’t want to be like this?”

  The streak of pain across my shoulder had, somehow, become deeply focusing. A talisman that steadied my heart and unknotted my tongue and let me find the words I’d been searching for since that dreadful night at One Hyde Park when Caspian had told me his truths and broken my heart rather than face them.

  “I can’t tell you how to feel about Steyne,” I said, “and I’m not here to fix you, but the way I see it, the things that happen to us shape who we are. And so when some of those things are terrible, or wrong, you have to wrap your head round the idea that accepting yourself isn’t the same as accepting what was done to you.” I went up on my toes, pressing into him, my mouth so close to his that speech felt like kissing. “And if you really want to change, you can. You have that power and no one can take it from you. But for whatever it’s worth, I don’t think you need to.”

  “Arden. My Arden.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head, touching his brow to mine. “Please…teach me to believe you.”

  Then came a choked-off sound. Nathaniel, smothering a sob into his hand. “I don’t understand. I’ve done everything right. I’ve tried to help you. I’ve let you do…these things to me. Why don’t you love me?”

  Caspian broke away from me, his gaze seeking Nathaniel’s. “I do love you.”

  “Not the way you love him.” Impatiently, Nathaniel brushed the back of his wrist across his eyes. “I’m not blind, Caspian, and I’m not stupid either. I know you’re still smoking. And I know you’re still sleeping with Arden.”

  Oh fuck. Fuck. No matter what I thought of Nathaniel, I wouldn’t have wished that knowledge on him.

  “I am giving up smoking,” said Caspian gently, “but have lapsed occasionally and have kept it from you because I cannot abide your disappointment. And Arden and I had a single encounter, which neither of us intended, and we both knew to be unfair to you.”

  “Do you think I care about what’s fair?” Nathaniel’s voice rose—I got the sense he thought he was angry, but all I heard was hurt. “I care you want him in ways you don’t want me. That you show him parts of yourself that you won’t show me. That you’re with him in ways you’re not with me.”

  A few graceless steps and Caspian was on his knees by the bed. “I’ve tried, Nathaniel, I’ve tried for years to be the man you wish I could be.”

  “That’s the thing I can’t bear.” Nathaniel lifted a hand, as if he meant to touch Caspian’s hair, but then let it fall again. “When you’re with him, you are.”

  “I only wish that were true. I let you down. I’ve betrayed you both. And I’m not worthy of either of you.”

  “Was it really so important to you?” Again, an aborted motion from Nathaniel. “The whips and the chains and the pain and the humiliation?”

  Caspian’s shoulders hunched, and he pressed his forehead to the side of Nathaniel’s thigh. “I don’t know…I’m sorry…I don’t know…”

  Okay. I couldn’t take another word of this.

  “Look.” I might have misjudged my volume, because they both turned towards me—taking the imperative a bit more literally than I’d intended. “I could give a big speech about how I see this stuff differently—how it doesn’t humiliate me and the pain gets me off—but I’m not. Because, one, I don’t care what you think, Nathaniel—”

  He opened his mouth, probably about to protest or rebuke me.

  But I steamed right on. “And two, I’m not going to let you make my whole relationship with Caspian about sex. He gave me confidence when I needed it and courage when I was scared, he made me feel special when I thought I was nobody, and believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself. And when you”—I made a gesture in Nathaniel’s direction—“drag it all back to your hang-ups about kink and you”—a flail at Caspian—“keep making it about what you think you’re worthy of, you shit all over the most important thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  Silence, as thick as the velvet and roses of this awful fucking place. And Caspian, half-turned towards me again, something shocked and wondering on his face, his eyes searching mine for truths I was only too glad to yield.

  “So,” said Nathaniel, with sharp-edged composure. “That’s it, then? After all we’ve been through, after everything I’ve done fo
r you and endured for you, you’re choosing him.”

  Caspian froze, his whole body pulling so rigid I half expected his spine to crack. “What do you mean?”

  “Well”—Nathaniel shrugged—“it’s what you want, isn’t it? What Lancaster taught you to want.”

  “What? No.” Caspian shook his head frantically, the same wild terror I’d seen in him while he’d been cuffed clawing its way through his skin like some alien parasite. “I don’t—I didn’t. Arden, please, you have to see…I can’t do this. I can’t be with you. I’ll only hurt you.”

  Time was, this would have freaked me out. I mean, it still wasn’t great—but it didn’t scare me anymore. Not for my own sake, anyway. I wasn’t the bastion of calm I would have been in some ideal world, but—mouth dry and heart fluttery—I slowly sank to my knees in front of Caspian. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay. There’s only one choice you have to make today and I’m so sorry I haven’t helped you make it before.”

  His breath rasped. And he was shaking again—tiny vibrations that made me want so badly to hold him as tightly and surely as he’d often held me.

  “You see,” I went on. “I’ve been looking at this wrong the whole time. I always thought it was between Nathaniel and me. But it’s not.”

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you choose him or me or neither of us. It only matters that you do what makes you happy and that you understand you deserve to be happy. You’ve spent so long punishing yourself for something someone else did to you. Questioning everything you want and denying everything you need. But”—I actually clasped my hands, uncaring of how ridiculous I probably looked—“I’m begging you, Caspian, you’ve suffered enough. Choose peace. Choose freedom. Choose you.”

  A pause and then, with painful uncertainty, the words practically dragging their tails behind them, “How can you want to be with me? After everything I’ve done. Now you know what I am.”