How to Bang a Billionaire

by Alexis Hall

  “Yeah. Just like that.”

  “It’s…it’s really good, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  We contemplated this for a while.

  “You don’t think,” I asked, “it was special or anything, do you?”

  “Nah—1988 isn’t that old.”

  “It’s older than me.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not mature. Or champagne.”

  I pressed a hand to my heart. “If I was, I’d like to be this champagne.”

  “If you were, I would drink you.”

  “I’d probably let you.”

  Sometime between opening the bottle and finishing the bottle and embarking on another one, we had decided to lie on the rug to better appreciate the beauty of the universe.

  Which was when dinner arrived. It was super super weird to be served in your home like it was a restaurant, except it was hard to imagine One Hyde Park being anyone’s home really, and we were tipsy, which helped with the embarrassment factor.

  The food went by in a blur of faint weirdness. They’d brought us this complementary starter, which was an orange and some burned toast, except the orange was actually pate and Nik exploded it with a knife when he tried to slice into it like you would a piece of fruit. The Rice & Flesh turned out to be saffron risotto with cow bits on top—although it was delicious—and my savory porridge was the worst thing in the world. Probably it tasted okay once you got over the fact that it was bright green and the frog legs croquettes had the bones sticking up like they were flipping you off.

  I got my revenge with the mains, though, since the braised celery was still, y’know, braised celery, despite being covered in cheese. Whereas I was presented with most of a dead animal in this amazing sweet-sticky-smoky sauce and crispy, thick-cut chips like you get in gastro pubs. Although, if those were my terms of reference, probably I didn’t have much of a future as a food critic.

  By the time we got to dessert, we were basically dead of indulgence. The caramelized apple tart turned out to be literally a caramelized apple on a pastry base, with ice cream on the side. So that was sort of hilarious. As was the fact that Nik cut into it super carefully, having obviously been scarred for life by the disguised orange experience.

  What was left of the evening found us in a pile on the sofa, under a duvet dragged from the guest room, watching Supergirl on the enormous wall-mounted TV. Nik idled his fingers in my hair and it was like being at Oxford—except university had been this closed system, made up of habits and proximity and inevitability. Now we were in the world. And the world was kind of…ours.

  Full of possibility.

  Or I was just full of champagne.

  “What’s he like?” Nik asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Caspian Hart.”

  “Oh.” Tricky one, that. “Complex.”

  “Wow, you’ve really developed this keen insight into him, haven’t you?”

  I gnanged his shoulder. “I’m not sure what to say. He’s rich, powerful, and insanely hot. He lives in a different world from me.”

  “Yeah, but do you like him?”

  I wondered how to explain.

  “The fact that you’re taking so long to say yes isn’t a great sign, Ardy.”

  “Oh my God, of course I like him. I just…I’m not sure I know him.”

  “Well, you only met him a few months ago.”

  “I get that but”—I chewed my lip thoughtfully—“it feels…deeper somehow. Like maybe he doesn’t want me to.”

  Nik was quiet for a moment or two. “This reminds me of the time you broke up with that guy because he didn’t like Labyrinth.”

  “Yes, because what sort of monster doesn’t like Labyrinth?”

  “Um…maybe this isn’t about Labyrinth. Just saying.”

  I peeped at him over the top of the duvet. “You mean—dum dum duhhh—it’s about me.”

  “You do have a way of getting out of relationships.”

  “But,” I pointed out, all logical-like, “I’m not in a relationship with Caspian.”

  “And yet you’re still looking for the thing that’s wrong with it.”

  Wow. He’d got me there.

  “Wow,” I said, “you got me there.”

  He pulled me in closer and attacked my hair until it was all fluffy and annoying. “I’m really going to miss you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I snuggled down even farther. Vaguely turned my attention to Supergirl—who was saving the world with her compassion and sincerity, and some hard-core punching. Mainly, though, I was thinking about what Nik had said and if it was true. I mean, yes, it was. Kind of.

  Or maybe it was a totally different problem this time. Because, for once in my life, I didn’t want out of a relationship: I wanted in one. But that meant finding my way—probably through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered—past the man Caspian kept trying to be, the one who sent me flowers by rote and touched me by rote and didn’t seem to see me when he looked at me, to the one who had whispered to me down the phone, laughed with me, listened to me, comforted and believed in me. The man who had come for me at Oxford when I most needed him to be there.

  And whose harsh kisses stripped bare his needs to me as surely as I bared mine to him.

  Chapter 20

  The next day, I called a car to take Nik to the airport—just about managing not to ask Bellerose’s permission this time—and since I wasn’t exactly overendowed with things to do, went along with him.

  Which was a daft move because saying goodbye at the airport turned out to be awful. It felt all final. And I got clingy as hell, trailing around the concourse with Nik, holding his hand like a kid at the supermarket. But then he wasn’t exactly shaking me off either.

  We parted at the last possible moment with a pathetic amount of hugging. I was crying openly and Nik was snuffling manfully.

  “I’m going to come back and visit all the time,” he said. “I really need another one of those facials.”

  I nodded. “You’ll need it. America is bad for the complexion.”

  “And we can still Kik and buddy watch stuff.”

  “Yep yep.”

  “And you can obsessively like all my Instagram posts.”

  “I only care about the ones where you’re shirtless. Fuck this cappuccino foam art bullshit.”

  “I made a little cat.”

  “But were you shirtless?”

  He laughed, then checked the time on his phone. “Shit, I’d better go.”

  I wiped my eyes and put on my best brave face. “Travel safely.”

  And that was…it. I guess that was the thing about goodbyes: they were always smaller than you expected.

  The flat seemed even quieter and emptier without Nik. And the worst of it was the cleaners had hit hard. The duvet was back on the bed—actually it was probably a fresh duvet, the other having been whisked off to be scoured of all traces of humanity—the leftovers were gone, and the champagne glasses were back in the cupboard. It was like Nik had never been here at all.

  And there was still no Caspian. Not surprising, honestly, because he’d warned me he was very busy. Probably he wasn’t even in the country.

  I located a branch of WHSmith and popped out to buy a copy of Milieu. Spent the rest of the day trying to be witty and gay on the subject of…of…well, that was kind of the kicker. Molten shell treatments? Finnish premium spring water? I tried, I really tried, but it didn’t go well. I was too full of sads. And, in the end, I broke and rang Bellerose.

  “Yes, Arden?”

  I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

  “Yes, Arden?”

  “Is Caspian away?”

  “No, he’s at a meeting of the CBI. Why?”

  “Oh. No reason. I just. Um. Thankyouverymuchsorrygoodbye.”

  Well. That had…been a thing that happened. What was still more excruciating, though, was the text I got from Caspian a few hours later. He said he’d be coming round that evening, and I c
ouldn’t tell whether it was nothing more than a coincidence or if Bellerose had told him.

  Mr. Hart—oh wait, he called him Caspian. Caspian, the annoyance you installed in your Kensington apartment wants your attention.

  Or, y’know, maybe now was not a reasonable time to descend into a whimpering pit of paranoia. Because it was very possible he genuinely wanted to see me. And the fact that he hadn’t given any indication of doing so for nearly a week could have meant absolutely anything.

  Not necessarily that he was bored of me already.

  Urgh my brain. It was like I had this insecurity pendulum: I’d just about convince myself everything was okay and then it would swing back even harder and hit me right in the face.

  I managed not to be visibly freaking out when Caspian finally arrived. I’d spent the intervening time profitably at any rate. Okay, that was a lie. I’d showered and painted my toenails blue and silver and tended my…uh…whatever the male equivalent to the ladygarden was. The boylawn?

  Nothing major—just a delicate trim to frame the general area and the personal eviction of a few non-brunette hairs. It was the St. Ives family curse: brownish on top, reddish below. At least, I assumed it was genetic. I hadn’t asked my mum about her curtains or anything. But her head hair matched mine. And what that meant for me was the occasional bright ginger pube, waving wildly from amongst its more socially acceptable fellows like a Miley Cyrus fan at a Taylor Swift concert.

  Anyway, Caspian arrived, looking blah blah gorgeous, because did he ever not, his intimate hair probably perfectly groomed beneath his pinstripes. He was carrying a bottle of something. Dark green glass, silver-gold label. Uh-oh.

  He held it aloft, his lips curving into what—on a less austere face—might have passed for a teasing smile. “I understand you’ve developed a taste for this?”

  “Well, we drank a couple of bottles the other…Wait a minute, how do you know that?”

  “The app monitors the contents of the fridge.”

  “That’s incredibly creepy.”

  “It’s for restocking, Arden. Not spying.”

  “Tell that to the milk.”

  He laughed and went to replace the champagne. And, after a moment, I trailed worriedly after him.

  “It was okay, wasn’t it? For us to drink it, I mean.”

  “Of course. You might, however, want to go a little easy in the future.”

  Ouch. Although considering my postfinals performance, it was no wonder he’d concluded I was a burgeoning alcoholic. “I know you probably won’t believe this, but I’m not really a big drinker. I’m not going to drain your cellars dry or anything.”

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s just this happens to be somewhat of a rare vintage.”

  “Somewhat?” My heart curled up like a dead slug. “You don’t mean somewhat at all, do you? You mean…extremely or remarkably or exceptionally.”

  He didn’t have to say anything.

  I windmilled my arms. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Why was it just in your fridge? That’s like a totally irresponsible way to store expensive wine and shit. Even I know that and I know nothing about expensive wine and shit. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I’m sorry, Arden.”

  “Don’t laugh. This isn’t funny.”

  Caspian closed his eyes. Brought up a hand and pressed his knuckles to his mouth.

  “I said don’t laugh!”

  He laughed.

  A great undignified spluttering thing and if I hadn’t been so angry-appalled I’d have been delighted. Because to see Caspian anything less than absolutely controlled was a victory.

  “How could you let me do this?” I wailed. “I’ve never even heard of clos du mes…mes…whatever it was. Although I guess that should have clued me in to not drinking it.”

  He drew in a rough, unsteady breath. And, within seconds, was almost his usual self again. “I don’t care that you drank it. Since I’m neither a collector nor an auctioneer, that’s what wine is for.”

  “Not wine like that. It was just in your fridge.” I was repeating myself like a traumatized crime scene witness. “Why would you have something like that sitting in your fridge?”

  “To impress the people I usually have staying here.”

  “That’s…a little bit wanky.”

  “I work in financial services.” His mouth softened with a faint, fleeting trace of mischief. “I know a lot of wankers.”

  We were silent for a bit, hovering awkwardly in the kitchen. Now the initial shock had worn off, I was beginning to calm down.

  “I don’t want this to happen again,” I said finally. “I get you’re amused. But I feel really bad about it.”

  “You didn’t enjoy yourselves?”

  “Well, of course we did. It was the most amazing champagne I’ve ever tasted. But I can’t in all honesty say I derived sufficient pleasure for the likely cost.”

  “My little puritan.” His fingers traced the line of my jaw before gently turning my face up to receive an unexpected kiss. “No pleasure is worth the cost. Some things are beyond price.”

  Unfortunately, I’d gone weak-kneed and wobbly and wasn’t really up for a discussion of the transience of material wealth and the transcendental nature of the superficial. Because mouths and hands and bodies and—“Nrgble.”

  “I want you to be happy, Arden. You know, you can have whatever you want.”

  I made a sort of lunging nuzzle into his palm. This was sweet of him. And confusing. But not quite what I needed to hear. Basically it was emotional umami. And I didn’t know how to answer. Except then I blurted out, “But I don’t want things. I want you.”

  Caspian froze. It was like lights going out. Security doors coming down. Then he leaned in and kissed me again, and it was all teeth, all savagery. He spun me round, driving me back against the fridge, his mouth still on mine, one hand trapping my wrists and the other sliding down to rest against my throat. It was a pretty threatening way to be pinned, with my pulse beating under his palm and the heat of him surrounding me.

  So, obviously, I was super into it.

  He finally broke the kiss, leaving me breathless and dizzy and full of the taste of him. Pressed in even closer, his eyes a flare of ice blue—sun glare across glaciers—and his lips a little red from mine. “No, you don’t.”

  “How do you know? Don’t you trust me?”

  His thumb circled a shivery spot below my ear. “It’s me I don’t trust.”

  “What do you mean?” Swoony with sex feels, I swayed into his touch. Maybe I should have been more concerned about the whole hand-around-my-neck thing but…I wasn’t. It was intimate—intimately scary—and I liked it.

  “Oh, Arden. I want so much I shouldn’t.” Abruptly he let me go, but it was only to gather me close for a moment, his breath shaky against my skin. “But most of all I want to be good for you. Please, let me be good.”

  He didn’t often let me get my hands on him. I took major advantage and wrapped him up tight tight tight. “You are. You’re amazing. And I want to be amazing for you too.”

  “I can’t seem to control myself very well around you.”

  “Why do you have to?” I threaded my fingers through his hair. And this time it was me, gently urging him to lift his head. To look at me. “Unless you’re trying to tell me you’re going to eat me with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?”

  He gave me a startled look. The man paid so little heed to popular culture he might as well have been an inadvertent time traveler: one of Georgette Heyer’s exquisitely sophisticated Corinthians adrift in the twenty-first century without his matched grays and his gentleman’s personal gentleman. (Though, let’s face it, the whip was transferable.) Once, it might have made me laugh, but now it was just another weird gulf between us. Another way we couldn’t communicate or understand each other.

  “I mean,” I explained hastily, “unless you’re trying to tell me you’re a serial killer or something.”

  “I’m not a se
rial killer. But you should still be wary of me. I’m just…I’m not good at caring for people. I try. But it becomes such a twisted thing.”

  This was starting to scare me. Not because I expected him to chop me up and put me in the freezer, but because he sounded so completely fucking desolate. “I don’t believe this for a second. You’ve been extraordinarily nice. And, frankly, ridiculously generous.”

  “You deserve nothing less.”

  “Call me easily pleased, but that seems a pretty decent level of caring to me.”

  He made a soft, frustrated noise. “You don’t understand. Yes, I care for you. Yes, I want to make you happy. Yes, I would lay the whole damn world at your feet if you would let me. But I also want to hurt you. I want you on your knees. I want you in chains. I want to have you crying and screaming and begging for me.”

  “Would,” I squeaked, “would I get a safeword?”

  He tore out of my arms and slammed his hand hard enough against a cabinet to make me jump. “Arden, this isn’t a fantasy or a game.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I tried not to get shouty. But it happened anyway. “You’re the one who acts like it’s a game. Like you can keep me in a pretty box and only ever show me this…I don’t know…perfect benefactor you’ve decided I need.”

  “I’m trying to protect you.”

  “I can protect myself.”

  “Which I suppose is why,” he snapped, “when I found you in Oxford, you were about to be raped in an alley.”

  Well, he did say he wanted me crying. Mission accomplished.

  Fucking bastard.

  They were the worst tears though: the kind that happened when somebody made you feel so utterly small, your body couldn’t cope with the immensity of your emotions anymore. And then they burst out of you in this rush of humiliation, fury, and salt.

  I couldn’t even think of a fucking retort.

  Nothing that would properly communicate my shock and betrayal. He’d used a moment of vulnerability against me when I was already vulnerable.

  When I was making myself vulnerable for him.

  Because I thought…oh who knew what I thought.