Page 44 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

He seemed determined not to meet my gaze just then. And I was hopelessly charmed by the way he could be so sophisticated—so full of sexual aggression and refined cruelty—and yet undone by the tiniest of tender gestures.

So I took him gently by the wrist and kissed his fingers too, surprised by the way they trembled against my lips. “Yes, it is. I mean, you already know I admire you. Am slightly intimidated by you sometimes. Fancy the living shit out of you. Can’t keep my hands off you. Want to be with you and please you and make you happy.” I inched a little closer over the expanse of bed. Enough that I could get a sense of him: his shape, his warmth, the rhythm of his breathing. “But when you talk to me, when you tell me what you’re thinking and what matters to you…I remember how much I like you as well.”

There was a long silence.

Then: “Go to sleep, Arden. It’s getting late.”

“Okay.”

I was on the edge of dropping off when I felt his hand close around mine in the secret darkness under the covers. I gave his fingers a drowsy squeeze.

“I like you too,” he whispered.

I waited a second or two.

Then: “Go to sleep, Caspian. It’s getting late.”

He laughed at that, his sweet, soft laugh, and it was almost prize enough to guard me from further sleepless speculation about the damn door.

* * *

I awoke a few hours later to an empty bed. Knowing what I did of Caspian’s habits, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

But, somehow, it was. And it hurt.

I told myself this didn’t mean anything. That it didn’t diminish what we’d shared or the fact I was here.

Except it did mean something. It meant…I was spending my night alone. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I was lying there with my head full of that fucking photo. The one I’d seen in Milieu before I’d run away to Scotland: Caspian and his ex-boyfriend, Nathaniel Whateveritwas, at some fancy event together. It’d been taken long after they’d broken up, and quite a bit before he’d met me…but I wasn’t doing the best job of being rational about it. I mean, it wasn’t so much that the photo existed. It was how good they’d looked in it. Like they were meant to be together, Nathaniel’s hand curled so naturally around Caspian’s elbow.

When he would barely let me touch him at all.

Toga-ing myself in the sheet, I went to look for Caspian. He was in the living room, wrapped in a dressing gown and watching the gray-gold dawn as it broke across the city.

The way the window framed him reminded me of the first time I’d come to his office. I’d been furious then but still the sight of him there had touched at me somehow. He’d seemed at once so remote and so beautiful—a cold-eyed tiger in his corporate cage—and I’d yearned to both gentle and unleash him.

Part of me still yearned to do that.

But the rest of me just felt rejected.

Because it was all very well to stand around looking dramatically lonely when you were, in fact, lonely.

But I was right here.

Right. The Fuck. Here.

I perched on the arm of a chair. “What’s wrong?”

He glanced my way—his eyes all velvet-dark against navy cashmere—and gave me a faint smile. “I’m sorry. I’m a light sleeper and I’m not used to sharing a bed.”

“What about when you were with Nathaniel?”

Fuck, why had I said that? The words clattered between us like a frying pan I’d dropped. He didn’t flinch but a kind of awful stillness settled over him. And I knew I’d gone too far, pushed too hard. Broken nearly every rule in the how not to make yourself look like a jealous, insecure harpy (while not-quite dating a billionaire) book. He would probably never let me get even this close again.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I’m tired. I don’t know where that came from.”

“Go back to bed, Arden.” He didn’t say it in a nasty way but that was almost worse. As if I was on the other side of the glass with the rest of the world.

“You could come with me?” I didn’t know what else to do so I tried a minxy look. “We don’t have to sleep.”

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