Page 56 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

“But I think a large part of it,” he murmured, “came down to being able to study philosophy. It gave me an excuse to keep thinking about the sorts of things my father liked to think about.”

I was starting to wonder if maybe I’d developed the power to affect reality by dreaming. Except I wouldn’t have dreamed up this in a gazillion years. I wouldn’t have dared. It seemed too impossible. We’d had an argument. Fixed it. Discussed stuff. And now we were actually cuddling. And he was talking to me, his body warm and relaxed against mine, his eyes a darkly slumberous blue, like the sea when you swam out too far. And then his phone bleeped a reminder.

He glanced at it grumpily and sighed. “I’m sorry, Arden. I have to get moving. Do you want anything from Paris?”

“Yes.” I grinned at him. “I want you to come back super quick, and eat ridiculously expensive sushi off my restrained, naked, helplessly aroused body.”

He was laughing as he caught up my hand and kissed it. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“You promise?”

“Promises are for children.”

“And lovers.”

He held my gaze for a long time, but he was the one running late and I wasn’t backing down.

“Then,” he said finally, “I promise, my Arden.”

Chapter 14

Unfortunately when Friday rolled round, I was too wrecked for anything we’d planned and promised and hoped for. Instead, I was sitting on the sofa, dazed and half crying, and clutching helplessly at my phone.

It was only when Caspian said, “Arden, what’s wrong?” that I realized he was there. Or even remembered that he was supposed to be coming.

I glanced up. Noted—with a terrible sense of distance—how lovely he looked just then. Charcoal gray suit, lilac shirt. And, in what must have been a moment of unusual opulence, a Liberty print tie in shades of silver and indigo. God, he’d dressed for me. And I was—

“It’s Nik.” The words burst out of me in a teary blurble. “He’s been hit by a car or something. I don’t know. He’s in surgery. That’s bad, isn’t it? When people are in surgery?”

Caspian was silent for a moment. Startled, possibly. “Well, it depends on the surgery.”

“Right. I…I…” My attention reeled from Caspian to the apartment. “I didn’t get any sushi.”

“Forget the sushi. I’m sorry to hear about your friend.”

“Yeah.” For the first time in my life, I wanted Caspian to go away. I needed to freak the fuck out. And having him standing there, all calm and pristine and vaguely concerned, was cramping my style.

“You should be with him,” he was saying, with the uncertain gentleness I remembered all too well from my other crises. “What hospital? I’ll call a car.”

“I can’t be with him. He’s in fucking Boston.” That was when I started crying. Properly this time. Not the anxious eye-prickling of the shocked. But the full-on wailing of the terrified and traumatized. “And I’m supposed to be his next of kin.”

Caspian tugged out his pocket square—which turned out be purple and polka-dotted, unusually playful for my austere Mr. Hart—and pressed it into my hand. “What about his parents?”

“He hates them. I should probably tell them but I don’t know if he’d even want them there.” Words kept coming. Muddling with my tears. Until everything was a mess. “And his ex-girlfriend’s in Paris and I can’t get hold of her. And I have £50.56 in my bank account right now and a flight to Boston is like eight hundred quid and I don’t think my family could afford it but they wouldn’t say no so I can’t ask and nobody over there will really tell me what’s happened except there’s been a crash and Nik’s in hospital and he’s all alone in a strange country full of Americans. And, oh God, they don’t have the NHS over there and I don’t actually know how insurance works. And what if he dies? What if he’s already dead? Or they’ve thrown his broken body out of the window because he didn’t have gazillions of dollars on hand to pay for medical care?”

At last I stopped talking. I was nowhere near out of panic, but I was definitely out of breath. Also most of the water in my body was erupting from my eyes. So my mouth wouldn’t work anymore, except for strange, sticky gulping noises.

“Excuse me,” said Caspian. “I have to make a call.”

He stepped briskly away from me. I heard his footsteps carry him down the hall. The click of a door closing. The soft murmur of his voice. He could have been saying anything. Like please get me away from this crazy, weeping person.

I…I couldn’t blame him. He’d come here for sexy funtimes. Not deal-with-hysterical-breaking-Arden-times. But seeing him turn away like that? It had hurt. A dull pain upon a deeper one. A careless knock against already bruised flesh.

I was calmer though. Not particularly in a feeling better way. So much as hollowed out. His pocket square was still crumpled in my sweaty fist so I used it to wipe my face. I’d cried so hard it was like I’d exfoliated myself and even the silk felt rough against my skin.

Also. Snot. There was a quite a lot of that. Caspian must have really enjoyed the sight of me tonight. And why the fuck was I worried about looking disgusting when Nik was—

At that moment, Caspian came back in.

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