Page 132 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

“This”—he gestured not entirely helpfully—“is the first house my father bought in London. Would you…would you let me show it to you?”

“This one? This one right here? The completely perfect blue one?” By the time my brain caught up with my mouth, it was a bit late to rein things in. But I tried anyway. “I mean, only if you want to.”

“I want to. Very much.”

And then, while I bounced about beside him like an overexcited yo-yo, Caspian unlocked the door and led me inside.

Chapter 44

I’ve made sure the property is cleaned and maintained,” he muttered. “Though, of course, nobody has stayed here for many years.”

The place did have a slightly wistful feel—of unused space and vacant rooms, though I was relieved to see it had been decorated quite differently to Caspian’s other apartments. The ground floor was an open-plan kitchen/dining room: the kitchen, with a sort of modern rustic flavour, all granite surfaces and buttercup-yellow cabinets, and the dining room almost entirely dominated by one of those picnic-style tables where everyone smooshes onto benches. It was a little lifeless, and couldn’t have competed with Nathaniel’s domestic paradise, but there was something inviting there nonetheless. The promise of sunlight streaming through the big windows at the front. Friends piled around the table. Two lovers discovering they were terrible cooks in the kitchen.

Flicking on the lights as he went was Caspian’s only concession to acting as a tour guide. The rest of the time he was silent and restless, tapping his foot and twitching his fingers as I looked around. The next floor consisted of a living room, hung with framed movie posters for old science fiction films, and a gloriously squashy-looking sectional that someone appeared to have purchased for comfort rather than aesthetics. A door led to what was probably a guest room, with its own en suite bathroom, and a further flight of stairs—this one with a bookcase built into the wall beside it, albeit a bookcase currently devoid of books—took us to the master bedroom.

It was a really good space, and came with not only its own mini-terrace but an incredibly fancy bathroom, all pale brown marble and one of those walk-in showers that are so big they need to give you somewhere to sit down while you’re in them, but the lack of habitation had hit it hardest. Reduced it simply to a room with a bed and a cleaned-out closet. It made me kind of sad. Rationally, I knew it was just bricks and mortar and a wisteria plant, but it felt like a house with a missing heart.

“What do you think?”

It had been so long since Caspian had said anything that I actually jumped. “Of the house? It’s beautiful. But it’s a shame it’s empty.”

“My father loved it very much.” Caspian crossed to the window and stood looking out at the shadowy terrace, with its unoccupied flower pots. “He left it to me. Probably I should have sold it. But…I couldn’t.”

“Because it connected you?”

He nodded. “It’s a terrible paradox. I couldn’t bear to lose this part of him, but I couldn’t bear to come here either. Sometimes I tell myself if he knew what I’d become, he’d be ashamed of me. And sometimes”—his hand curled into a fist and he rested it lightly against the glass—“sometimes I am unforgivably angry at him. Because if he hadn’t died—if he hadn’t left us—none of it would have happened.”

I followed him to the window and tugged at him until he turned. “No one could ever be ashamed of you,” I told him, “especially not someone who loved you. And feelings are messy bastards—they’re not always what we’d like them to be, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong to have them.”

He sighed. “I don’t like being angry with Dad. Besides which, he’s dead, so it’s a futile exercise.”

“I’m not sure emotions are supposed to be outcome-focused.”

“That”—his mouth softened into a smile—“is one of their many design flaws.”

I took Caspian’s hands in mine and pressed them gently back to the glass as I leaned up to kiss him. There was no force behind the gesture but it was more controlling than I would usually have dared. To my surprise, he permitted it, and I wondered if he, too, was remembering that very first time—when we had collided in his office, a storm of confused passion and irresistible need, both of us seeking surrenders we didn’t yet know how to give. Tonight, though, I was as gentle as the moonlight, and Caspian showed no fear of my freedom.

“I’m glad you brought me here,” I whispered, drawing back before my touch became challenging.

“I thought”—he paused, frowning, seemingly caught in his own words—“perhaps, one day, when you’re ready, when we’re both ready, if you liked the house, although of course you may not, and I have no expectation that you will, or even if you did that you might wish, that you might consent, to live in it with me. Together.”

For a moment, I was too stunned to react. Then I jumped up and down, squealing. “You want to live with me?”

“At some point in the future.”

“You want to live with mein this house.”

“I want to live with you wherever would make you happiest.” He gazed at me, searchingly. “Did I misjudge? You’re welcome to stay at the penthouse with me. Or we could move back to One Hyde Park. Or I could buy you a mansion, or an island, or a windmill, or a yacht or—”

I put my fingers to his lips. “Stop. I’ll admit I’m slightly tempted by the windmill, but this is perfect.”

“You can have a windmill as well. But Arden, are you sure?”

“Caspian, areyousure? You’re the third-richest man in the UK and you’re going to stay in a converted stable with me?”

“The only part of that sentence that has any meaning for me iswith you.”

I did my best to look severe, even though I knew I was grinning like a monkey with a banana. “You’ll have to help with the washing up.”

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