Page 75 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

Chapter 24

Isort of slept, but it was saltwater sleep, bitter and unsatisfying. And the rest of the time I lay restless on the sofa, shivering and snuffling—feeling profoundly wretched and knowing I deserved to. To say it had been an inauspicious start to the new year was the understatement of the century. But I guess that was my fault too. You couldn’t turn a symbol into something real just by wanting to. God, I was a fucking idiot. A fuckingfuckingidiot.

What was left of the night dribbled into a murky grey morning. Clearly it was going to be a long, grim day. Except then came a hammering on the front door, startling me out of my duvet. Ellery rarely bothered to carry her keys, much preferring to be let into her own house like it was the 1950s and I was her wife or something. Did this mean she’d come back? Had she forgiven me?

I ran, ignoring my protesting stomach and my aching head. Flung open the door, light blasting into my face, making my eyes water. And there—hazy as a mirage through my sheen of tears—was Caspian. In jeans and a crumpled shirt, one of his endless three-quarter-length dark wool coats thrown over the top.

Was this…was this really happening?

Every wistful fantasy I’d ever had about him was suddenly colliding in my brain. He’d broken up with Nathaniel. He’d made a terrible mistake. He wanted me back. He loved me. He wanted to marry me. He was about to kiss me.

“Arden,” he said, “what the hell is this?”

He shoved something at me—a newspaper, one of the tabloids, folded open—and stalked into the warehouse. Robotically, I closed the door and followed, glancing at the pages in my hand.

It took a moment to figure out what I was looking at. But it was me. A picture of me. Not a very good picture of me. And I was kissing Ellery against a blaze of New Year’s Eve fireworks.

Fuck. Oh fuck.

The image was partially covered by a circle splash containing a different photo. Also not a very good picture of me. Taken, by the looks of it, over the summer when Caspian and I had attended—very briefly—a charity art exhibition on my first return from Boston. He was holding my hand, dragging me along behind him with fierce determination, while I wore my best confused rabbit look.

HART TO HART, read the headline.

Which should probably have told me everything I needed to know. But my eyes had masochistically moved on before I could stop them:They say you should keep it in the family. And that’s certainly true for bisexual partyboy Arden St. Ives, 22, who seems to have ditched billionaire boyfriend Caspian Hart, 29, for none other than Hart’s own sister, troubled tearaway Eleanor “Ellery” Hart.

I couldn’t read any more. It was too horrible.

The paper fluttered to the floor. I must have dropped it, but I was numb to my fingertips.

“It’s not…” My voice was a brittle thread, close to breaking. “It’s not what you think.”

Caspian folded his hands in front of him, his expression unreadable. “Isn’t it?”

“I’m not with your sister. I’ve never felt that way about her.” My eyes were gritty with too many tears shed. I already knew this was hopeless. Caspian had found me—platonically—in bed with Ellery once, and it had hurt him terribly.

“I know.”

My heart, which had been quietly dying in my chest, jerked with surprise. Maybe my entire life wasn’t going to combust in a single day. “You do?”

“Yes.” He inclined his head slightly—oddly cold for a man who was not jumping to an awful conclusion. “You told me once that you had a different relationship with Eleanor. I believed you then and I believe you still.”

“Holy shit.” The air whooshed out of me and I had to actually put my hands on my knees in order to catch a breath. “Thank you.”

“Which means,” he went on, in the same impassive tone, “you have done this to hurt me.”

Well. Spoke too soon. Apparently everything was broken. “Wait.What?”

“I’ve treated you so badly.” He gazed at me, with those beautiful, empty eyes. “Anyone in your place would be justified in wanting to hurt me back.”

Okay, I was done. I was jacking it all in to become a mad inventor who lived in a basement because I needed a time machine fucking stat. I’d been living in this year for less than twelve hours and I already hated it. My legs were also in a state of giving-up-on-everything and I crumpled slowly to the floor.

“It’s not justified,” I whispered. “It would never be justified. Whatever you did to me, I would never take it out on Ellery. She’s my friend. And I’ve fucked it up. And I feel bad enough about myself already. And I can’t cope with you being angry at me too.”

He crossed the room and knelt down—no cologne today, just the achingly familiar scent of him. “I’m not angry. I understand.”

I lifted my head to look at him. The gentleness in his voice was cutting me to ribbons. “Why are you here?”

“I came to ask you—no, to beg you—not to use my family to get to me.” He spread his hands in a gesture that could only have been surrender. “Hurt me all you wish, go to the papers, insist on millions, tell them I’m a pervert, a deviant, a monster, I deserve it, but please…strike at me. Not Eleanor.”

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