Page 72 of How to Bang a Billionaire

“Then stop doing it.”

I nodded frantically. “I will, I will. Um, stop doing what?”

“Telling this lie to yourself and others.”

“Which lie?” My brain was so mushed I could barely remember what we were talking about. “That I’m kind of ordinary? That’s not a lie. It’s—”

His hand came down over my mouth. “What did I just say?”

“Mh mhm mgfh mh,” I explained, “mgfhmh mgfhm mhhm mh mh mhm mgh.” Which had started life as I can’t tell you, because your hand is in the way.

He stared down at me, anger fading, ice thawing. And then, very slowly, let me go. “Enough of this nonsense.”

I dazedly touched my lips, where I could still feel the pressure of his palm. I wasn’t exactly scared of him, just oddly shaken. And convinced I’d accidentally perpetrated an enormous fraud. I mean, it was super nice that he seemed to feel there was something remarkable about me but what was going to happen when he discovered there wasn’t?

“The thing is,” I said quietly, “I’ve been to Oxford. I’m sleeping with you. I know what extraordinary looks like. And I’m just me.”

One of Caspian’s brows lifted into a devastating arch. “Are you truly telling a man who made his first million at twenty-one and his first billion at twenty-five that you are better qualified than he to judge what is extraordinary?”

“Yeah but…millions. Some of my coats don’t even have buttons.”

“You’re not listening to me.” Unexpectedly, he smiled, a swift, lovely thing, as unhesitating as a rapier thrust. “That, in itself, takes a courage few possess.”

It wasn’t courage so much as utter overwhelm, but I thought it was probably best to keep my mouth shut.

His breath fell softly against my lips like its own, ephemeral kiss. “You’re always yourself no matter where you are or who you’re with. You’re generous and passionate and honorable. You make me laugh. And, though many would believe me the last person on earth to need it, you’ve always been kind to me.”

Oh. My. God.

The wanking-related blushes were nothing compared to the hellish inferno currently raging on my face. My head was Jackson Pollock whirly, and for a moment or two, I thought I might cry. But I just about managed to control myself.

Gave an unconvincing bleaty laugh instead.

“I guess you’re right,” I said, “I am pretty awesome.”

He leaned in and took my face between his hands. His fingers were cool and light, his touch so cautiously tender that I had another struggle with my tear ducts. “You are,” he told me.

I gave him the world’s soupiest smile. He didn’t return it—Caspian Hart probably couldn’t look soupy if he tried—but for a moment his eyes were summer day gentle. And I thought maybe it didn’t matter if he was right or wrong or defrauded deranged to think all these bizarrely wonderful things about me. Only that he did.

I thought he might kiss me, but he didn’t, disentangling himself instead. “I have to…that is…I should leave.”

And, this time, I knew it wasn’t rejection. I gave him my best smile—“Of course you do. Those billions aren’t going to make themselves”—and let him go.

For a long time after he was gone, I lay there in a happy stupor, in the bed that was still warm from both of us and smelled very faintly of his cologne and his pleasure. The main thought running through my head was: He likes me. He really likes me.

It was late enough that falling asleep didn’t feel like a total cop-out. Even though technically I could have got up and done useful things, or at least made myself some toast. But I just snuggled down and slipped contentedly into unconsciousness.

Had an absolutely amazing dream.

I was chained up in a dungeon—a proper one, not some sort of BDSM playroom—arms over my head in rusty shackles. Someone was hurting me, the details of it all hazy because it was a dream, until I was running with sweat and blood. And so hard I could have drilled through the stone walls. And then they were inside me. Buried deep enough to burn. One hand at my throat.

And it was Caspian.

Telling me I was generous and passionate and honorable as he took me and hurt me and left me breathless.

Though, of course, I woke up alone.

To another bouquet of fucking roses.