Page 116 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

Probably I was begging. I didn’t care.

Steyne paused, glancing back at me, eyes the colour of dust and pewter. “I don’t think so, Arden.”

The moment the door closed behind him, Ellery sped across the room towards me. “Are you okay?”

“No. I mean. Yes. I mean. I don’t know.” My heart rate quintupled out of nowhere. “He tried to…I think he was really going to.”

Ellery kicked the sofa, which seemed unfair because none of this was its fault. “Fuck.Fuck.What was he even doing here?”

“He came to—” I dropped my head into my hands. Not wanting to repeat any of it. Even to Ellery. “Oh God.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk.”

I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. I wanted a shower. And never to touch my own skin again. I could still feel him. Stillsmellhim. Like he was sewn up inside me. Along with the awareness that, to a man like him, I was nothing.

“What should I do?” Ellery dropped into a crouch, peering up at me anxiously. “Do you need to go to hospital?”

“No, he didn’t…didn’t…really hurt me.” Just bruised me. Overpowered me. Scared the crap out of me.

“I could call Finesilver. The police. You could…we could…I saw what he was doing.”

Surely there was a case here. I had evidence on my wrists. A witness. But the idea of it—the noise of it—turned my stomach afresh. My business would become everyone’s business. To be pored over and picked at and spun into a whole new story.You like sex, don’t you, Mr. St. Ives. You like rough sex. You’ve had a lot of sexual partners, haven’t you, Mr. St. Ives. And you prefer rich, older men, is that not the case?God. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Even if I won, I’d have lost. It would be a black hole of scandal and exposure, not just for me, but for everyone I loved, and of everything that made them vulnerable.

I wouldn’t let that happen. Even if my only weapon was silence, and some would call it defeat.

“No,” I said. “I’m okay.”

Ellery scowled. “He assaulted you.”

“Yeah, he did. But I get to choose how I deal with that. And”—I uncurled and didn’t break—“I need to help Caspian.”

“What’s wrong with him? I mean, apart from the obvious.”

“Steyne said Nathaniel was going to make him understand the wrongness of his desires by experiencing them from the other side.”

Ellery’s face went through several permutations ofwhat the fuck.

“I know,” I said. “Nathaniel’s probably convinced himself he’s helping and Caspian would have agreed to it as some kind of penance.”

“Penance for what?”

“Everything. For his father’s death. For Lancaster’s abuse. For letting you believe he doesn’t care about you. For not being the man Nathaniel wants him to be. For what he likes to do in bed. For loving me.”

There was a long silence.

Then Ellery pushed herself to her feet, her hands tangling in her hair. “No. No no no. This…isn’t how it’s supposed to be. He’s the perfect one. The one who never gets hurt. The one who does everything right and takes whatever he wants and never cares who he leaves behind.I’mthe fuck-up.”

I watched her—helpless, hovering on the verge of this mad and terrible laughter. And then, suddenly,shewas laughing, mascara-blackened tears streaking down her cheeks.

“Gah.” Spinning around, she threw herself down next to me on the sofa in a flurry of fishnets and lace. “This is so typical of him. He even had to be better than me at being fucked up.”

“It’s not a competition,” I pointed out.

“You’re an only child.” She tucked her legs up under her, growing serious again. “But you know, Lancaster could just be playing mind games. He’s probably figured out he won’t get Caspian back without you.”

“If it turns out they’re having a quiet night in with a crossword, worst thing that happens is I make a complete fool of myself. Again. As usual. I can live with that. I can’t live with…the alternative. Except”—I shuddered, abruptly remembering Steyne, the helplessness he had forced on me—“I don’t know how to stop it.”

Ellery’s hand against my arm brought me back to the warehouse, to my friend, to the home where I would, one day, be able to feel safe again. “What did he tell you?”