Page 125 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

“Mr. Hart, is this your way of saying you want some sort of sentimental declaration?”

His arms tightened around me with such force I lost my balance completely and we ended up sprawled out together on the plush burgundy carpet. I was mostly on top but I managed to brace myself on my knee and an elbow before I crashed down on top of him. Except then he flipped me, turning me onto my back before I’d so much as caught my breath. The impact awoke a fresh sting from my shoulder, but I went gladly, regardless, the pain lost in the eager heat and the sweetest sense of lassitude spreading through my body in response to the dominance of his. Physical control seemed to come so naturally to him sometimes. I only wished he could learn to be as ease with it as I was. To trust himself as I trusted him.

“I thought I’d never hear that again,” he said.

“Don’t people call you Mr. Hart every day?”

“Not the way you do.”

I fluttered my lashes at him, unable to resist asking, “What way is that?”

“As if…as if you want me to do very bad things to you.”

“Well, I do want you to do very bad things to me.” I gently stroked the flush that was still fading from his cheeks. “But only when you want to do them too.”

He closed his fingers around my wrist, but it was only to pull my hand down to his lips so he could kiss it. “You should probably know, I’m, well, I’m terrified, Arden.”

“Of being together?”

He nodded.

“If it’s any consolation,” I admitted, “I’m not exactly unbricking it either. Obviously, I would never want you to stay with me if you didn’t want to, but I’m not sure my heart could take a second round of being dumped to feed your demons.”

“It’s such an inadequate thing to say, but I’m truly sorry for everything I put you through.”

“And trying to marry Nathaniel to punish yourself for being happy with me was pretty shitty too.”

He winced. “I know.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad.” I slipped my spare hand behind his neck and drew his face down to mine, so I could kiss the line between his brows. “You don’t need any help with that. I just…I’m scared too. You’re sure about this? About me? About us?”

“Oh, my Arden,” he murmured. “It’s the one certainty I have right now.”

There’d always been something profoundly comforting to me about Caspian’s certainties. And they’d never steered me wrong before. “Really?”

“Yes. But I also don’t want to lie to you. I seem to be quite spectacularly fucked up.”

“Well”—I gave him a mischievous look—“at least you’re still spectacular. And you’re not fucked up, you just have some shit going on.”

He rolled onto his side next to me and tucked his head against my shoulder, like he was playing at being just a little tame. “Tonight…these last months…they’ve clarified and disordered my life in equal measure. I thought I knew myself, but perhaps I never have. Which, in some ways, is almost a relief. I’d rather see myself as you see me, than as Nathaniel did, or Lancaster did, or as I did for so many years.” He paused and I felt the tension creeping through him before he spoke again. “Unfortunately, I suspect it will take me time, probably a long time to get there. And the honourable thing to do would be to let you go while I worked through everything I have to work through.”

“Wait a minute.” I did not like the way this was going. “This sounds like a breaking-up speech, and we haven’t even officially got back together yet.”

“Nothing of the sort. I never said I was going tobehonourable. In fact, I was about to announce my intention to be quite otherwise.”

I could breathe again. “Okay. Good.”

“You told me to choose me, and choosing me means choosing you. I will do this with or without you, but”—he captured my hand again, turning the full intensity of his eyes upon me—“I am better and stronger and happier with you at my side.”

I blinked against a veritable tidal wave of tears.

“Oh God. Arden.” Caspian shot into a sitting position. “What did I say? What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing’s wrong. Everything’s…the rightest it’s ever been. Of course I’ll be by your side. For as long as you want me there.”

“I should warn you, that could be a long time.”

Scrambling upright, I hurled myself into Caspian’s lap, flinging my limbs around him with all the dignity of an overly devoted spider monkey. Apart from a startled “oof,” he took it well.