Page 51 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

Caspian glanced over at him. “Hmm?”

With a soft laugh, Nathaniel dropped a thin square ofsomethingon the table beside Caspian, which, in a moment of legit hysteria, I briefly thought was a condom. Then sanity returned and I saw it was a nicotine patch.

“Of course. Excuse me a moment.”

He went to stand but Nathaniel stopped him with a “Here, let me.” Caspian didn’t object, but he didn’t look exactly comfortable either as Nathaniel helped him out of his jacket, undid a cufflink, and rolled up his shirtsleeve. For the record, Nathaniel was far too good at removing other people’s cufflinks. As in, practiced good. Which I wasn’t—though not for lack of wanting to be.

It was an intimate thing, knowing how to take someone’s clothes off, and I’m pretty sure we were all very aware of it. So, yeah, I was miserable. I’d also had kind of a thing for Caspian’s arms. Well, I’d had a thing for Caspian in general, but he had such gorgeous arms. I loved the strength of them—to hold me down and hold me close. The tenderness of the secret skin along the underside. The kissable bouquets of bone and sinew at his wrists.

Urrrgh.I suddenly wanted to cry. For fuck’s sake, Ardy, get a grip. It’s a nicotine patch. They’re not dry-humping against the table. Oh God, I bet theyhad, though. If this was my table, I’d want to be fucked over it. Even though it was incredibly rude—and I’d been raised better—I grabbed a fork and stuffed all the halloumi into my very sad mouth.

“This is delicious,” I announced, somewhat muffled through the food. “Cheese and honey. Who’d’ve thought it.”

Cheese and honey andashes.

Eventually, Nathaniel finished faffing with Caspian and took a seat. “Sorry about that. Shall we star—oh.”

“I was hungry.” I blinked defiantly.

“Of course you were.” He was giving me anoh, poor starveling wolf doesn’t know any differentlook that was not liable to improve my behaviour. “We’re all running late.”

Caspian poured Nathaniel some wine—it had been perspiring gently in an ice bucket much like the rest of us. “My fault, as ever. Arden?”

“What? No. It’s fine. I could have waited.”

“Actually I meant, did you want some wine?”

“Hey”—probably I should have kept my mouth shut but I was feeling aggrieved on way too many levels—“you had a go at me for bringing white wine this evening.”

Nathaniel gave a polite cough. “I thought we’d come to a truce on that. It’s customary for a guest to bring wine to accompany the main course rather than the starter. But as we’ve established, it was unfair of me to expect you to know that.”

Well fuck. Now I looked both uncultured and petty. Scrutinising the place settings, which included a small orchard of glassware, I picked one at random. “Wine me.”

With a slight glance towards Nathaniel—searching for who knew what, permission?—Caspian rose, took the glass from my hand, replaced it amongst its fellows, and splashed a frankly meagre measure of liquid into a different one. I thought about protesting but there were few better ways to demonstrate your immaturity than by asserting your right to consume alcohol to excess. Besides, as much as I might like to, getting sloshed was not going to help anybody here. Me, least of all.

“Ta.” I took a restrained sip. But Caspian had given me even less wine than I’d thought, so I ended up just knocking it all back.

Sitting down again, Caspian lifted his own glass. “Anyway, to you, Nathan—oh.”

They both stared at me.

“I was thirsty? Sorry. I’ll just get some water.” I leaned across the table to grab the bottle of fancy mineral water Nathaniel had provided, accidentally splotting my elbow into a carved butter flower. “Shit. Sorry.” Twisting my arm round revealed a yellow smudge on my jumper. “It’s fine. It’s fine. I’ve got this.” Thankfully, a napkin did a pretty decent job of mopping up the worst of it. Except—“Fuck, that’s the tablecloth. Nathaniel, I’m so sorry. I swear I had a napkin. Where’s my napkin? Fuck, it’s on the floor. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Caspian had actually covered his face with his hands.

“Should I just leave?” I asked.

Which was when I realised: He was laughing. Quietly. Then not so quietly. In that beautiful, helpless way he did so very rarely. “Arden, my Arden,” he said, his voice still full of mirth, and this infinite gentleness, “what has happened to you? Have you forgottenhow to human?”

“I see what you did there.” I tried to scowl at him, but instead I was smiling. “You should be nicer to me. I’m nervous as fuck.” Also apparently incapable of making myself look good when Nathaniel was present.

“And you think I’m not?”

I fluttered my lashes at him. “Because of li’l ol’ me?”

“I was afraid I would never see you again.”

“And now we’re all friends,” said Nathaniel, way too sharply for the sentiment. “But if you don’t mind, I spent rather a lot of time preparing this meal—so do you think perhaps we could eat it before it’s entirely ruined?”