Page 98 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

“You didn’t have to do anything.” He leaned forward and rested his cheek against my legs. “You only had to be.”

“Oh, Caspian…” I didn’t know what else to say. In truth, I wasn’t anywhere near as close to accepting what had happened as he wanted me to be, but I’d already dragged enough of the people I loved into the maelstrom of my fuck-up. He was trying so damn hard to console me. The least I could do was let him. “Thank you.”

“Are you sure,” he asked, with just enough lightness that I was pretty sure he was joking, “you won’t let me have him killed?”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“No murder. Zero murder. Murder count: nil.” Tentatively, I extricated one of my hands from his and petted the soft curls at his brow. I half expected him to pull away but he didn’t, just pressed into me. “I should never have mentioned it.”

“You were hurt and I was unable to prevent it. That is intolerable to me.”

“It’s not your job to protect me from my own stupidity.”

“But”—his eyes flicked to mine—“I do want to protect you.”

“Well, you can’t, because that’s not how things work. And you shouldn’t, because I need to live my own life, and yours is…yours is with someone else.”

There was a long silence. And then, so softly I almost missed it, “I…yes.”

“Though fuck knows,” I admitted, “what I would have done without you tonight. I’m honestly so fucking gratef—”

He silenced me with a gesture. “I don’t need your gratitude. Compared to what you’ve given me, this is nothing. Everything is nothing.”

“I don’t understand. I’ve always thought what I gave or tried to give you couldn’t have meant very much, considering…I mean…considering how easily you threw it away.”

“You must never think that.” He sat back on his heels, hands folded loosely in his lap, eyes steady on mine. “You gave me happiness, Arden, beyond anything I thought possible for someone like me. You made me believe, for a few infinitely treasured months, that I could be free.”

I wanted to tell him he could have that again. All it would take was a word. A look. But it wasn’t the time—for me or for him. So instead I said, “I hope someday you feel that way again.”

And I meant it too. I really did.

Chapter 33

We’d sort of run out of stuff to say, though not in a bad way. There was something peaceful in the quiet, an impulse towards togetherness as powerful on its own as the impulses that had led us to misbehaving in a fire escape not so very long ago. I thought Caspian might go off to do billionaire things, or whatever he was doing in the other room, but he didn’t. He just sat beside me on the sofa and let me rest my head against his arm, while my thoughts turned as helplessly as windmill sails in a gale. Until I found it: a hard, cold crystal of fury at the centre of tumult. And while I was all too familiar with the false comfort of getting angry instead of being sad, this was different. It didn’t feel like strength. It felt like a splinter I needed to pull out.

“When you find him,” I said. “I want to be there.”

Caspian’s whole body tensed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s not your call.” This was…well, not a bluff exactly. But I was overplaying my hand because I couldn’t force Caspian to tell me where Jonas was, and how can I put this, he wasn’t the least high-handed person I’d ever met. A trait I found attractive in certain contexts, and very much the opposite in others, although I also had to accept it came with the territory of being a billionaire.

So basically, I was braced for a row. And then Caspian sighed, his brows pulling tight. “I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t like the thought of him being anywhere near you.”

“I’m not all that keen on being near him either. But I have to know…I have to know it’s over. That he’s not coming for us.”

“And,” he murmured, “you can’t believe me if I tell you those things are true?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Caspian. I trust you more than anyone in the world. But”—I drew in a deep, surprisingly steady breath—“I think I should do this. I started it, after all. I should finish it.”

“You didn’t start it. The way he is has nothing to do with you.”

“Well, I’m still involved.”

His frown deepened. “If you insist on going, then I suppose you must go.”

I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. But nothing came out.