Page 116 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

“It’s the price of being with me.”

Okay. Screw gentle. “Let me fucking finish,” I yelled. “Yes, you’ve hurt me but I wanted you to hurt me in the ways you did. It’s not a price to me, it’s a privilege. I like it. Don’t you get it? And if you’re going to sit…well, stand…there and claim—fucking erroneously, by the way—that a child can meaningfully consent to sex, then you don’t have any right to tell me, a fully legal and empowered adult, that I can’t consent to control or pain or even degradation…from the man I…the man I love.”

Silence came down like steel. I gasped, suddenly breathless.

“You should be disgusted by me,” said Caspian, at last. “You should want nothing to do with me.”

I swayed exhaustedly where I knelt. “Well, I’m not. And I don’t. How many times are you going to ignore me telling you that I love you? Because I do. I really do. And you can think all these awful things about yourself if you must. But nothing—nothing, do you hear me—will make me believe them.”

“You can’t love me. You don’t know me.”

“You mean, because I didn’t know about this? That’s only because you lied to me about it.”

He paced restlessly, up and down that pristine room. This lost creature in Caspian Hart’s skin. “I didn’t lie.”

“I asked you outright. In Kinlochbervie.”

“No. You asked if someone had hurt me. And they haven’t.”

“Oh fucking hell.” I rubbed my hands against my burning eyes. “I could have hurt you. Don’t you realize how completely fucked it feels looking back at all the times I’ve pushed you on sex stuff with no clue about what happened to you?”

“Well,” he drawled, “I did warn you that I’m a cruel and selfish person.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He paused. And gazed down at me with eyes that had nothing in them at all. No light. No warmth. Nothing. “Because I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to see me as you did. Not as the monster I am.”

“God, Caspian. You’re not a monster. You’re an abuse survivor.”

There was a long, long, increasingly unpleasant silence.

Then, in his coldest, sternest voice, “This isn’t working. I’ve enjoyed our time together, but we’re done.”

“Wait. What?”

But it was too late. He’d turned on his heel, and was fucking gone.

I threw myself out of bed and pulled on the nearest pair of pajama bottoms. Ran after Caspian into the hall.

“What the fuck?” I cried. “Seriously, what the fuck was that?”

Caspian’s attention flicked my way. He was utterly calm, but there was something terrible about it. Like shatter-proof glass, holding its shape when it’s nothing but cracks.

“You’re leaving me because I won’t tell you you’re evil?”

“No, Arden. I’m leaving you because you want me to believe things I cannot believe. Accept things I cannot accept. Be someone I cannot be.”

No. No. This couldn’t be happening. The world had gone slow and watery. I felt like he’d hit me. Except, y’know, inside. Right where there was nothing to protect my most naked, tender parts.

Tears were slipping down my cheeks and stinging the corners of my lips. “That’s not true. I just want you to see that you’re kinky, not twisted. And hurt, not broken.”

“You may use the flat for as long as you like,” he said. “And if you need money—”

“Shut up about the fucking flat and your fucking money.”

“Very well.”

Oh God, how could he look so perfect, arranging his cuffs like he was goddamn stock art: handsome young businessman in formal wear adjusting sleeves while standing in luxury interior.