Page 117 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

And I still couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

Except Caspian was walking away from me.

I lunged after him and caught his arm. Spun him round. Gazed up at him pleadingly, my eyes heavy, and my face hot and wet and sticky from crying. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand.” His expression didn’t change. His tone gave me nothing. “I can’t do this, Arden.”

“Please, can’t we—”

“I thought you would hate me and there could be nothing worse. Instead you pity me and that I cannot bear. I will not have you make me weak.”

Very gently, he peeled my hand away. Turned. Walked.

My skin burned from his already fading touch. “Caspian?”

He paused.

I could barely speak, my mouth was so full of tears, and my heart this helpless lump of rubbery meat flopping in my chest. “Can you promise me one more thing?”

“I very much doubt it.”

“Can you maybe…think about seeing a counselor? Nobody should feel the way you do.”

He half turned, his face all shadows and blade-sharp angles. “How I feel is not your concern.”

“You need to talk to someone. Please give yourself that.”

“Therapy is not a magic spell. But for your information, Nathaniel arranged for me to see someone when were together.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“And you did it?”

“Weekly for over a year.”

My head was full of white noise. Every breath I took snapped like icicles in my throat. “Well, y’know something? Whoever you saw? They did a piss-poor job.”

The door opened. Closed.

And that was it. We were done.

Chapter 29

Everything hurt.

The hours were wild horses. Dawn broke around me. I spent most of the day on the sofa, crying myself out of tears, watching the sky turn tauntingly through shades of silver and gold.

I tried to be brave. To be strong. To be less fucking pathetically embarrassing.

But my inner Scarlett O’Hara was AWOL—tomorrow being another day seemed scant fucking consolation.

And while I sometimes tormented myself with idle fantasies of Caspian coming back, of sweeping me into his arms, full of sorrow and declarations of eternal devotion…I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

I wasn’t sure I could ever bear pain like this again.

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