Page 32 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

“Can we try another injunction?” asked Bellerose.

I caught something in Finesilver’s eyes—as real and sharp and frightening as the flash of the hidden blade. Everything his smile wasn’t. But, when he spoke, his tone was mild enough that I was tempted to convince myself I’d imagined what I’d seen. “It’s difficult to make them stick when Miss Hart herself keeps breaking them.”

“Obsession can be quite attractive.” Bellerose cleared his throat. “Or so I understand.”

“He’s not her friend.”

“Do you think I haven’t tried to tell her that?”

“Um.” Great, I’d apparently opened my mouth and made words come out of it again. And now they were both staring at me, like lions eyeing up a gazelle across the Serengeti. “They didn’t seem very friendly.”

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” murmured Finesilver, “Miss Hart forms complex relationships with those around her.”

“I don’t know. She did sort of tell him to get cancer and die. That doesn’t strike me as super complex.”

Bellerose’s hand curled into a fist on the tabletop. “Arden, this situation is delicate. And Ellery’s entanglement with Billy Boyle longstanding. We have put in place several measures to protect her from him. And, in the end, it’s Ellery who has broken them all.”

He sounded frustrated—and not in the idle, commonplace way he got impatient with me sometimes. This was thorn-in-paw helplessness. Though I didn’t think it was for Ellery. Far more likely he was pissed off because there was something he couldn’t fix and make neat for Caspian.

“There must be more to it,” I said. “I know there’s aspects to this situation I don’t understand. But Ellery’s not…I mean. Ellery doesn’t do things for no reason. Even if it’s just her reason.”

Bellerose’s mouth thinned into a mean little line that didn’t suit him.

And Finesilver was still radiating an impenetrable field of trust me, trust me, I’m a nice person. “I believe she feels in some way connected to him.”

“Because he follows her around taking candid photos of her?”

“Because he has done so since she was fifteen years old. And”—he sighed gently—“on one occasion got her to hospital after an overdose.”

Oh Ellery. I wanted to hug the living daylights out of her. Which she would have hated.

“I guess”—I shuffled my feet awkwardly—“he can’t be all bad, then.”

Finesilver’s only change of expression was the slight re-angling of a brow. “He took photographs first.”

“The matter at hand?” Bellerose turned the screen more toward Finesilver and even less toward me.

Finesilver busied himself with the laptop again. “These are the only photographs circulating and they don’t appear to have been picked up by any major outlets. If we do nothing to suggest they might be worth attention, they will be less than flotsam in a day or two.”

“And if not?”

“Then,” said Finesilver mildly, “I will ensure there is something more newsworthy available to claim attention.”

He could do that? Of course he could do that.

“So it’s okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “I believe so. Though I will continue to monitor the situation.”

“And Caspian isn’t cross?”

Uncomprehending silence.

“I mean,” I babbled on, “he might not like it if people thought I was, y’know, dating his sister.”

Bellerose gave me one of his coolest looks. “He is quite aware of the vagaries of the gutter press.”

“Okay. Good. Well, not good but—”