Page 73 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

I would have said it was the worst journey ever except I’d flown out in the first place because my best friend had been hit by a car. And that was the sort of thing that could really hold its own at the top of your “rubbish travel experiences” list.

By the time we were dithering about in London airspace, waiting for permission to land, I had given up on everything except lying flat on my back in the middle of the floor, just about managing not to whine audibly because the cabin crew didn’t deserve that.

Internally, though? It was whine city.

I’m here, I texted Caspian. With, frankly, extraordinary dignity and forbearance.

And then, I’m back—and in time for your birthday, along with a flourishing collection of smileys to Ellery. yay was her reply.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I was finally back on British soil…well, British tarmac. But the moment I’d been passport-stamped and custom-checked, and released from the posh-person pen, there he was: Caspian Hart, waiting for me, among the scatter of strangers outside.

It was weird, I know, but I found him without consciously having to look. As if some part of me already knew how to find him. The rest of the world reduced to nothing but a painted backdrop.

He was wearing the midnight blue suit I’d seen first at Oxford. And I’d somehow forgotten how beautiful he was. I mean, not really. But the difference between reality and memory was like Dorothy arriving in Oz. I could see color again. Endless shades of Caspian: the twist of silver in the blue of his eyes, the not-quite-black of his hair, the pale lips that lost all their severity in the redness of kissing.

God. He made me dizzy. My stomach churn and my heart flutter. My knees literally weak. How could he be even a little bit mine? I think I might have fallen over—just reeled and flopped to the floor—if he hadn’t swept me into his arms.

I felt his breath against my cheek. And all he said was Arden. But it was so full of longing and joy and relief and possession that it hardly sounded like my name anymore.

It sounded like mine.

And then he was kissing me. A full-on fuck the world, I’m never getting on a plane again Casablanca kiss. A kiss to break the edges of skin itself and make you two, and one, and whole, and together, and everything between.

Chapter 19

Come on,” Caspian said, letting me go at last.

Once again, my body decided that the best place for me was in a wobbly heap on the ground, but he grabbed my hand just in time. And pulled me, along with my case, toward the exit. Into the waiting—oh fuck—limo.

And onto his lap.

Where we kissed again. Again. Again. Forever.

As the streets of London unraveled around us in ribbons of gold.

Finally, we stopped. Mainly, I think, for breathing purposes, rather than any particular desire to separate our mouths.

“I’m going to put a collar round your neck,” Caspian murmured, “and chain you to my bed.”

Thankfully I knew how to interpret this. “I missed you too.”

I thought he might laugh. But, instead, he pulled me against him so tightly that I flailed and squeaked like a squeezy toy. “Oh Arden.”

“It me,” I wheezed.

“My Arden.” He pressed his face against the crook of my shoulder. “You make me so happy.”

I wasn’t sure what to say so I snuggled. Snuggled like hell. What were ribs for anyway? And, besides, it was rare for him to let me get this close, his need to be touched, his need for me, overwhelming his need for control.

“How do you have this power?” he asked.

From anyone else, it would have been a rhetorical. But he sounded so genuinely bewildered—almost plaintive—that I did my best to answer. “We like each other. It’s not magic.”

“It’s magic to me.” He slid a palm up the back of my neck and into my hair. Made me look at him. His eyes were wild and a little shadowed. Hadn’t he been sleeping well? “I don’t deserve this. Or you.”

Urgh. That was a mood-killer. It reminded me of some of the stuff he’d said about Nathaniel and now I knew more about their relationship it was not a comparison I relished. To put it mildly.

Since I was unusually unrestrained, I took major advantage, cupping his face gently between my hands and brushing my lips across his again. “Caspian, I love that I’m a good thing in your life. Please don’t take that away from me.”