Page 71 of Oleander

Gideon’s smile was tender. But ever since Caspien’s words that day about how I knew nothing about Gideon, and since that night when I’d found him here alone and acting strangely,I’d never quite taken Gideon’s smiles to mean exactly what he wanted me to think they did.

“Do not mention it, young Jude. Anything you need, anything at all.”

I wasn’t sure what made me ask it, but I said, “If he wanted to come home, would you let him?”

A strange look passed over his face, darkening his already dark eyes. “Lethim?”

“I just mean, I wondered if maybe you’d sent him away or something. If maybe he’d done something he shouldn’t have. I don’t know. And he won’t answer my calls so...”

Gideon shook his head as he came towards me.

“He simply woke up and declared he was going back to La Troyeux. No explanation, no discussion. I rather thought it was something to do with you, in fact.”

I wasn’t going to answer that, though I could tell he wanted me to.

“So then if he wanted to come back, if he told you when you saw him that he’d changed his mind and wanted to come back, he could?”

“I’d have him on a flight that very day. Jude, Deveraux is Caspien’s home, and he will always be welcome here. I miss him terribly. Elspeth does too. And I’m sure you do.”

I gave him a guileless smile. “I have a feeling he’ll be back soon.”

Gideon’s expression sharpened ever so slightly and I was glad I’d put nothing in the letter that might have condemned me.

The moment I got home, I opened my laptop and typed ‘Xavier Blackwell’into the search engine.

I could hardly believe my eyes. Could hardly believe it had been so easy.

There was page after page after page of him. Caspien’s pervert was some kind of celebrity lawyer. He was thirty-two, though he’d started his own firm at twenty-six. There was a picture of him with a famous actress who had sued a British film studio for equal pay, pictures of him with footballers and politicians, even one with a prince.

I wanted to laugh. It was almost too bloody good.

But suddenly, I understood that Caspien’s fear hadn’t solely been about himself being found out; he was afraid for Xavier Blackwell’s career—a career that would most definitely be ruined by the fact that he’d been messing about with a fifteen-year-old boy.

A career, as it turned out, I cared nothing about.

I pulled out my phone, typed two words into a text, and hit send.

This time, I only had to wait four minutes for him to call me back.

Twenty

"What on earth do you think you’re doing, Jude?” Caspien’s voice was a shard of black ice.

All of my bravado disappeared the instant I heard it. I tried to breathe, tried to find a voice that was stronger and more assured than I felt.

“Oh, hey. Nice to hear from you,” I said. “How’sSwitzerland?”

“Cold. Now, what are you playing at?”

“I’m not playing at anything,” I said. “I wanted to test out a theory, and I guess it’s confirmed.”

He made a thin snorting sound. “Don’t be absurd. Nothing’s been confirmed. I’m simply tired of your pathetic, stalker behaviour. I’d have thought my leaving the country would have been enough to stop your stupid infatuation with me, but clearly not.”

It stung. Sharp and hot. But I barrelled on nonetheless. “Hardly. But you know who is infatuated with you? Xavier Blackwell. Senior Partner at Blackwell, Price and Houghton. ‘I can’t stay away from you, Caspien,’” I mocked. “‘I miss you all the time.’”

He was silent, and I felt the frigid ire of his rage across the sea. Whereas my anger and fury toward him were always hot, his ran cold as the ocean floor.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”