How to Belong with a Billionaire (Arden St. Ives #3)

by Alexis Hall

He is not to be tamed. Or if he is, neither Lancaster Steyne nor Nathaniel Priest has the heart for it.

And this summer I saw him happy for the first time. It didn’t last. And now—also for the first time—I begin to question.

And what disturbs me most is that I can see what Caspian cannot. Which is simply this: Arden St. Ives changed us both.

It was like having a cat, if the cat also took a lot of drugs and threw wild parties.

My life was more than Caspian Hart. Weird as it seemed, he’d shown me that. Shown me how to fly, then pushed me through a window.

Thankfully, I’d emerged from the womb serving manic pixie dream queer.

His head snapped up. And, wow, he was looking rough: dark circles under his eyes, cracked lips, acne rashes across the tops of his cheeks. “Arden. I—”

My poor baby

I contrived to trip over, well, nothing. I tried to catch myself but to absolutely no avail. And one startled yelp later I was facedown, arse up, on the ground.

Arden I cannot do this any longer

cool, perfectly manicured fingers—the fourth circled by a milgrain platinum band

EXCUSE ME?!

“Darling”—Nathaniel cast a look of amused exasperation in Caspian’s direction—“I thought you cancelled that?”

I am literally going to vomit

And there it was: a dull gleam on his fourth finger. A ring to match Nathaniel’s. “I’m…we’re…” “Engaged,” I said.

No like this is so not okay I am going to throw up

Congratulations.” “Thank you, Arden.” Nathaniel, soft-footed, came to stand beside Caspian.

I'm really about to DNF and I thought this would be one of my comfort series

A perfect match, equal in beauty, poise, and sophistication. And so wrong in every other way.

Oh, Caspian. I was completely fucking furious with him. And desolate all over again. How hurt did you have to be, how terrified of who you were, and what you wanted, to do something like this? Not just to himself.

I’d lost Caspian before we’d even met. To Lancaster Steyne. The man whose cruelty would possess him for the rest of his days.

“Let’s not be so hasty, my prince.” Nathaniel pressed in closer and whispered something in Caspian’s ear.

Actively heaving

“You don’t love people because they’re deserving. You love them b-because you love them.”

“He’s only doing this because he’s been hurt so so badly. And he won’t let me help.” “You know people can only really help themselves.” “Y-yes. But…he’s hurting me too.”

Suddenly all I could think about was standing in front of Caspian, telling him I wanted my safe word to be Mace Windu when really I just wanted him to believe how safe I felt with him.

I was so fucking sick of being sad.

It probably said something about the life I’d been leading recently that this wasn’t the first time someone had invited me into their dungeon.

I guess it had just been so much easier to believe in myself and all that malarkey when Caspian had thought I was the bee’s knees.

God, break-ups really fuck up your self-esteem

Very few adventures begin with a no.”

there were two kinds of people in the world: people who kept books for show and people who kept them for love,

It’s not the rush that’s real. It’s the follow-through. Find out what something is and then you’ll find out if you love it.”

I was nothing if not ambitious when it came to putting my dick in people

“Arden St. Ives.” “Hello,” came a voice I sort of recognised but couldn’t place, “this is Nathaniel.” Oh. My. Fucking. God. “Nathaniel who?”

I am so in love with you

“Oh. Wow.” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get anything into my tone. Not a single flicker of human-ness. It was like I’d been replaced by Alexa. “That’s so terrific.”

You didn’t go around telling people they had no right to marry Mr. Darcy unless there was the teeniest tiniest possibility Mr. Darcy wanted to marry them.

Regretted it instantly but, sadly, had been raised with good manners when it came to spitting or swallowing.

There was no dress code for interviewing your ex-boyfriend and the man he was engaged to about their engagement.

And yet there was something deeply, profoundly wrong about seeing a stranger at his desk: one of those elegant middle-aged women who have coiffures instead of haircuts.

NO

Bellerose would have said something cutting that would have, in some perverse way, made me feel better.

Where is my baby :(

I finally saw the metal edge that differentiated the door from the windows

Arden I literally hate you sometimes

Caspian had never been such a stranger to me. Even when he’d been nothing more than a voice on the phone.

I despise this

“Congratulations on your engagement. How did it happen? Who asked whom?” “I asked Nathaniel,” offered Caspian, finally.

Gross

But don’t they say the course of true love never runs smooth?” Yeah, they did say that. Shame they didn’t also say, when you’re being interviewed for a magazine, don’t talk in fucking clichés.

“That’s because adult relationships tend to be, Arden. Passion can be a compelling distraction, but what you want is less important than what is good for you.”

Watching Caspian piss off both his ex and current partner simultaneously shouldn’t have been endearing. But you had to admit, it took some skill.

“Caspian had been staying with me for a while after some adverse personal circumstances, just as friends. But I think it reminded us both of all the ways we worked. And then he woke me up one night and we had a long talk about our history and our future. At the end of which he told me he couldn’t live a life without me in it anymore, and promised to become the man I deserved.”

I. Hate. This.

I guess in an ideal world nobody’s sexuality would have to be a strong part of their identity, but my queerness felt integral to me like…my arm or something.

Jesus. This was like pulling teeth. From inside other teeth. Which were in cement.

We both have lives outside the relationship, so neither of us is sitting around in an empty flat all day waiting for the other to come home.

The way my fucking jaw is on the floor

I did not want to go for dinner with Caspian and Nathaniel. Because, while I could theoretically imagine worse things—being stuck on an alien spaceship and hunted by a Xenomorph, for example—they weren’t happening to me there and then, and I could be pretty sure I wouldn’t be expected to smile and say thank you afterwards.

I was not Caspian’s fucking friend. I was his ex who was still in love with him.

I couldn’t claim to be busy because the invitation was too vague (“Unfortunately, Nathaniel, I’m washing my hair literally forever”),

As Nathaniel says, we’re friends…aren’t we?” Oh, for God’s sake. Et tu, Caspian?

I didn’t quite have the bollocks to say No actually, I’m your scorned ex-lover and you know it.

What was I saying? This was Caspian Hart. Not speaking to you for three months, then glaring at you coldly was practically his love language.

“Look, you’ve got people, right?” “Excuse me?” “People who are there for you.” “Oh yes,” he said airily. “I’m surrounded by them. Beating them off with sticks.”