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

by Alexis Hall

“If you’re trying to hurt my feelings, you have chosen an epically bad time. Because that doesn’t even make the top ten of shitty things said to me today.”

Bellerose had told me once he didn’t find me completely repulsive. Truly, was that not the bedrock of friendship?

Every time I heard Caspian, I wanted to cry, and every time I heard Nathaniel, I…also wanted to cry. But in a really angry way.

“I’m an addict and a whore.” He spoke without rancour—without any particular emotion, actually. “If Mr. Steyne hadn’t seen something in me he could use, I would most likely be dead by now.”

Oh my poor baby

“I’ve got to tell you, from everything I’ve heard about the man, if I learned he’d saved a kitten from a fire, I’d be inclined to think it was for his own fucked-up purposes.” “Yes, of course.” The click of Ilya’s needles seemed disconcertingly merry given the topic of conversation. “But the kitten would still be broadly better off.” “If that kitten was me, I’d take the burn to the death option.” “That’s because you’ve never been on fire.”

And so we walked back together, with the loss of the man we both loved between us like a shadow.

My two sad, broken babies

But what I really want right now is a cheese toastie on, like, bad-for-me white bread full of gluten, with bright yellow cheese that has been squeezed directly out of a cow.

“Ellery told me you were a lactose-intolerant vegan with coeliac disease.”

I. Adore. Ellery.

“Because…I knew you’d both be…too nice to say anything.”

I literally just spat out my water

squoodged

I hate this word

I de-rumpled my duvet and climbed under it. Ilya joined me a moment or two later, bringing very welcome heat, and the clean scent of his skin.

Arden and Bellerose sleeping together is insane and also amazing to me

“Would you like to have sex?” Okay, so I hadn’t seen that coming. “Pardon me?”

BROOOO

Basically, it was kind of like being capitally punished in the seventeenth century, and then having to have a polite chat with the judge about whether you were available to die on Monday and if you were allergic to hemp.

“You’re going to have to kill yourself. It’s the only way.” “Someday you’ll say that to me, and I actually will, and then you’ll be all sorry and sad and oops, I shouldn’t have been sarcastic.”

I also had no idea how to get a gun in the UK. Then again, I did buy a ticket to Boston, so maybe I could pick up a Glock from a corner shop while I was over there.

Murica

“This is a really lovely garment.” “Thank you. It was…uh…kind of a present?” From Caspian clanged between us like the bells of Notre Dame.

Of course she was. Of course. Nathaniel worked for charity, fixed up his house, cooked with ethically sourced products, and made me want to claw my own skin off with his oblivious commitment to being a good person. His unnaturally lovely cat could only have come from a shelter.

Here’s hoping I never have to hear Nathaniel refer to himself as Daddy again.

Barf

“I’ll make those drinks now.” Well, it was that or joint ritual suicide. “Sounds great.”

But your family? Are all in good health?” “They were, but then Little Timmy was taken by the sweating sickness.

I am going to pee myself

You have no idea how important your happiness is to me.” “Y’know something? You’re right. I don’t.”

Snide!Nathaniel was probably my least favourite Nathaniel. And believe me, there was a lot of competition.

I hope there’s a special place in hell reserved for people who say “Tell me about yourself.” Maybe not right in Satan’s arsehole with the betrayers, but pretty damn near it.

I couldn’t shake the conviction his one-man Arden Pep Rally was more for his benefit than mine. Like he was trying to prove to Nathaniel he hadn’t just been slumming it with me for six months.

“So, Arden. How are you?” “Since the last two times you asked me that question tonight? Still fine, Caspian.”

“I hope my sister isn’t being a bad influence on you.” “She hasn’t broken my heart yet, so I think that puts her well ahead of the family average.”

“I’m not his friend. I loved him. I still do. And I’m going home.” Reader, I got the fuck out.

As you should, king

that was the thing about getting away: At some point, you had to come back, and everything you’d left behind would still be waiting.

If you squinted at it funny, it was almost like Caspian was having as much trouble forgetting about me as I was forgetting about him.

Something flicked across Ellery’s face. “Ard—” Drowning, I kissed her.

Arden... No...

Also, no power on earth was getting me voluntarily through the doors of a straight club. Ew.

Same

“Regret is futile, Arden.” “You say that a lot, but you know something? I think regret is important. It’s how you learn to live with things instead of running from them.”

Those pictures are beautiful. I’m proud of them. And you’re locking them away from everyone because even though you don’t want me, you don’t want anyone else to have me either.”

MIC DROP MOMENT

“Of course I want you, Arden.” Caspian’s voice had gone very low, his words ragged things creeping reluctantly from his mouth. “I don’t know how to stop wanting you.

“With Nathaniel, I have a chance to be someone I admire. With you, I would always be someone I despised.”

I know I should just DNF at this point. I'm holding on for spite.

He’d said those things to me. Fucked my arse, my head, and my heart in the same damn fire escape. While catastrophically determined to marry someone else.

All my cherished memories reduced to a mistake he’d made one summer.

and dumped my shoulder bag.

I have a feeling that's gonna be a bad idea

Shit, where was my phone.

I knew it

Right now, he was probably in some dodgy shop in Soho getting it unlocked so he could find out where Mum was. Because my dad was an abusive sociopath who was obsessed with her. And I was an idiot beyond reckoning.

“Will you trust me?” He’d asked me that once before. In a very different context. And the answer was the same as it had always been. “Yes.”

you are precious.” I was too far gone to even make a Gollum joke.

“I…I talked when I wasn’t supposed to.” “I was not, in all honesty, expecting otherwise.”

You can’t expect to live a life you’re happy to look back on and not fuck it up occasionally. It’s not the fucking up that counts. It’s what you do after.”

And if you ever come near my family again, including Arden, I’ll kill you myself.”

Ellery the queen

You’re sure about this? About me? About us?” “Oh, my Arden,” he murmured. “It’s the one certainty I have right now.”

Of course I’ll be by your side. For as long as you want me there.” “I should warn you, that could be a long time.”

“Now, is there anything else I can give you, my Arden? It’s a little early for my hand in marriage. And you already have my kingdom at your feet. My heart for yours.”

But while my soul knew its equal, my heart knew its master. Even when the master didn’t fully know himself. And so, with happiness breaking inside me, like light through a prism splintering endlessly into rainbows, I obeyed.

Or eight gazillion Hugo Weavings are about to show up because I’m in the Matrix.” “Dear me.” He cast me a rather quizzical look. “You must be in a bad way, because that’s a reference so dated even I get it.”