Page 115 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

It took a long time, but he did eventually speak. The words coming slowly and painfully, like razor blades from his lips. “If I tell you, you’ll know what Eleanor said about me is right. That I’m sick and twisted and I ruin everything that’s good.”

“She only said that because she was angry.”

He shook his head. “No, she said it because it’s true. You see, I learned who I was when I was fourteen years old.”

“What happened when—wait. When your father died?”

“After that. When I seduced his business partner. His best friend.”

I…I genuinely had no idea what to say. Too much clamoring in my head. Nausea churning my stomach. And the memory of Lancaster Steyne’s cold gray eyes. The way they had lingered on Caspian, possessive and predatory and cruel. Oh God, how had I ever thought he was hot? And should I have…seen this? Guessed at something like it? At the very least? How fucking stupid and blind and ignorant was I?

“You seduced him?” I repeated carefully.

“Yes. I was angry with everyone, especially my mother who was close to Lancaster then. I felt she was betraying my father.” He uttered a soft laugh, devoid of mirth. “She wasn’t. I did that.”

“For fuck’s sake.” I was drowning but thrashing doggedly regardless. “I don’t see how a fourteen-year-old could have seduced anyone.”

He went rigid in my embrace. “You don’t believe me?”

“No, I believe you. But as far as I’m concerned, if an adult sleeps with a child, that’s abuse.”

I waited for him to accept my unassailable logic.

But all he gave me was another one of those hollow laughs. “You’re so sweet, Arden. But I wasn’t a child.”

“Are you seriously telling me”—my voice rose a little—“that if I went out and banged a fourteen-year-old you would be okay with that? You wouldn’t think it was deeply fucked up and wrong?”

“To say nothing of illegal,” he added for me. “No, of course it would be wrong. But it was different for me. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

I suddenly realized I was meant to be comforting him and, instead, we were sort of having an argument. But I didn’t know how to let it go. Hell, I didn’t want to let it go. How could he believe these things? How could he think I would? “You were a grieving teenager. He was an adult. Even if you thought you were consenting, it was his responsibility to…Jesus, Caspian. To look after you.”

Caspian shook me off impatiently, and rose. He seemed very tall just then, in his barely rumpled black tie, while I huddled naked in bed. “I know what you’re doing. I know this would be more comfortable for you if it was some heartrending tale of a vulnerable boy and a wicked uncle, but that simply isn’t true.”

His voice lashed at me and his words hurt. The injustice of them. I wiped away fresh tears with the heel of my hand. “It’s not about my comfort.”

“He didn’t force me. He didn’t rape me. He didn’t make me to do anything I wasn’t willing to do.” He gazed down at me and it was like looking through the bars caging a wounded beast. “You may be sure I experienced pleasure with him, Arden. On many occasions.”

“That’s still not the s-same as consent,” I said in a small voice.

“We were together a long time. Beyond any point that would absolve me of responsibility on grounds of age. I could have left him. And I chose not to.”

“Yes,” I protested, “because this stuff is complicated. My mum stayed with my dad for years. Half believing that if she could only be better and do things right, she could change him back into the wonderful, adoring man she married.”

He turned on me, almost snarling. “Don’t compare me to your mother. It does not reflect well on either of us.”

I held his gaze, shaky but committed. “You’re never going to convince me that a relationship between a fourteen-year-old boy and a grown man was the fourteen-year-old’s fault.”

“Then what if I told you how he cultivated my darkest desires. Nurtured my cruelty. Encouraged my worst impulses. How he taught me and indulged me, and brought me lovers to break like toys.”

“I’d say he was a sick fuck.”

Caspian threw back his head, and covered his face with his hands, more of that strange laughter bursting from between his fingers. “Now you sound like Nathaniel. But I was no sacrifice to Lancaster’s degeneracy. I was his acolyte.”

“You were his victim.”

He made a noise of frustration—maybe even anger. And spun away from me. “Stop it. I don’t want to hear this.” He curled his hands into his hair. “Why won’t you understand? Can’t you see? I’m ruined and filthy and fucked up. I want the people I love to suffer. Because that’s what turns me on above all else. Control and pain and degradation.”

“Yes. I know.” I steadied my breathing. Tried to meet the storm of his fury and pain with gentleness. “You’re a sadist and dominant. And yes, you’ve hurt me sometimes—”

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