Page 32 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

Fuck me. I finally saw the metal edge that differentiated the door from the windows and seemed to have been designed with the express purpose of being as obscure as possible. Seriously, what was the point of that? Who had thought it was a good idea? Because, if you asked me, that was some hard-core Bernard Tschumi space-violating-bodies shit.

Annoyed, embarrassed, and nonconsensually architecturally defiled, I finally got inside. Caspian, of course, was at his most icy and expressionless. Nathaniel just looked politely bemused.

“The door”—I flapped my hand at it—“looks like the windows. Or the windows look like the door. Either way, you should know it’s pretty nonideal in terms of accessibility.”

There was a long silence.

“Where’s Bellerose?” I asked.

There was another long silence.

Nathaniel, somehow, got even more polite and even more bemused. “Is that part of the interview?”

“No.” I stared at Caspian, right into the diamond laser of his gaze. “I just want to know.”

“I’m not sure,” he said finally, “why it is your business how I conduct mine.”

“What happened? Is he okay? Are you?”

“Why would we not be?”

Apparently making a fool of myself in Caspian Hart’s conference room was not a one-off for me. “Because he loves you. And he would never have left you voluntarily.”

Nathaniel made a gently disbelieving sound. “I think you might have misinterpreted my fiancé’s relationship with his executive assistant.”

“Oh God, no.” I gave a nervous wriggle—wondering if this was how magazines got sued for slander. “I didn’t mean they were shagging. I just…I don’t know what I meant…nothing bad.”

Nathaniel looked like he was about to reply, but then Caspian put a hand on his arm, which, frankly, I did not enjoy. “Even so,” he said, “Nathaniel is right. Bellerose was my employee. I have never treated him otherwise, nor would I, nor should he have expected such a thing.”

“What did he do?” The glassy emptiness of the conference room seemed to swallow my voice. Swallow me.

“That is not your concern.” Caspian had never been such a stranger to me. Even when he’d been nothing more than a voice on the phone. “And you have no reason to think it is.”

Oh God, I was going to cry. Please no. Not that. Not now. “I know. But, Caspian, he cared about you. You…you shouldn’t…I mean, nobody should…throw that away.”

“Perhaps,” put in Nathaniel softly, “you should start your interview. Since you seem so interested in the people who care for Caspian.”

Right. The interview. The fucking interview. Caspian seemed on the verge of saying something else—ideally,This is a terrible idea, why don’t we stop—but he didn’t. So I had no choice, really, except to sit down uninvited and plonk my phone on the table.

Chapter 11

I’ll be recording this,” I announced, “to make sure I don’t forget anything.”

Nothing from Caspian, but a slight nod from Nathaniel.

There was a bottle of excruciatingly posh mineral water in the middle of the conference table, except I would literally have had to crawl across the glass to get it. That left me, dry-mouthed and sick to my stomach, peering at it longingly.

I pushed the corners of my lips into a distorted coat hanger of a smile. “Congratulations on your engagement. How did it happen? Who asked whom?”

“I asked Nathaniel,” offered Caspian, finally. “I’m afraid it wasn’t as romantic as these things should probably be.”

Nathaniel cast him a glowy smile that made me want to kill myself. “It was romantic enough for me, my prince. You see”—he glanced at me again—“we have a long and somewhat complicated history together. 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. God. This was awful and I wasbeingawful too. I could barely look at either of them, and the bitter little voice inside me that was providing running commentary on the whole thing was making it difficult to do the actual job I was here to do.

Most basic rule of interviewing: fuckinglisten.

Which meant I had two choices. Give up and run away and spend the rest of my life—or at least the next few years—proofing other people’s more exciting stories. Or channel Tim Gunn and make it work. And there was no way I was letting down Tim Gunn. Even in my imagination.

---