It was nearly ten o’clock.
And I was still sitting there, naked and alone, surrounded by melting ice and ruined sushi.
I’d tried calling—my wrists were bound but I still had my fingers and, for emergencies, my nose—but I’d gone straight to voice mail.
What if something had happened to him? How would I find out? It would be on the news, right? Billionaire Killed in Horrific Car Crash While Driving too Fast to Undisclosed Rendezvous. Sexual Distraction Suspected. Oh God.
Also, what was I going to do about my…predicament? I was pretty sure Bellerose wasn’t available for assisting with ill-advised acts of self-bondage.
I wriggled my hands back and forth and discovered I’d done a really good job of immobilizing myself. The more I tugged, the more my knots held. Which would have been great if I was making a rope ladder or escaping from prison down my bedsheets. But, right now, it was seriously non-ideal.
I’d have to wait for Caspian.
Who was very unlikely to actually be dead.
He…
He just wasn’t coming, was he? After everything I’d said this morning. After I’d fucking begged. And not in a hot, sexy, exciting way.
In a pathetic, awful, humiliating way.
And Caspian was what? Laughing at me? Bored of me?
But how could he have said everything that he’d said and done everything that he’d done…gone out of his way to be kind to me so many times…and leave me like this?
With nothing.
No word. No apology. Nothing.
I laid my head on the table. With an exaggerated gentleness meant to combat the desire to bash my stupid brains out.
Fuck. Fuck everything. And most of all fuck me. For being an idiot. As usual. What was I thinking? Sushi. Nakedness. Kinky accessories. Had I really let myself believe that he was going to turn up and gleefully ravish me? That, based on a handful of words, he would tear down all his walls, abandon everything that held him back, and just offer up his heart for me to cherish?
Of course he wouldn’t.
Not when it was infinitely easier to make a fool of me instead.
I sighed and sat up again, accidentally knocking Milieu onto the floor. Bugger.
Despite my best efforts, picking it up with my toes just wasn’t happening—it made me feel slightly bitter about all those movies where people escaped from jail cells or handcuffs or whatever by manipulating keys around with their feet.
Nothing for it but to slither out of my chair, get on my knees, and use my teeth. Which was embarrassing in a totally not into this way. Thank God nobody could see me. Although, if past history was anything to go by, this was exactly the moment Caspian would turn up.
But no.
Not even being facedown, arse up, and completely naked was enough to summon him tonight.
And that was when I saw him.
In photographic form. Staring at me from the “Beau Monde” section of Milieu: that stilled tiger look of his, elegant, powerful, and exquisitely dangerous, captured only for a moment.
And he was with someone. An unsullied angel of a man, a little taller and a little older than Caspian, copper-blond and heart-crushingly handsome.
Impossible to ignore the way they stood together. An easy familiarity of bodies. Not the awkward affection of two male friends—the “I’m not gay” elbow nudge or shoulder pat—but the way you moved when you already knew how to fit. When intimacy had sanded away all the rough edges of touching.
The picture was one of several comprising a double spread on the Royal Brampton & Harefield Hospital’s fund-raiser.
The caption read: Caspian Hart and Nathaniel Priest.
That was all.
Five words to make me dust.
I suddenly really very urgently wanted to be not naked and not tied up. My whole body felt weird, like a spider had crawled on me and then scuttled away into some dark corner, leaving me violated and twitchy. I pulled frantically at the tie, sweat gathering, sharp-edged somehow, under my arms and at the back of my neck.
I’d once got stuck on a balcony, halfway up a building, wearing only a towel because of a complicated series of misadventures involving a one-night stand, an ill-timed shower, a lecture someone else was late for, and a locked door. It had bagged me a mention in Oxford’s longest running gossip column—how was that for classy—and it had been funny. Even to me. I mean, I wasn’t so fragile in the self-esteem department I couldn’t be ridiculous.
But this.
This was just embarrassing and awful and…and—
And I was going to be sick.
I ran for the kitchen, since it was closest, and spluttered into the sink. But there was nothing to bring up. Just a burn at the back of my throat and in my eyes. Unshed tears and unrelieved nausea and the sound of my own sobbing breaths echoing against too much fucking marble.
When I was calm…calmer…I reviewed the situation.
Tried to think what MacGyver might do had he taken off all his clothes and tied himself up in a strange apartment with no hope of rescue.
And came up blank.
MacGyver would never have got himself into this mess in the first place. Talk about being your own worst enemy.
In the end, I sidled up to the knife block—which was probably hand-carved sapient pearwood or something—and very, very carefully manipulated a knife from it with my fingertips. Then I lowered myself equally carefully to the floor, trying to put as much distance between my body parts and the path of the blade as possible. Because dropping a knife that looked more like a katana on my foot or decapitating my own genitals with it would have been the cherry on my shit sundae of an evening.
Despite being what A&E visits were made of, it was surprisingly easy to slice through a tie with a carving knife. I got the edge of the blade under the fabric—pointing away from my big, long, blood-filled artery—and applied what pressure I could.
And then I was free.
Caspian’s tie reduced to ribbons and knots on the kitchen floor.
The first thing I did was put some clothes on. It was amazing how much worse things seemed when bits of you were flopping in the breeze. I checked my second phone and this time—oh this time—there was a message. I guess I’d missed its initial arrival because I’d been too busy trying to unself-bondage myself with the kitchenware.
I moved my thumb over the little envelope. This better be good. Better than good. It had better be fucking spectacular.
But all it said was, Working late.
I stared at it like it was the enigma code.
I was so done.
Pulling out my phone, I booked a last-minute ticket on the Sleeper. Unfortunately, I’d already missed the one that would get me all the way to Inverness, but Edinburgh was better than nothing.
And possessed the major advantage of not being here.
Which was absolutely what I needed.
I finished packing, which took less than five minutes, left the magazine, the second phone, and the remains of Caspian’s tie on the table with the spoiled and spoiling sushi, and left.
* * *
I was on the train a good twenty minutes before it pulled out of Euston. There’d been a few berths still available but they were expensive and, while they were a nice idea in principle, I’d always found them a little claustrophobic. The seats were fairly comfortable—about as comfortable as first class on a nonsleeper—so I took off my shoes and curled up under my coat.
Rested my head against the window.
Watched the darkness and the light slipping past.
It was seven hours to Edinburgh. I must have slept for some of it. The important thing was that I didn’t cry.
We were over the border when the sun rose. Misty gold and rumpled sky and Scotland’s indecorous beauty. So different from England’s neat patchwork.
Knife-twist in my battered heart: this longing for home.
We arrived pretty much on time, and even though you were allowed half an hour to collect yourself, I grabbed my bag and dashed across the platform in order to catch the 7:44 to Inverness. Four hours later, I was on another train, this time bound for Lairg, and then a bus to Kinlochbervie.
I was travel-numbed, rattled, and weary.
But hey. It kept my mind off things.
Off—
Nononono. Don’t even think his name.
I sent a text to Hazel, letting her know I was coming. It was easier that way round because Mum had these spidey senses when it came to my mood and would probably have worried.
The bus finally arrived at the harbor and I limped out. Stared across the rough gray water toward the rough gray hills. The light was already fading. Seeping away in shades of silver.
Fuck. I’d been traveling for nearly eighteen hours. My body was one big ache. I should probably have asked Hazel to come get me in the car, but it was only a half hour walk.
We didn’t actually live in Kinlochbervie itself. We lived out in the wilds, near Oldshoremore Beg, in this converted crofter’s cottage called Oran na Mara. That meant Song of the Sea, which was a poetic way of saying wet and stormy. But as I’d promised Caspian, there was a great view.
I was trudging along the single track, wrapped in the deep silence of far-flung places, when I met Hazel coming the other way.
“Just thought you might want some company, love.” She threw an arm over my shoulders and pulled me in for a quick squeeze. Duration of squeeze was no marker of affection. She was the type of the person who did everything quickly: this rapid-fire woman, all flying hair and hands. “How’s things?”
“Fine.”
I wasn’t sure if I was glad to see her or not. Well, obviously I was. She was my mother’s girlfriend and I loved her. But I’d also been counting on having the next twenty minutes or so to plan my story. I had to come up with something between the truth and a massive, massive lie, since the truth included dispatches about my sex life from the frontline of adulthood no parent wanted to hear. Except I was a crappy liar at the best of times. And, honestly, right now, when even smiling seemed slightly beyond the scope of my physical and emotional energy, I wasn’t sure how convincing my happy face would be. Pathetic. I was pathetic
Pathetic pathetic pathetic.
Hazel reached for one of my bags and I knew better than to fight her for it. “You came six hundred and sixty miles because you’re fine?”
“Oh…just…boyfriend trouble.”
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”
“Yeah”—I tried to force my mouth into the semblance of a grin—“that’s the trouble.”
“Nice dodge.”
“Thanks.”
“Funny, but meaningless. Eight out of ten.”
“What can I say? It’s a gift.”
We walked along in silence. The horizon gleamed where the land became sea, the view as familiar to me as my own skin, worn in by day after day of living. I tried to imagine Caspian here, wind-ruffled, his eyes soaking up all the shades of the sky.
Oh what the hell was wrong with me?
This was the unfun masochism.
And I should have guessed that Hazel wouldn’t let things go. “I thought you were settled in London.”
“Well, I’m unsettled.”
“Does that mean you’re back for a while? Or is this just a visit?”
“I don’t know. I thought I might stay, if that’s okay?” I’d meant for that last part to sound considerate and mature, but instead it came out with a prickly sullenness that reminded me of Ellery. Shit. I was regressing to teenager.
She sighed. “Well, it’s a bit inconvenient, Arden. I’ve already begun converting your bedroom into a sex pad. There’s a giant swing where your bed used to be.
“Har har.”
“Of course you can stay, dingbat. This is your home.”
I took another run at a smile. “Thanks.”
“Though I can’t really see you as a fisherman.”
“Oh, but”—I wagged a finger—“he has made me a fisher of men.”
She tsked. “You and your Father Brown.”
I nodded, blinking away an unexpected rush of tears, suddenly desperately glad to be home, where affection and understanding were so very certain. For as long as I could remember, our household had been locked into this protracted war over our favorite fictional detectives. Hazel’s husband, Rabbie, was Switzerland, the neutral party just like always, Hazel was a massive Holmes buff, and Mum and me…we loved Father Brown.
I could remember her reading to me when we still lived with Dad, her voice in the dark, whispering these stories of good and evil, hope and compassion. Holmes, with all his cold brilliance, just couldn’t live up.
Hazel poked me in the arm, sending my thoughts scattering afresh. “Come on, Ardy. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Oh…oh, there was just this guy. I guess I liked him more than he liked me.” Argh. The words had just…happened somehow. So much for being stoic and noble and locking my pain away like a brave little mushroom.
“Then clearly he’s a very stupid boy.”
“He isn’t, though.” I sighed. “He’s amazing. Like nobody I’ve ever met before.”
“What does he have? Two cocks?”
I felt myself turning red. “Hazel!”
“I just wanted to know what’s special about him.”
“Everything. He’s totally out of my league, just ridiculously smart and successful and beautiful.”
“Sounds like a bore.”
“No, he’s…he’s…” God, how did you explain Caspian Hart? “It’s like there’s all that and so much more, you know? Or I thought there was.” My eyes were stinging again. “He kept showing me…I kept seeing these glimpses. Behind the perfection. Of this…ordinary man, who was kind and funny and sexy and lonely and needed me and—”
And, shitshitshitfuckshit, I burst into tears.
I heard the thud of my bags as they hit the ground and then I was in Hazel’s arms. And, for some reason, that just made me cry even more.
“I’m getting snot on your shoulder,” I warned her in a damp, muffled sort of way.
“I think I’ll cope.”
Eventually I calmed down. Wiped my eyes and my nose.
Let Hazel gather up my things and lead me off the path to the top of this little rise where we sat down.
I took a deep breath. It was cold enough that the air felt almost sharp inside my lungs. Pure. Like I was the first person ever to breathe it.
Hugging my knees, I let the horizon fill my eyes. The rock-stippled grass rolled away into sand dunes. And then came the golden sweep of Oldshoremore Beach and beyond it the impossibly blue sea, the turquoise waves turning silver-tipped, like something from a Caribbean dream. Except, y’know, way up in the north of Scotland where sun was something that happened to other people.
Hazel nudged my shoulder. “Better?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I just feel like an idiot.”
“Isn’t that what being twenty is all about?”
“Being an idiot?”
“No.” She grinned, looking all impish and twinkly. “I meant, falling for unsuitable people. Breaking hearts and having your heart broken. Living the stories that are worth telling.”
It all sounded very nice in principle.
Except.
I sighed. “It wasn’t like that. It was messed up in this totally uncool way. I got caught up in this mirage of who I thought he was. And I kept stumbling after it, believing in it, like a complete dongle, and letting him hurt me over and over and over again.”
I felt her turn tense at my side. “Hurt you how?”
“Oh God, no,” I said hastily. “Not like that. He just made feel bad. I mean, sometimes he made me feel wonderful. And the rest of the time…completely worthless.” But, then, I would be to a man like that. Why had I ever believed otherwise? Why had he made me? And then burned me down.
“He did what?” She didn’t sound very much mollified.
Shit. The last thing I wanted was Hazel on a hate-tear. But how was I supposed to tell her what had happened, when I still didn’t fully understand it myself? Except for the rejection bit. That had come through loud and clear. “It was my own fault, really. I put myself in that position in the first place.”
“Nobody puts themself in a position to be badly treated. That’s all on him.”
“I don’t know.” I picked idly at the grass. “Maybe there’s something about me that made him do it.”
Hazel gave me a sharp look. “What is this? National Daft Day?”
“I just meant…like…after Mum—”
“Arden! Stop right there, before I find a bucket of cold water and dump it over your head.”
“Yes, but—”
“But no. How can you even think that?”
I never had before, and I didn’t entirely know where it had come from now. Like pulling your sofa away from the wall and finding a squashed slug under there. “I’m tired,” I mumbled. “Fucked in the head.”
She was quiet a long time. And then, “I met your father, Ardy. At the wedding.”
My stomach did the wet-fish flip-flop it always did when he was mentioned: a physical manifestation of emotional nausea. I nearly asked her to stop, but I didn’t. I had so few perspectives on him. Just my own fear-distorted memories and the emptiness in Mum’s eyes.
“He didn’t have horns or goat feet, you know,” Hazel was saying. “He was charming. Had a way about him that made you feel like the center of the universe when he was focused on you. And he seemed devoted to Iris, absolutely devoted. It was like something out of a fairy tale.”
Yeah. If the fairy tale was Bluebeard. “But why Mum? Why did he choose her?”
“Not because of something she did, or was, that’s for damn certain, you stupid boy.”
I blinked back fresh tears. Hideously ashamed of myself. “You won’t tell her what I said, will you?”
“Never.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I know you didn’t.” Her voice softened. “And I know it’s a hard thing to live with. The past is a dark place for you and your mum.”
I nodded miserably. I really didn’t want to risk saying anything in case it turned out to be awful again. Some nasty secret embedded in the underbelly of my insecurity unearthed by Caspian Hart’s carelessness and my own naivety.
Hazel leaned into my shoulder again, her hair tickling my cheek. “She would never have got away without you, love. You saved each other.”
I watched the beach. The endless wash of the waves and the gleam of the sky on the wet sand. “Okay,” I said at last.
“And the fact is, there’s a world of difference between a psychopath and a dickhead.”
That surprised a laugh out of me. Infinitely easier to think of Caspian Hart, not as some unreachable angel or a demon who had sadistically toyed with my heart, but simply as a bit of a cock.
“Come on.” Hazel clambered to her feet. “There’s crumpets at home.”
Oh, that sounded perfect. Mum made her own and they weren’t like the ones you could get in the shops: fluffier and yeastier, served toasty-warm, with the butter melting deeply into the cracks. “Yes. Yesyesyes.”
We gathered up my things and headed for Oran na Mara. Its crooked white chimney was just visible between the hills, a beckoning finger, calling us in from the cold.