Introducing Caspian Hart to my family went pretty much the way I thought it would: which was to say, it was weird as hell, but everyone was super-committed to pretending it wasn’t.
Especially considering I had to skirt around our actual relationship. And he probably wasn’t what they were expecting from Ardy’s First Proper Boyfriend. He was charming, though. Attentive and courteous. Perfect gentleman caller material. Not shy, exactly, because there was too much assurance in him for that, but careful. Like he’d come to pick me up for prom and was concerned his intentions might not be deemed honorable.
And if my folks knew he was a wildly famous and important type person, they were too polite to make a big deal out of it. Rabbie did ask Caspian what he did and he replied mildly that he was in financial management. And it was only when I spotted a copy of TIME—which just happened to have Caspian right on the front, fierce and unassailable, all folded arms and moon-cold, predator eyes—that it became obvious we were being teased.
Caspian probably found the whole business excruciating.
But it made me as melty as caramel.
He made a valiant attempt to extricate himself in order to find a hotel but was met by a triple-reinforced wall of “oh no, we wouldn’t hear of it.” Because, obviously, putting the billionaire up in our tiny cottage would be much more comfortable for him.
I guess it was just lucky Hazel didn’t insist he help with the dinner. But, instead, Rabbie roped him into a game of chess. He’d tried to teach me when I was growing up, but no two ways about it, I sucked. Given I could barely decide what socks I was going to wear in the morning, it was probably fair to say strategic thinking was never really going to feature in my skill set.
We tried to warn Caspian off because Rabbie was a master and had a tough time finding people to play with, but Caspian seemed to take the role of dutiful guest very seriously indeed and soon they were settled over a board. The room filled up with a thoughtful quiet, broken only occasionally by the clack and shift of the wooden pieces.
For a little while, I stood at Caspian’s shoulder, hoping I could be the chess equivalent of the woman in a red dress who blows on the dice in every casino movie I’d ever seen. But I had no idea what was happening and he didn’t seem to need me to blow, uh, anything right then. Honestly, he looked the closest to peaceful I thought I’d ever seen him—the silk-sharp edge of his remorseless focus directed toward something that seemed to genuinely make him happy.
Another of his secrets, surrendered to me.
Eventually I left them to it and made myself useful by setting the table. Although mainly that was a smoke screen for swiping TIME. I was fully intending to read the article but it was full of words like financial transaction processing and asset management. So I let myself get distracted by the pictures instead. Caspian looked amazing in charcoal gray—all stern and sexy. And a pull quote formed a silver ribbon at the top of the page: “I have never been satisfied with success. I consider no endeavor complete until I have not merely succeeded in it, but mastered it utterly.”
Oh my.
I was pretty excited at the thought of being mastered utterly too.
Which really wasn’t what I needed to be daydreaming about right before a family meal.
The interview with Taylor Swift on the next page provided a calming influence. And, while I was wading through a paragraph about how she was totally, honestly done with boys, Mum came in and handed me an envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked.
She gestured toward the game. Mum was even quieter than usual around strangers, but it was okay. We could read each other effortlessly. “Caspian brought it?” I grinned. “Wow, what an inefficient way of delivering it.”
He glanced up. “Ah, but not all forms of communication take efficiency as their primary goal.”
I giggled. And everyone looked at us like we’d gone mad.
The letter turned out to be an invitation—a very posh invitation, in fact, to Ellery’s birthday, which was a ball themed around The Masque of the Red Death. It was printed on glossy black card and embossed in gold, a stylized carnival mask, suggested by a few bloodred lines, hovering somewhat ominously over “Miss Eleanor Isobel Antonia Hart requests the pleasure.” It was Ellery and not at all Ellery at the same time. And it was definitely the classiest, most intimidating invitation I’d ever received. It put Damn Frances to shame.
“Someone die?” asked Rabbie.
Caspian waved a hand dismissively. “My sister is turning twenty. She didn’t want a party, my mother insisted, and invitations that would better suit a funeral represent a compromise.”
Mum ran a finger over the shining tail of the M. “Compromises are usually just a solution nobody wants.”
“That’s how it works in my family. We sit down and come to a civilized agreement we all hate.” Caspian spoke lightly enough, almost as if he intended a joke, but I thought I caught a trace of bitterness.
It made me want to kiss him. Fill him with sweetness instead.
But I wasn’t quite ready to attempt that level of PDA in front of my parental-type units. Which left me hovering over his chair again in what I hoped was a comforting fashion. “How’s it going? Who’s winning?”
Rabbie laid his king down with a neat click. “He will. In three moves.”
“Wow. Really?”
“Aye.” I wasn’t sure how Rabbie was going to take this. Chess was kind of his thing and people generally didn’t like having their thing taken away from them. “Best game I’ve had for a long time.”
“Thank you.” The tone was mild, but Caspian looked a little flushed. Pleased.
“But”—Rabbie glanced at me—“you could’ve warned me, Arden.”
“Hey, I didn’t know he’d turn out to be a chess genius.”
Though I probably should have guessed. What couldn’t Caspian Hart do?
“I’m not,” he put in hastily. “I haven’t played for years.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a terrible job of it.” Caspian winced visibly and Rabbie took pity on him. “Eh, I’m pulling your leg. But where’d you learn to play like that?”
A moment of silence before Caspian answered, but—to my surprise—he did answer. “My father taught me. And after he died I made something of a study of it.” His long fingers curled idly around a rook. “I appreciated the opportunity to play again.”
Something I would in no way be able to offer him.
“Rabbie tried to teach me—” I began apologetically.
But he cut me off before I could finish. “Our Ardy has other talents.”
“Yes.” To my surprise, Caspian slipped an arm about my waist. “He does. And he has many.”
Eep. Scuff. OMG. Thankfully, I was spared having to respond to this sudden attack of compliments because Hazel shouted through to tell us food was ready.
We always had seafood chowder on Fridays, and it was always served directly from the Crockpot on the stove. Caspian looked so genuinely confused by this behavior that I ladled him out a bowl, making sure he got plenty of mussels and prawns, because they were the best bits. We ate it with Hazel’s homemade sourdough, all smooshed around our tiny kitchen table.
I really hadn’t thought through this “bring your billionaire-not-quite-boyfriend home” plan. I’d been so focused on getting to know Caspian it had never occurred to me to wonder about what might happen when he got to know me. The ordinariness of my life. Caspian was not only accustomed to wealth but had also been born to it, and here we were eating help-yourself-soup from mismatched bowls. What if he was hating this? Or scorning us?
“This is absolutely delicious,” he said. “Thank you.”
And then I could breathe again, a relief-tipped happy wave rolling all the way through me.
Of course the comment led to a lecture from Rabbie about Kinlochbervie fishing, followed by a disquisition about sourdough from Hazel, both of which I’d heard on many other occasions. But right then, it was good to hear them.
It was just good to be there.
Food and my folks and familiar love.
And Caspian.
Who was both nothing like I’d thought he would be and yet still, somehow, everything I wanted. Stern and sweet and rough and gentle, invincible and vulnerable, wickedly sexy and unexpectedly kind. A man who missed his father, didn’t understand his sister, resented his own desires, and, occasionally, made me the center of his goddamn universe. And I knew myself well enough to recognize that I was well and truly fished. All it would take was a twitch upon the line and I’d be arse-over-elbows in love with him.
Once we’d taken the edge off our hunger, conversation flowed pretty naturally. I noticed early on that Caspian was doing his thing again, asking lots of questions, discovering where someone’s passions lay and letting them talk. But he’d already been way more forthcoming than he had to be—all that stuff about chess and his family—so I left him to it.
And simply enjoyed the way he had of making people feel listened to and important. Watched my mum blush and glow as she haltingly told him about the bakery where she worked. Listened to Rabbie’s deep, generous laugh and Hazel’s wicked interjections.
And it was…perfect.
Just like the chowder. Which was rich and creamy and tasted of home. And I ate three bowls.
Afterward we normally bickered over who did the washing up, as fairness dictated it couldn’t be the person who cooked or the person who did it last time, but I was feeling gracious enough to volunteer.
And, to my surprise, Caspian joined me in the kitchen.
I flapped the tea towel at him in mock horror. “No way, get out. You’re a guest. Guests don’t help with the cleaning.”
“This one does.” He caught the end of the fabric and tugged, reeling me in until I was flush against him and I could feel the taut strength of his thighs, the heat of his groin. My lips parted on a “kiss me” gasp and he smiled tigerishly down at me. “You wash, I’ll dry.”
It startled a laugh out of me. “Tease.”
“My sweet, sweet Arden,” he said in this deliciously husky way, “you have no idea.”
I stared at him in sudden wonder. It seemed both bewildering and amazing that he was here with me. In my family home. In Kinlochbervie. About to help me with the washing up.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, his head tilting curiously, whimsically even, like I’d suddenly become a puzzle to be solved.
“I’m just so glad you’re here with me. Are you sure you don’t want to run a mile?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“I don’t know.” How to explain something I barely understood myself? “I think it’s just me being funny. You’re not always who I expect you to be.”
Oh shit, that sounded bad.
“In a good way,” I added.
He smiled his rarest, most unreadable smile. “When I’m with you, I’m not always who I expect to be either. And I like it.”
I leaned into him and went up on tiptoes—one foot flicking back Disney-style—in order to present my mouth to him in what I hoped was the most tempting, pleading fashion possible.
I would probably have got my kiss, too, if Hazel hadn’t called out, “I can hear canoodling, but no dishes.”
Caspian caught me by the belt loops before I could leap away guiltily. I was going to apologize—my folks were hard core about their piss taking—but he was laughing. He bent his head and nudged his nose to mine, a gesture so ludicrously innocent that I was utterly unprepared for its intimacy. I made a little yipping noise, shocked by the deep, fire-in-winter pleasure of such simple affection.
Aaaand I had washing up to do.
I got to it, trying not to dwell on how weird it was that Caspian Hart was helping me. At least, he helped after a while. When I was filling up the bowl and doing the first few items, he stood with his arms wrapped around me and his chin on my shoulder. He was all crazy-soft cashmere and that amazing cologne, and I could look up and see us reflected in the kitchen window. He was basically just a smudge of pale skin and dark hair, but we looked…yeah…we looked good together.
We fit.
Something I only really finally believed in this most unlikely situation.
He let me go after a bit. Got on with the drying. He wielded the tea towel with far more efficiency than I ever did and stacked everything up neatly when he was done. It was almost comical, in a way, the sheer care he could give even something utterly banal. Also kind of impressive. And so not like me it was borderline embarrassing. I always left things drippy and higgledy-piggledy.
Oh God, I was getting all starry and fuzzy over his dish-drying technique. This was getting chronic. But I could honestly have gone all night, up to my elbows in bubbles, hip to hip with Caspian in our dinky kitchen, quiet but for the occasional clatter of crockery…just being together.
He was way too efficient for that though. Ten minutes and we were back in the front room, staring into the expectant grins of my family who were sitting round the table, waiting for us.
“Oh no,” I said. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh yes.” Rabbie’s grin was the biggest of all. “It’s Friday night. You know the rules.”
Caspian glanced warily from face to face to face. “What’s going on?”
“Friday night is game night.” I gave a mortified little wriggle. “But you really, really don’t have to—”
“He shared our bread but would reject our games?” Rabbie had a great line in mock, explosive outrage. At least, I hoped it was mock.
I gave him a look. “Steady on, Rob Roy.”
“He d-doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to.” That was Mum. And I was so proud of them both: her for speaking and him for making her comfortable enough to do it.
“Well, of course he doesn’t. It’s just—”
Hazel grinned at Caspian “—we’ll think less of him.”
“I’m fine to play games,” he said quietly.
“Caspian.” I made an excruciated noise. “They’re just being…themselves. You don’t have to do this.”
He might have blushed a little. “I’d like to.”
They broke him in gently, at least. I wouldn’t have put it past Rabbie to pull down Twilight Imperium or something, but we kicked things off with Ex Libris, which I’d bought for Mum a couple of birthdays back. It was more of a party game, really, but it worked like a literary version of Call My Bluff, and had become one of her favorite games. Maybe because she was scarily good at it.
I was pretty interested to see what Caspian would do or if I’d be able to identify his answers. At first, not so much, but once we’d stumbled over a couple of plausibly obscure openings, and they’d turned out to be him, I reckoned I had him sussed. He liked to write things that had nothing to do with the characters or plot summary at all—trying to lure people in with calculated unpredictability. He smirked at me across the table, knowing I was onto him. It felt wickedly good, somehow, like sharing a secret.
Mum still won though—just like always—and I managed to come in a respectable second, mainly by figuring out what other people were likely to do rather than being particularly creative on my own account.
After that, we moved on to Carcassonne, which was this tile-placing strategy game that I theoretically enjoyed but never, ever did well at. I tended to get distracted by building things and making them look pretty, when the point of the game was to score points. But if I thought I’d played poorly before, it was nothing to playing with Caspian.
The man was completely brutal.
I’d never seen anything like it.
It wasn’t just the terrifying efficiency with which he built up his own resources; it was the precise way he fucked everyone else over, claiming cities and roads and cloisters and hemming us into corners. It wasn’t even particularly vicious, just hideously effective.
We were done in under an hour. It wasn’t even worth calculating the score.
“Holy fuck.” Rabbie let out a long breath.
“Forgive me.” Caspian looked up with the bewildered air of someone emerging from the red mist. “I think I’ve just been antisocially competitive.”
I gave a splutter of laughter. “That’s like Genghis Khan apologizing for being antisocially expansionist.”
“Oh God.” He actually put a hand to his brow, hiding his eyes beneath its shadow.
Hazel whacked me in the arm. “Ardy. Leave him alone.”
I’d intended to tease but it seemed like I’d made him feel genuinely self-conscious. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I hope I haven’t ruined games night?”
“Hell no.” Rabbie was hastily boxing up the Carcassonne demon. “That was…well it was something. All I can say is, I hope I never get on the wrong side of you.”
Caspian made an abashed sound.
I didn’t actually want him to be embarrassed but, God, it was adorable. It made me want to crawl all over him and curl up tight around him. My poor beautiful man, too aggressive for his own good, a monster at the mercy of his own savagery.
The Carcassonne killer.
“Arden,” he growled, “are you laughing at me?”
“Who me? Never.” I bit my lip unconvincingly and hoped for later retribution.
“You know,” Hazel said, “we should harness Caspian’s power for good and play something cooperative.”
We settled on Forbidden Desert—a surprisingly hard-core game for eight-year-olds about repairing a dirigible before dying of thirst or getting buried in sand. Humiliatingly, we tended to get our arses handed to us a lot when we played.
But not with Caspian.
Hazel had been totally right: it was awesome when he was on your side. A little bit intense, since he clearly had absolutely no intention of losing and would coolly rattle off the probabilities of particular cards showing up at particular times. Which felt…not like cheating exactly, but it made you very aware that you were playing a game. Engaging in a battle of mechanics. Rather than, say, escaping a desert in a dirigible.
On the other hand, we won. A scarily close run thing, but we did.
And I heaved out a massive sigh of shocked relief and cheered along with everyone else. Because there was no denying winning was fun and we’d probably never have managed without Caspian.
Rabbie said he was a very brilliant, very frightening man.
And I agreed with him. Though I also found it sexy as hell.
It was getting pretty late by the time we’d put away Forbidden Desert, which led to an intense succession of negotiations around sleeping arrangements. Caspian volunteered to take the sofa but was immediately overruled and my room was out because I only had a single bed. In the end, they packed us off to the third bedroom, which was sort of Mum’s room, and sort of Mum and Hazel’s room, and sometimes the guest room.
So not weird at all.
Cringe.
“Just remember it’s a small cottage,” Hazel warned us. “Don’t debauch each other too loudly.”
Double cringe.
“And make sure Caspian has a towel and a toothbrush,” Rabbie added.
Just…kill me now.