“I tried to give up at university, but it didn’t happen. I had a philosophy tutor here. Hilary Rupert Baskerville he was called…” He made a sound of quiet amusement, surrendering momentarily to his memories and something that seemed close to affection. “I had the nine a.m. tutorial slot and we used to smoke a cigarette together, leaning out of his window, before he dismantled my essay.”
“Wow”—I tried not to sound wistful—“that sounds like proper Oxford Memoirs stuff. I never had any cool tutors. I mean, they’re nice, especially Professor Standish. She’s like this super-intelligent grandma person. But you get all keyed up to be taught about Life TM by an eccentric genius. And then that’s not what it’s like.”
“I’m not really sure Hilary taught me anything much about philosophy, let alone life. But I do remember the day I told him I had decided to give up smoking.” Caspian’s voice dropped into a plummy register: “‘Oh but whatever for?’ I told him it was for the sake of my health and he said it was the most appalling hubris he had heard in all his life. ‘Why, my dear boy, you could be squished by an automobile tomorrow.’”
I tried to imagine the scene, and this younger—apparently different—Caspian with his restless fingers. “And you’ve been smoking ever since?”
“When I choose to, yes.”
“Always at the same time every month?” I stepped away from the stone, tucking my hands in my pockets, trying to pretend it was a casual movement. And not a brazen desire to be able to look at him straight on. He was spectacular in profile—he would have been from any angle—but even harder to read.
“Whenever the occasion calls for it.”
I was pushing my luck as usual but it was my luck, so I pushed it. “What called for it tonight?”
“I’m sure many smokers reach for a cigarette after wine and a fine meal.”
He was giving me this I totally know what you’re doing look. I gave it right back to him—with extra eyebrow arch—because that was some pretty fucking blatant evasion right there. And I wasn’t going to let him think he’d got away with it.
What this meant, in practice, was that we were standing there, staring at each other in this almost-playful-almost-not way. Like eye duelists.
I’d normally have yielded. If past experience was anything to go by, good things happened when you yielded. And, in other, less exciting contexts, it meant you avoided getting into an argument.
But, for some reason, I didn’t do that now.
And he…Well, a man like Caspian Hart would never yield. I wouldn’t have wanted him to yield. Just give a little. Not as in up but as in gift. But he somethinged. Conceded maybe. “I…just wanted some time to think.”
“This is supposed to be the place for it.”
“This balcony?” He made a slightly airy gesture with his fingers, like Prospero over his spellbook, and suddenly I could see the ghost of his old self: a young man who had not quite grown into his height, his grace. And all that power inside him, a piece of potassium waiting to ignite.
“Hah. I meant Oxford. Though, honestly, I’ve spent the last three years doing as little thinking as I possibly can.”
“I’m sure you had better things to do with your time.”
“I used to believe that. But now I’m wondering if I just fucked around pointlessly.” Okay, that was way too much honesty. Saying it aloud made the fear inside me curl up even tighter. “What were you thinking about?”
“Ah.” I wasn’t sure he was going to answer. The gloom had muted all colors except the city’s gold, but I thought he might be blushing. “Embarrassingly, I was thinking about my father.”
“How’s that embarrassing? Don’t you get on?”
He was very still. “No. On the contrary, I admired him very much.”
Past tense. And there was my foot. Put right in it. “Oh shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…God. Fuck. Sorry.”
“It’s quite all right. I was fourteen when he died. I’ve been alive without him for almost as long as I was alive with him.”
I bit my lip to stop something crass and inadequate falling out of my mouth. He’d spoken so lightly, I was sure he was expecting me to respond similarly, but how could I? Not when he didn’t even seem to realize he’d kept count. “He must have been young?”
“Forty-two. Which”—again, that gentleness of his, that promise of smiles—“would probably have amused him.”
I wanted to cry for him. Or hug him. Or hug him and cry. You didn’t admire him, I wanted to say. You loved him. Maybe he genuinely couldn’t recognize it. Or maybe it just hurt too much to say the word. “You must really miss him.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t think about him very often.”
“He’d be super proud of you, Mr. Hart.”
I thought it was a pretty reasonable thing to say. Everyone wanted to do good by their parents—even hopeless little me—and this guy was a billionaire, for God’s sake. And, though it probably wasn’t the sort of thing your dad would notice, a stunningly put together specimen of manhood into the bargain. The embodiment of a myth: the type of man women were supposed to want, 90 percent of men were supposed to want to be, and the rest of us were supposed to be grateful for being on Team 10 Percent so we could fancy him too.
But he didn’t react at all, the silence getting deeper and heavier all around us, while he just stood there, a creature of stone, starlight, and secrets. And then he said, “No, he wouldn’t.”
It wasn’t the words, but the terrible certainty of them.
Completely broke my heart.
It just seemed impossible to me that Caspian Hart could believe something like that. And I needed—with this terrible sense of helplessness, or perhaps what Hilary Rupert Baskerville would call hubris—to make it better.
To remind him who he was: someone magnificent and rare and deserving of all the pride in the world.
I reached out, wanting to comfort him, to bridge the spaces between us—the chasm of our lives—with touch.
“Don’t.” He caught me by the wrist, fingers as cool and implacable as steel.
I was sure, on his part, it was nothing more than the desire to stop me doing something he didn’t want. And while I had tastes, I wasn’t so consumed by them I couldn’t tell the difference between intentional and incidental.
Except…
Maybe because it was him. Maybe because he’d been gentle with me when he didn’t have to be. Protected me when he didn’t have to do that either. Trusted me with a handful of his secrets.
But when he held me—that suggestion of restraint, of strength greater than mine—it ignited me like fireworks.
And oh God. The sweet shock of skin to skin. My pulse swollen with heat and sudden energy beneath his palm. Needles of awareness running all the way up my arm. My heart pierced by the sharp longing to be controlled, to be taken, to be his. Even if only for a little while.
For a moment I was transfixed—perhaps we both were—by that narrow strait of me claimed by him. And then I looked up, and so did he, and his eyes were intent in the darkness, the blue of them bleached by the shadow and the reflection of the moon bright in his pupils. It made him a little wolfish. Hungry and distant. But I wasn’t frightened of him. I wanted him. To be close to him. Remembering not his savagery but his hurt.