And whose harsh kisses stripped bare his needs to me as surely as I bared mine to him.
Chapter 20
The next day, I called a car to take Nik to the airport—just about managing not to ask Bellerose’s permission this time—and since I wasn’t exactly overendowed with things to do, went along with him.
Which was a daft move because saying goodbye at the airport turned out to be awful. It felt all final. And I got clingy as hell, trailing around the concourse with Nik, holding his hand like a kid at the supermarket. But then he wasn’t exactly shaking me off either.
We parted at the last possible moment with a pathetic amount of hugging. I was crying openly and Nik was snuffling manfully.
“I’m going to come back and visit all the time,” he said. “I really need another one of those facials.”
I nodded. “You’ll need it. America is bad for the complexion.”
“And we can still Kik and buddy watch stuff.”
“Yep yep.”
“And you can obsessively like all my Instagram posts.”
“I only care about the ones where you’re shirtless. Fuck this cappuccino foam art bullshit.”
“I made a little cat.”
“But were you shirtless?”
He laughed, then checked the time on his phone. “Shit, I’d better go.”
I wiped my eyes and put on my best brave face. “Travel safely.”
And that was…it. I guess that was the thing about goodbyes: they were always smaller than you expected.
The flat seemed even quieter and emptier without Nik. And the worst of it was the cleaners had hit hard. The duvet was back on the bed—actually it was probably a fresh duvet, the other having been whisked off to be scoured of all traces of humanity—the leftovers were gone, and the champagne glasses were back in the cupboard. It was like Nik had never been here at all.
And there was still no Caspian. Not surprising, honestly, because he’d warned me he was very busy. Probably he wasn’t even in the country.
I located a branch of WHSmith and popped out to buy a copy of Milieu. Spent the rest of the day trying to be witty and gay on the subject of…of…well, that was kind of the kicker. Molten shell treatments? Finnish premium spring water? I tried, I really tried, but it didn’t go well. I was too full of sads. And, in the end, I broke and rang Bellerose.
“Yes, Arden?”
I opened my mouth and nothing came out.
“Yes, Arden?”
“Is Caspian away?”
“No, he’s at a meeting of the CBI. Why?”
“Oh. No reason. I just. Um. Thankyouverymuchsorrygoodbye.”
Well. That had…been a thing that happened. What was still more excruciating, though, was the text I got from Caspian a few hours later. He said he’d be coming round that evening, and I couldn’t tell whether it was nothing more than a coincidence or if Bellerose had told him.
Mr. Hart—oh wait, he called him Caspian. Caspian, the annoyance you installed in your Kensington apartment wants your attention.
Or, y’know, maybe now was not a reasonable time to descend into a whimpering pit of paranoia. Because it was very possible he genuinely wanted to see me. And the fact that he hadn’t given any indication of doing so for nearly a week could have meant absolutely anything.
Not necessarily that he was bored of me already.
Urgh my brain. It was like I had this insecurity pendulum: I’d just about convince myself everything was okay and then it would swing back even harder and hit me right in the face.
