* * *
“Ben, listen.”Nikolas avoided the punch and held Ben’s hand.“Please.”That always worked.It was one of the reasons he used it so rarely.“If you were burnt like that, do you think you would be the same person?”
“Of course I would!”
“Then you’re a fool as well as too beautiful for your own good.”Compliments were so sparingly given they were always good to throw in once in a while, too.“You don’t know this, because you’re at the centre of it and can only see from inside to out.But I’m outside and see it with all your other observers.You go through your life with a wake of awe trailing behind you when people see what you are.The wake washes over their reactions to you, easing your way, making life beautiful for you through your perfection.Do you see what I’m trying to say?”
Ben was frowning so deeply it was pretty obvious he didn’t, but it gave Nikolas a chance to regroup and try to explain.“Your life is smoothed for you, eased as if your beauty were tangible—like a scent?Ack, I can’t explain it better.”He tipped off Ben and lay to one side, contemplating the ceiling.“All I meant was if your face were ruined then I think you would find life very different to how you do now, and consequently you would change before I had a chance to assure youI wouldn’t.”
* * *
There was a long silence after this.Ben was pretty sure Nikolas had just told him it would be allhisfault if Nikolas didn’t love him anymore.He slid a hand onto Nikolas’s shirt, playing with a button.“It’s only dye and paint, Nik.It’ll fade.Grow out.Jesus.This is ridiculous.”
Nikolas nodded.“I know.Eight years I’ve been held captive of an alignment of bones and flesh and the shade of a pair of eyes.Perhaps I do deserve to be going on this course.Perhaps I can learn some perspective.”
“Learn to love my face less?”
Nikolas huffed.“No.”He had no intention of telling Ben the rest of his thought—he needed to learn how to admit Ben was his captor and that, therefore, Ben held all the power.
* * *
Although Nikolas was fairly sure they wouldn’t be asked either to arrange flowers for the table or cook the dinner in the first place, and being very well aware that Kate was enjoying herself exacting some kind of petty revenge upon him, he knew at least familiarising themselves with these roles would help them make the transition from the people they were now to the ones they had to impersonate for the next week—and possibly longer if they, like other men, found some, as yet unknown, reason to stay for another three weeks.
He didn’t dislike flowers.
He’d actually grown rather used to having tasteful displays everywhere.Like most very wealthy people, his ex-wife had a standing order with an excellent florist who’d supplied artful seasonal creations weekly.Philipa also had personally indulged a great love of flowers and greenery, and spent many hours with her gardeners in her vast greenhouses, cutting and choosing blooms for the house.Nikolas had taken all this in the same way he did his clothes, furniture and artwork—as the background necessities to the fiction he presented to the world of the cultured, well-bred gentleman.He was a lion impersonating a pampered Persian house cat for a while, and surrounded by flowers, bespoke tailoring, literature and art, people didn’t see the untamed wildness of the amber eyes, nor suspect the killing rage that lay just beneath the surface of the impeccable grooming.
So he didn’t dislike flowers at all.
He just didn’t want to have to stuff them into vases himself.
He didn’t even own any vases and had to endure Ben smirking at him as he had to jam them into various cooking pots and some empty wine bottles.
Ben could laugh.Nikolas noted with some satisfaction that for a man who never stopped either eating or thinking about food, Ben was entirely undone by a cookbook that finally told him there was more to life than bacon sandwiches and steak—the only two things along with fried eggs and toast Ben could actually cook.It amazed Nikolas that he’d lived with a food addict for five years but had never once been offered anything remotely edible.They ate out almost every night or he ordered ready-made gourmet meals from a select caterer patronised by his ex-wife’s family.He was watching Ben now out of the corner of his eye, face scrunched up with effort over his book, dictionary to one hand because he refused to ask the meaning of such things assous videoralginates.
As he studied the lowered blond hair, fingers running through it, making the strands shine against the tanned fingers, he couldn’t help his thoughts straying back to the bed.Undressing Ben, turning him over, entering him, he’d indeed discovered all the changes were very superficial.Ben’s arse was as tight to enter asheneeded it to be.He could recall now in startling detail the look of Ben spread and open beneath him when he pulled out to play with the wanton looseness he’d created.He could feel again the silky touch of him as he’d pushed fingers deep, stroking him from the in—
“You’ve just murdered that lily.”
“Huh?”Nikolas glanced down at the shredded petals and slumped dejected.He’d thought it was a rose.
He had a long way to go.
With a small, feral, private smile, he asked casually, “Do I need to make a reservation somewhere tonight or is all that,” he indicated the bags of ingredients still untouched on the floor, “going to turn into something impressive to eat?”
Ben carefully turned a page.“I’m getting there.”He turned another.“I think we’ll start with Thai cucumber shrimp.Hmm, then maybe lobster tail poached in…beurre monte?…With a—”
“I think that’s pronounced—”
“—witha julienne of carrots and…snow?…Snow peas followed—stop laughing—by chocolate soufflé.”He sat back, pleased with himself—then apparently realised he hadn’t actually cooked any of it yet.
* * *
Nikolas discovered flower arranging could be done in the living room.And, amazingly, could be done whilst lying on the sofa, watching a movie.And drinking a bottle of red wine (if he used large glasses, he’d discovered he could drink the whole bottle and stay within his three-glasses-a-day limit).Which was a shame for Ben, ashisnew hobby needed him to stay in the kitchen.And swear apparently.Every so often, Nikolas heard, “Fucking hell!”or “Shit!”wailed to increasingly desperate levels of incredulity.He was glad he had a moment away from Ben anyway.He dug out his mobile phone and made a quick call.He still had some friends left in his old life.It was useful.
* * *
He’d never been so glad to be a billionaire when he was finally invited into the kitchen to eat, because even when Ben apologised sheepishly, “I’ll clean up later, yeah?It’ll get cold if I do it now,” all Nikolas could concentrate on was the thought of calling his cleaning service and then ordering in all new pans to hang up, pristine, where they should be.But he was gracious enough not to let any of this show on his face as he sat down in the place Ben had laid for some reason with a screwed-up napkin.“That’s a swan.”Sometimes Ben read his mind too easily.The table was nice, Nikolas thought, with his… rose?…lily?…Some flower or other in the empty wine bottle.Artfully pushed in, if he said so himself.
