The Mandarin #2
“I heard you,” Nico said softly, crossing the room. He didn’t stop at a respectful distance. He walked right up to the sofa and sat down next to Blake. “You are in pain.”
Before Blake could protest, Nico reached out and wrapped a strong, warm arm around Blake’s shoulders, pulling him in.
The contact was sudden and overwhelming. Blake hadn’t been touched — truly, comfortingly touched — in weeks. The sheer human warmth of it broke the last of his defenses. He collapsed against Nico, burying his face in the crisp cotton of the server’s shirt, and let the tears come.
Nico held him tightly, his hand moving up to stroke Blake’s hair.
“It is okay,” Nico murmured, his breath warm against Blake’s temple. “Let it out. It will be okay.”
They sat there for a long time, the only sound in the room the shuddering rhythm of Blake’s breathing.
Slowly, the tears began to subside. Blake became aware of the physical reality of the situation.
He was pressed against a beautiful, athletic young man.
He could smell the warm, cedar-and-citrus scent of Nico’s cologne, faint but unmistakable.
He could feel the hard muscle of Nico’s chest beneath his cheek.
He hadn’t had sex since the morning he left the flat. He hadn’t even thought about it.
But now, surrounded by the dark and the quiet, feeling the gentle, rhythmic stroke of Nico’s hand in his hair, arousal pulled through him, sharp and unwanted. He felt his cock hardening against the fabric of his jeans.
I should just do it, Blake thought, a dark, bitter voice whispering in his mind. I should sleep with him. Andre slept with two people. Why shouldn’t I have this? Maybe it would make the pain stop. Maybe it would make me feel alive again.
Nico shifted slightly, his hand sliding down from Blake’s hair to rest on the back of his neck. His thumb brushed against Blake’s skin, a deliberate, highly charged caress.
Blake gently pushed himself back, creating a few inches of space between them.
He looked at Nico. The young man was incredibly handsome in the dim light, his dark eyes heavy with an unmistakable invitation. Nico looked down at Blake’s lips, then back up to his eyes, and leaned in.
He was going to kiss him.
For a fraction of a second, Blake wanted to let him. He wanted to close his eyes and lose himself in the simple, uncomplicated heat of someone else’s body.
But as Nico’s lips brushed against his, Blake turned his head. The kiss landed softly on his cheek.
Nico froze, pulling back slightly, a look of confusion and immediate regret crossing his face.
“I am sorry. I thought…”
“No, don’t apologize,” Blake said quickly, his voice wrecked. He reached out and gently squeezed Nico’s arm. “You are very handsome, Nico. You’re incredibly desirable. And I… I am very weak right now.”
“But you do not want this,” Nico said quietly.
“I can’t,” Blake said, the truth of it settling heavily in his chest. “I love him. Even after everything, I still love him. And if there is any chance — any chance at all — that we are going to survive this, I have to be loyal to him. I can’t do to him what he did to me.”
Nico looked at him for a long moment, his dark eyes softening with a profound, genuine respect. He didn’t look rejected; he looked moved.
Nico reached out, took Blake’s hand, and pressed a gentle, formal kiss to his knuckles. “He is a very lucky man,” Nico whispered. “To have a love like yours.”
Nico stood up, smoothed the front of his vest, and walked quietly out of the room, leaving Blake alone in the dark.
Blake leaned his head back against the sofa, closing his eyes. He was still hard, his body aching with unfulfilled tension, but his heart felt strangely calm. He had faced the temptation, the easy escape, and he had chosen Andre.
Even in the wreckage, he was still choosing him.
When he arrived at Queen’s Club the following morning, there were three photographers waiting by the entrance.
Blake ignored them, pulling his cap lower over his eyes, and walked quickly through the gates. Doug was waiting for him on Court 1, a basket of balls at his feet.
“You saw the news,” Doug said, not looking up as Blake dropped his bag on the bench.
“I saw it.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Blake pulled his racket out of the bag, his movements sharp and aggressive. “No.”
Doug sighed, picking up a ball and bouncing it on his racket strings. “Fine. But you can’t hide in that hotel forever, Blake. Eventually, you’re going to have to face him.”
“I’m here to play tennis, Doug,” Blake said, walking to the baseline.
“Serve the ball.”
Across the city, Andre was standing in the middle of his studio, staring at a canvas.
The room was freezing. He hadn’t turned on the heating. He was wearing a thick wool sweater and a scarf, his hands covered in paint, his fingers stiff with cold.
The canvas in front of him was a chaotic, violent explosion of color. Deep, bruised purples, angry slashes of crimson, heavy, oppressive blacks. It was the darkest thing he had ever painted, a raw, unfiltered expression of the agony that was tearing him apart from the inside.
He had been painting for fourteen hours straight.
His phone buzzed on the small wooden table by the door.
Andre ignored it. He dipped his brush into a pool of black paint and dragged it across the canvas, a harsh, jagged line that felt like a physical wound.
The phone buzzed again. And again.
Finally, Andre dropped the brush, wiping his hands on a rag, and walked over to the table.
It was his mother.
Claire (14:10): Andre, please call me. There are reporters outside the bakery. They are asking terrible questions about you and Blake. Where are you?
Andre stared at the message, the words blurring together.
He felt shame flooding through him. He had brought this to their door. He had taken the quiet, peaceful life his parents had built and dragged it into the mud.
He unlocked his phone and dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.
“Andre,” Claire said, her voice tight with anxiety. “Where are you? Are you safe?”
“I am at the studio, Maman,” Andre said, his voice hoarse from disuse. “I am safe.”
“What is happening? The papers are saying Blake has moved out. They are saying you have separated. Tell me it is a lie.”
Andre closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cold brick wall of the studio. “It is not a lie.”
Claire gasped softly. “Oh, mon cher. What happened? Did you fight? You must talk to him. You must fix this.”
“I cannot fix it, Maman,” Andre whispered, the tears finally spilling over, hot and fast “Il est parti,” Andre said, his voice cracking. “Il est parti et c’est de ma faute.” He is gone. And it is my fault. “I broke it. I broke it completely.”
“What did you do?”
Andre couldn’t say it. He couldn’t speak the words aloud to his mother. The shame was too vast, too final.
“I made a mistake,” Andre sobbed, sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his knees pulled to his chest. “A terrible, terrible mistake. And he is gone. He is gone, Maman.”
Claire didn’t ask any more questions. She didn’t demand explanations. She just listened to her son cry, her own voice soft and soothing through the phone, murmuring words of comfort in French, a steady, unconditional anchor in the wreckage of his life.
When he finally hung up, the studio was dark, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside the high windows.
Andre sat on the floor for a long time, staring at the shadows.
He thought about the life he had built with Blake.
He thought about the quiet mornings in the flat, the loud, chaotic dinners with Liam and Talia, the terrifying, exhilarating moment they had kissed at the US Open.
He had risked everything for that kiss. He had risked his career, his privacy, his relationship with his parents.
And he had done it because Blake was worth it. Blake was worth everything.
And then he had thrown it all away.
He pushed himself off the floor, his muscles stiff and aching from the cold. He walked over to the small wooden table, turned on the desk lamp, and pulled a piece of heavy cardstock from a drawer. He found a pen, his hand shaking slightly as he uncapped it.
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to bridge the chasm he had created.
But he had to try. He had to do something, anything, to reach across the silence.
He sat down and began to write.
He had to do something. He couldn’t let it end like this, in silence and tabloid headlines. He had to make Blake understand. He had to show him, somehow, that the love was still there, buried beneath the ruins of his mistake.
He stood up, his legs stiff and aching, and walked back to the easel.
He pulled the dark, angry canvas off the stand and threw it into the corner of the room.
He picked up a fresh, blank canvas, pristine and white, and set it in place.
He didn’t know what he was going to paint yet. But he knew it had to be the truth. It had to be the only thing that mattered.
He picked up a brush, and began.
The knock came at half past seven the following morning.
Blake was awake. He had barely slept, the events of the past few days replaying in an endless, exhausting loop — the tabloid headlines, the photographers at Queen’s Club, the look on Doug’s face.
He was sitting at the desk by the window, staring at his laptop without seeing the screen, a cold cup of coffee untouched beside him.
The knock came again, louder this time. Not the discreet, professional tap of room service. This was a heavy, purposeful knock — the knock of someone who intended to be answered.
Blake frowned, pushing himself out of the chair. He crossed the foyer and opened the outer door.
Pierre Moreau stood in the hallway.
He was enormous, filling the doorframe with his broad shoulders and barrel chest, wearing his familiar white baker’s coat, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his thick, tanned forearms. In his massive hands, he held a paper bag from the bakery and a thermos.
Blake stared at him, completely speechless.