Chapter 1 Simon #2
“Added to that, I’d just found out about all the debt Jared had racked up in my name, which wasn’t disclosed in the divorce settlement.
There are similarities between them in their impulsiveness, but Jason is twenty-eight and could easily do my job; Jared is a lazy cunt who’s barely ever worked a day in his life.
I just saw Jason as a threat. Every piece of work he produced was perfect, and I mean perfect.
Daniel, I’ve never seen talent like it. You know I can be a perfectionist. I could never find fault with his work, and trust me, I looked. ”
“So, what did you do?”
“Nothing. I barely spent any time with him. There was nothing I could give him in terms of support. He didn’t need me.”
“You do like to feel needed,” he said with a smile.
“You can talk.”
“Well, Josh more than satisfies that side of me.”
“No need to rub it in,” said Simon with a smile. “Look, with Jason, every time I met him and he shared his perspective on something, I felt more and more insecure. I mean, why the fuck hadn’t Alex hired him instead if he was so perfect?”
“Did you ask Alex?”
“I didn’t have to. Jason told me he’d withdrawn from the process because he wasn’t ready. He’d been so excited to have another gay guy as his boss. Someone he could look up to and learn from.”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t get a chance. He basically told me to get fucked, stormed out, and didn’t come back.”
Daniel laughed. “I’ve heard he’s a feisty one.”
“Then my head of talent development quit this morning after he’d got his bonus, and he doesn’t even have another job to go to.”
“Did he say why?”
“That’s the kicker. He resigned to Alex, not me, who then put him on garden leave, so I haven’t even talked to him. I’ve been told to leave him alone for the time being.”
“Have you started looking for something else?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’re in a regulated role, Simon. If they sack you, it’ll be reported, and you’ll be fucked if you try to get another job in the sector.”
Simon hadn’t considered the bigger consequences if he didn’t pass probation.
What the fuck was he going to do? Even with how much Jared had cleaned him out for, he still had a buffer to cover him for a year if necessary, but he needed his career.
It was a huge part of his identity. If he got banned from taking a regulated role, he’d never get another job in his sector.
The one thing Simon still had was his dream house, which he’d spent years renovating to make it just as he wanted.
It had a lot of cash tied up in it, but that had been a condition of the divorce, to buy Jared out.
The man had never worked a day in the ten years they’d been together, and yet Simon had needed to pay him two million quid, which was half his assets.
The law was a fucker sometimes. It wasn’t even like Jared had been the one to make it into a home.
It had all been Simon’s vision. Jared hadn’t been interested, he just wanted to go on holidays all the time, and given Simon didn’t have unlimited annual leave, his husband had gone away on his own a lot.
Now he knew why he’d been happy for Simon not to accompany him.
“You know, I still think it’s fucked up that adultery isn’t grounds for divorce in a same-sex marriage.”
“Not this again. You could have pushed it on the unreasonable behaviour clause.”
“Would it have made any difference to his settlement?”
“Probably not,” said Daniel. “It’s not something they look at.”
“How do you know everything? You don’t even practice as a divorce lawyer?”
“It’s how I get free drinks from all my friends.”
“Oh, I see how it is,” said Simon with a smile.
Daniel was a corporate lawyer, and a brilliant one at that.
However, if there was any legal matter you were having issues with, he would advise you on what to do.
If he didn’t know immediately, he’d find out, or get someone in his vast network to answer his questions.
How he kept all that knowledge in his head was a mystery.
He had advised Simon to put up a bit of resistance when he was divorcing Jared, but he’d just wanted the thing to be over with.
Jared had said he wouldn’t contest the divorce if he got half of everything in cash, so Simon had liquidated some assets and taken a new mortgage against his house, and Jared was now a millionaire without having to earn a penny of it himself. Was Simon bitter? Of course he was.
Before he spiralled into another Jared regret wormhole, he scanned the bar and stopped when he saw someone familiar.
“Who are you looking at?” asked Daniel. He looked over. “The ginger guy?”
Simon nodded.
“He’s hot. Have you tapped that?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He works for me.”
“Ah. Is that the only gay you haven’t chased off yet?”
“Fuck off, and I think he’s bi. I heard he broke up with his girlfriend.”
Daniel wasn’t wrong. Dexter Trantor was definitely hot, but he was off-limits. Not just because he hated Simon, but ethically that was a no-go zone. He was supposed to role model ethics as the chief people officer, not fuck his subordinates.
“Why do you look like your cat just died?” asked Daniel.
“I don’t have a cat.”
Daniel gave him a questioning look.
“Because you’re looking at the man who holds my future in his hands.”