Chapter 5
SIMON
The week had been a bit of a blur, but Simon had felt such relief after his conversation with Dexter on Monday.
He’d been worried Dexter might try to hold something like that over him, but he seemed just as keen to put it behind them.
Simon was aware Dexter was still in the running for that job with the law firm, but there was little he could do about it.
There was no point in stressing about something he couldn’t control.
It would be the same if Jason were to pursue a tribunal claim.
If he received either a resignation letter or one from a solicitor, he’d be handing in his notice at the same time.
It was likely Alex would accept his resignation, rather than firing him, and at least then nothing needed to be flagged to the regulator.
Simon hadn’t told anyone what had happened last Friday, not even Daniel. He couldn’t deal with the judgement. Not that Daniel was that kind of friend, but no matter what anyone said, there was always judgement.
He walked into his house on Friday evening, and was hit by the smell of something delicious cooking. It took him a few seconds to remember he lived alone, so there shouldn’t be any cooking smells in his house, unless . . .
“Hello, handsome,” said Jared, walking into the hallway wearing an apron. “Why don’t you go take a shower? Dinner still has half an hour.”
He kissed Simon on the cheek and then walked away, presumably back to the kitchen.
Simon wondered whether he’d travelled back in time, or if maybe he’d never been divorced and the whole thing had been a dream.
He started toward the stairs, ready to take the suggested shower, and then stopped.
His ex-husband was in his kitchen cooking, and acting like the last year of hell had never happened.
And how had he gotten in? Simon had changed all the locks when he’d moved out.
Before he could overthink things too much, he dropped his bag on the floor and stormed into the kitchen.
“What are you doing here, Jared?”
Jared turned to look at him, with a big smile on his face. “What do you mean? I live here!”
Simon wasn’t sure what to say. Was this some kind of wind-up?
Or was his ex-husband unwell? Jared was known for his legendary temper tantrums when he didn’t get his own way.
Simon would have referred to his ex as a brat, but they were the same age.
Although they were very different in terms of maturity.
“You moved out, Jared. We’re divorced, in case you’d forgotten. My bank account certainly hasn’t.”
“That was just a misunderstanding. I’m back now. I’ve forgiven you.”
He was still smiling, but it felt creepy. Simon was struggling to keep his temper in check.
“Why would you need to forgive me, Jared? You’re the one who cheated on me . . . repeatedly.”
Jared rolled his eyes and sighed. “Do we need to go through this again? It was a mistake because I felt neglected. Now, dinner is nearly ready. I made your favourite, so why don’t you go get a shower so it doesn’t get cold?”
To be fair to Jared, the one thing he was good at was cooking, but Simon didn’t want to leave him alone in his house.
Something didn’t sit right with how he was acting.
He still wasn’t sure how Jared had even gotten into the house.
This is where they’d lived as a married couple, but his was the only name on the deed now. Jared had no claim to the place.
“How did you get in, Jared?”
Jared picked a carving knife up off the side, and the sharpener. He scraped the blade of the knife. The sound went through Simon. He’d always hated it, as it put his teeth on edge. Jared looked at him again and lifted his eyebrows, giving another sinister smile.
“Do I need to ask you again to get in the shower?”
Simon prickled. Was Jared threatening him?
He couldn’t think straight. He already had a headache from the week, and now his ex was behaving like a psycho in his kitchen.
If he could get away from Jared for a bit, then he could at least call someone.
Not the police. He didn’t want to go there and get Jared into trouble.
It was clear something had happened, though, and Simon didn’t know what it was.
Daniel might be a safe bet to call. He was level-headed in any situation.
Simon could be as well, but Jared knew how to push all his buttons.
“I’ll get a shower.”
“Excellent. I knew you’d see sense.”
He smiled as best he could and walked towards the stairs.
“Simon, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” he asked, turning around.
“You can leave your phone down here. We don’t want you getting distracted now, do we?”
Fuck! “Of course,” he said, giving nothing away, but his brain was thinking of all the other options he had to get hold of Daniel.
He took his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the dining table. Jared smiled at him again, which Simon reciprocated before turning to get upstairs as quickly as could.
“The bag as well. Like I said, we don’t want any distractions tonight, do we?”
He froze, unsure what to do. His laptop and tablet were in the bag, which was the only way he could contact Daniel. He didn’t even have a landline anymore. Who did?
“Did you hear me, husband?”
“Yes, of course.”
He put his bag down on the floor next to the dining table, where his phone was. Jared couldn’t access anything. After their split, he’d changed all his passcodes, passwords, and anything else Jared might have known.
Thankfully, this time, Simon wasn’t called back for anything, so he made his way upstairs as quickly as possible.
As soon as he got into his bedroom, he picked up his Kindle from inside his bedside drawer.
It wasn’t just for books; it had access to the internet.
Simon went into the bathroom and locked the door, not wanting to risk Jared following him, which was ridiculous.
It wouldn’t take much for Simon to overpower him if he needed to .
Although they were both six feet tall, Simon had fifty pounds on Jared, and it was mostly muscle.
Simon had always kept in good shape, but that had amplified since the divorce.
Being in his mid-forties, it was important to him for the health benefits, as well as the aesthetics.
He turned on the shower and powered up the Kindle.
It felt like it took ages for him to get into his email account as he had to navigate to it via a clunky web browser.
Thankfully, he knew his password by heart given the recent changes.
He was used to logging in to everything with facial recognition.
Did anyone remember their passwords these days?
By the time he’d fired off a quick email to Daniel, he’d been in here for almost ten minutes.
Simon shed his clothes and jumped in the shower, making quick work of washing himself.
He didn’t know when Daniel would get his email, or even what he could do, so he needed to make it look like he’d showered.
He was rinsing off his hair when he heard banging on the bathroom door.
“Simon, why is this door locked? Simon, dinner is ready. What are you doing?”
Before he could reply, he heard a heavy thud against the bathroom door. Was Jared trying to break in? Daniel rinsed away the last of the shampoo and turned the water off.
“Just coming,” he shouted.
Jared didn’t reply, just kept kicking at the door.
Simon could hear the wood cracking. He noticed the Kindle next to the bathroom sink, and not wanting to risk Jared seeing it, he dropped it into the laundry hamper and dumped a towel on top of it.
He grabbed another and pulled it around his waist before unlocking the door and opening it abruptly, which forced Jared backwards.
“What are you doing, Jared?”
“I was worried you were hurt or something.”
“I’m fine. I’ll just dry off and be down.”
“Why was the door locked?”
“Oh . . . it’s just a habit.”
“But neither of us locks the door.”
“It’s just . . . something I started doing when I began living on my own.”
That wasn’t true, but it had been the first thing that had popped into his head.
“What are you talking about? You don’t live alone.”
Simon snapped. “For fuck’s sake, Jared. How many times do I have to tell you? We’re divorced. You bought your own flat with all the money you took from me.”
Jared slapped him across the face. It stung like a bitch, and he was too stunned to react.
Before he could process what had happened, Jared had flung himself at Simon and started crying.
It was clear something was really wrong with his ex-husband.
He had always been highly strung, but had never acted like this before.
Simon put his arms around Jared to offer some comfort.
It was instinctive, but he was still on edge.
After a few minutes, Jared stopped crying.
Simon didn’t want to set him off again by breaking the hug, but he was still wet, so he was freezing. He let out an involuntary shudder.
“Oh, you’re freezing. Let me warm you up.”
Jared dropped to his knees and tried to pull Simon’s towel away.
Luckily, his reflexes were on point, and he was able to keep himself covered up.
Jared on his knees was doing nothing for him, but it gave him a flashback to last weekend when he was fucking Dexter’s throat.
That made his dick twitch, and the last thing he wanted to do was get hard and give Jared the wrong idea.
“I thought you said dinner was ready,” he said, keeping a firm grip on the towel against a very determined Jared.
“Oh my God, dinner,” he shouted, before rushing out of the room without another word.