Chapter 22 – Jasper
Marcus had been waiting for me when I arrived at the hotel.
At any other time I would’ve been surprised to see him here, with it being race day.
But since the press had been hurling questions at me as I walked in, I wasn’t surprised to see him.
I’d never had a chance to try and talk to Lizzie before he’d pulled me away.
“Jasper,” I hear Otis’s voice, and look over to him. This is going to break us. There is no way that he’s going to stay with me. I thought my past was going to stay in the past.
“Otis,” I managed to get out.
“Jasper, you’re scaring me. What the fuck is going on? Why are the press asking questions?” Otis asks, but I have no idea how I’m going to tell him.
I look over to Kimber to see if she can give me some kind of telepathic guidance, but she’s looking out the window, phone attached to her ear. Probably talking to her lawyers.
“Marcus,” I hear Otis’s voice sound. “What the hell happened?”
“Otis, I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen,” I suddenly say, needing him to know how much I hate this.
“For what to happen?” Otis asks, coming over and sitting on the bed next to me.
“Jasper,” Kimber’s voice sounds. “The lawyers are saying he isn’t breaking any NDAs.”
What! How the hell can’t he be breaking any NDAs? This has to be some kind of nightmare. I need to wake up and realise that today is all some bad dream. Otis didn’t have a crash and Clive isn’t trying to ruin my life. A life that I love more than anything.
“Jasper,” Otis’s voice starts again, as he reaches over to take my hand, and I try to garner some strength from his heat. Some strength from him being next to me. Holding on to him for however long I will have him, “Can you please tell me what is going on?”
“It’s Clive,” I manage to get out.
“You’ve told me it’s Clive, but what has he done? We all knew that he was up to something,” Otis says.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think he would do this,” I tell him.
“Okay, I feel like we’re going around in circles. I really need someone to tell me what he did,” Otis demands.
“This,” I hear Marcus reply, and out of the corner of my eye I see the iPad in Otis’s hands.
“Otis,” I say again, knowing that he’s going to see the headline that has been burned into my brain since Marcus showed it to me.
MONTAGUE RACING’S JASPER KNIGHT – PROSTITUTE WHO brOKE MY HEART.
“What the fuck?” I hear Otis exclaim, “How the hell is he able to get away with this?”
“I have no idea. The NDAs I get my clients to sign are one hundred percent secure,” Kimber starts, but there is no hiding the anguish in her voice.
“So, are we lawyering up? Going to get the bastard?” Otis voices.
“We can’t,” Kimber replies. “He never mentions me or my establishment.”
“What?” Otis questions.
“Read the article,” Marcus advises, and I feel the small ball of dread in the pit of my stomach grow. Yes, Otis knew about my past, and said that he didn’t care. But it becomes something different when it is blasted all over the news.
Otis stays quiet as he reads the article. Clive bearing his soul to some faceless reporter looking for the next story. Not caring that his words are going to destroy my life. When he is done, Otis hands back the iPad to Marcus.
“The little shit. How the hell can he twist everything? Didn’t he come to you? He’s saying that he found you on a street corner. Also there is no mention of his wife?” Otis asks.
“This is how he’s getting around the NDA. A loophole I never saw coming. I made sure that they couldn’t say anything about the establishment and me, thinking it would cover my workers. But it didn’t,” Kimber says.
“Is your business okay?” Otis asks, and it makes me want to burst out laughing. Here is Otis. The man I love more than anything in the world, reading about his boyfriend’s past and he’s also concerned about Kimber and the business.
“My clients are pissed, not at me thankfully, but at Clive. I have always made sure that my clients are protected, it’s why they have always used me,” Kimber adds. “I think some of them want to skin Clive alive.”
“Oh, no that is my fucking job,” Otis states, and I don’t think that I have ever heard him so angry.
“We need to come up with a plan,” a female voice sounds, and when I look up I see Lizzie standing there. Fuck. What the hell is she going to think? There is no way she’s going to want to let Otis stay with me. Not when I’m being plastered all over the newspapers.
“At the moment we are waiting for the end of the race so that we can talk to Vincent,” Marcus adds. “I have already been in contact with Charmaine, and well, let’s just say that she was not happy.”
“Oh, by the end of the day, she’s going to get more news that she’s not going to be happy about,” Otis adds.
“Which is?” Marcus questions.
“Vincent knows about me and Jasper,” Otis replies, “He came into the medical centre at the wrong time.”
“Oh shit, poor Charmaine,” Marcus chuckles.
“Jasper,” and it’s Lizzie’s voice again, and when I look up, I see that she has moved and is now crouched down in front of me. Her eyes are full of worry, concern, and I think love, “Are you okay?”
Lizzie is the first person to ask me this since I walked into this room. Am I okay? No. On every level I am not okay. There is no doubt that I’m going to lose a job that I love, not to mention the man I love. There is no way I can go back to working at Kimber’s. So yeah, I am not okay.
“No,” I say simply.
“Jasper, you aren’t alone on this. We are all here. We aren’t going to let Clive spread lies about you,” Lizzie replies.
“Mum,” Otis starts. “Clive was one of Kimber’s clients. Some of what he said was the truth.”
“I am so sorry, Lizzie,” I mumble.
“Jasper, you have nothing to be sorry for. This is not your fault,” Lizzie replies, and I wish I could believe her, but she is wrong. This is all my fault.
“I need to get out of here. I need to get home,” I say, jumping to my feet and letting go of Otis’s hand.
“I think that might be a good idea,” Otis says, standing up beside me.
“On my own,” I say, spinning around to face him, “Go home to Lizzie’s. I need you to stay as far away from me as possible. I don’t need to bring you down with me.”
“Jasper, what? I am not going anywhere,” Otis replies.
“The world doesn’t know about us. It never needs to know about us,” I tell him, taking a sidestep away.
“Jasper,” Marcus states, “Don’t.”
“Marcus, it’s okay,” I hear Otis say, and I almost sigh with relief that he’s going to listen to me. “Jasper,” and my relief is very short lived, there is something in his tone of voice that tells me he is going to ignore me completely.
“Otis please. I need to protect you,” I say over to him.
“Jasper, stop it now,” Otis replies, and there is a firmness to his voice that I have never heard before. “I don’t need you to protect me. It is not like I didn’t know about your past. I am not going fucking anywhere. We are in this together.”
“But…” I try to argue.
“There is no but in this conversation. Now, shut the fuck up and sit back down while we try to organise how to get home.”
“I thought you were hot in sub mode, but in Dom mode you are something else,” Marcus states.
“Marcus!” Everyone in the room exclaims, but I have to admit that for the briefest of seconds it makes me smile.
“Right.” And it’s Lizzie’s voice I hear, “I have an idea.” And suddenly she seems to be taking charge. I’m handed a baseball cap, where it came from, I have no idea, but I put it on my head.
“I think this might work,” Marcus says, “We just need a car, that everyone recognises, that we can potentially hide Jasper in.”
“Lars,” Otis blurts out. “His has to be the most recognisable in Montague Racing. This way we can get everyone at the house, and we can discuss the next course of action.”
“No. I can’t drag Montague Racing into this. I have already done enough damage,” I say.
“Jasper,” Marcus starts softly, “I’m sorry to say that Montague Racing has already been dragged into this. Clive mentioning the team in the headline brought them into this.”
“Vincent is going to fire me on the spot. Then what the fuck am I going to do?” I say.
“He’s not going to fire you,” Otis starts, but I’m not sure that he believes his words one hundred percent.
“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” I say. “I was happy. For the first time in a long time I was happy.”
I know that I’m wallowing in my own self-pity now, but I can’t help it. Clive destroyed me once and it feels like he’s doing it again, but this time there is more I’m going to lose, and I don’t know how I will ever recover from it.
“You don’t deserve any of this,” Marcus confirms. “But we will stop this.”
“How?” I ask, and watch as Marcus opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out, and so closes it again, “See even you don’t know how to stop this.”
“Not yet I don’t. But we will,” Marcus adds. “Vincent and Charmaine will know what to do.”
“Yeah, by firing me,” I reply.
“Jasper, they are not going to fire you. If they do, I will quit,” Otis says, which causes every head in the room to turn in our direction.
“What?” I exclaim, “You wouldn’t, plus you are in contract.”
“Believe me I would. I couldn’t stay with a team that didn’t fight for one of their own,” Otis replies.
“You are so much like your dad,” Lizzie states, a sad tone to her voice. “He would have done the same.”
“I think Otis’s dad wouldn’t have liked a prostitute for a son-in-law,” I mumble, but the words come out louder than I thought.
“Jasper,” Lizzie starts. “Like me, he wouldn’t have cared. You make Otis happy. That is all he ever wanted. If you tried to stop Otis from racing, then he might have had some choice words for you.”