Chapter 16
sixteen
. . .
Cold dread and hot embarrassment warred within Desmond, making him feel sick to his stomach as he fled down the hotel’s back hallway and out the door.
He paused once he was out in the thick night air, leaning forward and bracing his hands on his knees as be forced breath into his lungs.
The whir of an industrial air conditioning unit off to one side couldn’t quite hide the traffic noise from around the corner.
Music was playing somewhere, and in the distance, someone let out a shrill, half-drunk laugh.
All of it was background noise that could do nothing to swallow up the scream of shame that echoed inside his soul.
“What were you thinking?” he hissed at himself and pushed himself to stand.
Declining the award so impulsively was only the beginning of the things he’d done to drive the nails into the coffin of everything the world thought he was or should be.
He never should have stayed on at Pickering Jones after knowingly passing Angus insider trading tips.
He shouldn’t have been coerced into revealing those tips in the first place.
And he definitely shouldn’t have dated Matthew or stayed with the man so long after the relationship stopped feeling right.
Everything he’d done for the past five years and more felt like a slow-motion walk through someone else’s expectations and a complete shambles that he had no way to drag himself out of.
The only thing he could do was to walk determinedly forward, pull his phone out of his pocket as he did, and dial Hassan.
It took a few rings before Hassan picked up. “Evening, Desmond. I didn’t expect you to call this early. Everything okay?”
“Everything is not okay,” Desmond said in clipped tones as he walked onto the street beside the hotel, then hesitated, no idea which way to go. “I need you to come pick me up. Now. I’m in the alley on the east side of the hotel.”
“I’m in a pub across the street,” Hassan told him, “but I’m on my way out now.”
Desmond nodded, even though his friend couldn’t see him, and started toward the front of the hotel at a faster pace. “Which one?”
“The Boatman,” Hassan answered.
As luck would have it, Desmond emerged from the alley just as Hassan stepped out of the pub in question directly across the street, his phone held to his ear.
They both ended their calls, and for a few seconds, as Hassan waited for a few cars to pass before jogging across the street, Desmond just stood there, feeling numb and horrible.
“You don’t look good, boss,” Hassan said as he joined Des and gestured for him to follow on toward the parking garage. “Where’s Javier?”
Javier. The sick feeling in Desmond’s stomach grew to the point where he was in danger of actually throwing up on the pavement, just like he had in the toilet at the Royal Albert Hall before Valentine’s Day, as they strode into the parking garage.
As long as he lived, Desmond would never forget the look of shock on his lover’s face as he’d confessed his inadequacies to that room full of his colleagues.
Javier had been as surprised as everyone else, but Desmond was certain he’d seen disappointment in those gorgeous, hazel eyes as well.
Even if it was just shock he’d seen, he was certain Javier would hate him now.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled as they walked to the limo parking area right next to the exit. “He’ll probably find his own way home.”
Hassan sent Desmond a wary look as he used his fob to unlock the car, then skipped ahead of Desmond to hold the door open for him. “Did you two have a row?”
“No,” Desmond said, ducking into the car and throwing himself against the far seat.
Hassan glanced into the car after him with a look that said he definitely wasn’t going to let the whole thing drop.
Like the excellent chauffer he was, though, he shut the door, slipped into the driver’s seat, then turned on the car and maneuvered them out of the garage and onto the clogged streets of London before completely overstepping his bounds.
“If you didn’t row, then what happened?” he asked over his shoulder through the partition, which was all the way down.
Desmond’s nausea didn’t ease up at all in the moving car. The last thing he wanted to do was tell yet another person he esteemed how much of a failure he was, but a large part of him was also desperate to get everything off his chest once and for all.
“I declined the Lundy Prize,” he said in a thin, sick voice. “In front of everyone, including Javier.”
“Wait, what?” Hassan glanced back at him for a longer few seconds, until the light in front of them turned green. “You declined the award?”
Desmond nodded, his head feeling like a thousand-pound dumbbell. “I could not, in good conscience, accept an award hailing me for outstanding ethics when I have none at all.”
Hassan peered at Desmond in the rearview mirror as he navigated the streets on the way to Kensington. “Mate, you’re one of the most ethical men I’ve ever worked for,” Hassan said, sounding mystified. “Why would you think you don’t deserve that award?”
Every dark truth Desmond had kept hidden about himself seemed to poke at the underside of his skin like daggers.
Hassan had been working for him long enough that he probably knew at least half the things that were supposed to be secret anyhow, but Desmond found that the words caught in his throat when he tried to confess all.
“It was that business with Angus last year,” was the best he could say.
Hassan made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You’re turning down a major industry award because of that sod?”
Desmond blinked at him in the mirror. As much as he liked and respected his driver, clearly Hassan did not understand the full implication of everything that had happened back then.
“What does Javier think about this?” Hassan went on. “And why isn’t he in the car with you?”
Heat flashed across Desmond’s face. “I left the stage and the hotel immediately after declining the award,” he said, digging his fingertips into the leather of his seat as if he needed to anchor himself or die. “I, er, ran.”
“You ran out without bringing him with you?”
Desmond couldn’t bear the censure in Hassan’s voice. “He probably hates me now at any rate.”
Again, Hassan made the sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Oh, Desmond,” he said, full of heart that Desmond didn’t deserve. “Matthew really did a number on you, didn’t he.”
Desmond, who had hung his head in shame, snapped his gaze up just as Hassan glanced over his shoulder while they waited at a red light. “Matthew doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
It was a lie; one he’d been telling himself for a while now. Hassan saw right through it. “Mate, he poisoned your mind. I never did like the bastard, but I fucking hate him now for leaving you like this.”
Desmond frowned, not completely certain what Hassan meant.
“Do you want me to swing back and pick up Javier?” Hassan asked.
“No,” Desmond answered, baffled about why he would ask in the first place. “Just take me home. All I want is to be at home, alone, with my plants.”
“Forgive me if I’m overstepping, mate, but that’s the worst thing you could do right now,” Hassan said.
Desmond’s eyes widened. “The worst thing I could do right now is pretend that I’m the man everyone thinks I am.
I don’t deserve awards or accolades. I never wanted them in the first place.
I never wanted the corner office or the partnership or any of the paychecks that have given me more than I ever deserve.
I majored in business at university and jumped into the financial world because it was expected of me, not because I care two fucks about it. ”
As soon as the outburst was done, Desmond pushed himself back into his seat, his eyes wide.
“Whoa. Where did that come from?” Hassan asked the exact question he was thinking.
Desmond didn’t know. He honestly didn’t. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized all of the jagged, conflicting feelings throwing themselves around his insides as Hassan turned a corner and drove on toward his townhouse had been there for a while.
He’d thought the overall sensation of discontent for his life was just something all men in their thirties started to feel, but since Javier had appeared out of nowhere and given him something else to care about and look forward to, he was beginning to wonder.
“I’m going to quit my job,” he blurted, surprising himself and Hassan both again. “Monday morning, I’m going to go into the office, tell Harry I’m through, pack up my office and leave.”
“Um, mate, are you sure?” Hassan asked, back to looking at him in the rearview mirror.
“Yes,” Desmond breathed out as though catching his breath for the first time after being underwater for hours.
“I shouldn’t be in the corner office in the first place.
I shouldn’t be in the financial world. I don’t like it.
I’d rather do something that helps people, that brings them together, not just makes them money.
I should be doing something entirely different with my sorry excuse for a life. ”
“You definitely need to think about this for a long time and talk to your boss, and Javier, for that matter, before you do anything rash,” Hassan advised him as they came to a stop in front of his house.
He put the car in neutral, then twisted to look directly at Desmond.
“That’s a life-changing decision, that is. At least sleep on it.”
“Maybe,” Desmond said, scooting over so he could open the car door and climb out into the cool night air.
There wasn’t any maybe about it. The idea had blasted into his brain like a bolt of lightning, but he knew it was the right thing to do. He’d lived under the shadow of his wrongdoing for more than a year now, and the only way he could truly be free from it was to leave finance entirely.