“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 ofshock 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.”
