Chapter Twelve

Darien

Quinn’s Brasserie was always quiet at this time on a Saturday afternoon between lunch and dinner service. I’d had no intention beyond getting out of the house when I’d left, but somehow I’d ended up here. Muscle memory, maybe. There was no disputing that it represented something of a safe place for me. Somewhere I could linger to my heart’s content, with no one questioning how much longer I’d be here. It was just one of many perks when your brother owned a restaurant.

I found myself staring at my phone. There hadn’t been a single message from Felix since Thursday’s… Date? Assignation? Clandestine meeting? It was hard to know what word you were supposed to use when you paid one of your clients a home visit and fucked him. Whatever it had been, the lack of texts bothered me. Why was I getting the silent treatment ?

Several possibilities came to mind, among them him still being pissed. Either that or he’d only ever wanted to get me into bed and now that he had, he was done with me. Had it been some sort of game? A bet? The thought that it might be the latter had my blood running cold, because that would mean he’d lied and someone else knew about us. Someone who, even if Felix kept his word and didn’t inform the authorities, might choose to in his stead.

A squeak of a chair had me jerking my head up to find Levi easing himself into the seat opposite, the sight making me smile. Once upon a time, Levi had been a client. He was one of my biggest success stories and he’d also be my brother-in-law before the end of the year. Somehow, he’d taken my workaholic of a brother and made him realize work wasn’t everything. Now, Hayden was more likely to be found keeping Levi happy than working all the hours under the sun, finding a much needed balance that had him leaving the running of his restaurant to someone else.

“There he is,” Levi said with a smirk. “I was starting to think you were channeling past Hayden.” At my frown, he elaborated. “The mean, moody look just isn’t you.” He pushed over a coffee and a small plate with a cinnamon swirl on it, before gesturing at my phone. “What’s it done to offend you?”

“Nothing.” I took the food and drink offerings gladly, my coffee cup long since empty. “Speaking of the mean and moody one, where is he? I thought you were joined at the hip on a weekend.”

Levi leaned his elbows on the table and smiled. When I’d first met him, he’d never smiled. Now, it was a common occurrence, the relaxed man in front of me completely different from the one I’d picked up outside prison eighteen months ago. Would that happen to Felix, eventually? He might smile, but it always seemed more like an act than anything genuine. Would time sand off those hard edges and change him just as it had Levi? Except in Levi’s case, it wasn’t time that had done it, it was love. Would Felix find love? Something about that thought didn’t sit comfortably with me, a squirming starting up in my gut.

“Hayden’s at a cookery exhibition,” Levi said. “I declined his kind offer to accompany him on account of having at least ten things I’d rather do. I prefer him getting orgasmic over me rather than the newest food mixers.”

I pulled a mock grimace. “Too much information.”

Levi grinned unabashedly. “You introduced us.”

“Yeah, and not a day goes by when I don’t regret it.” We both knew I was joking. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It had been a masterstroke that had cured both my brother’s workaholic tendencies and given Levi the security he needed to flourish in one fell swoop. If only I could claim it had been a genius move on my part rather than a happy accident.

Levi sat forward, his expression intense. “So… what’s wrong?”

I picked up the cinnamon swirl and examined it. “When did Hayden start making pastries?”

“He hasn’t.” Levi’s curls bounced as he tossed his head, his hair even longer than when he’d gotten out of prison. So different from Felix’s closely shorn head. And why the fuck was I comparing everything to Felix? Couldn’t he stay out of my damn head for two seconds? “It’s from the bakery over the road.”

I took a bite of it, laughing around the mouthful of sweet-tasting pastry. “And you’re serving it to me in Hayden’s restaurant?”

Levi grinned. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides…” He gave an exaggerated flutter of his eyelashes. “I know exactly how to handle Hayden.” He twisted the engagement ring on his finger around three hundred and sixty degrees, a gesture I doubted he was even aware he did. “Anyway… stop ignoring the question. You looked like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders when I came over, which is not like you at all. Hayden and I do mean and moody. You do sunshine. I assume it’s work?”

“Why would you assume it’s work?” Even I could hear the defensive note in my voice. “There are other things in my life besides work, you know.”

“Yeah, of course there are. I meant nothing by it.”

Things really were upside down if Levi was the one placating me instead of the other way around. I let out a sigh. “It is work. Sort of.” I considered my words while Levi frowned, understandably confused by the non sequitur. “I’ve really fucked up.” The admission was out before I could think better of it, and there was no taking it back.

Levi laughed. When I didn’t join in, he quickly sobered. “Oh, come on, Darien. This is you we’re talking about. You’re a paragon of virtue. The best person I know.”

I studied my coffee, Levi’s kind words not helping in the slightest. If anything, they made me feel worse. A paragon of virtue… Right? If that was true, it seemed I’d fallen from grace spectacularly. “That’s sweet. Not true, but sweet, nevertheless.”

“I’m not blowing smoke up your arse. Look at me. Look at everything you did for me.”

“It’s my job.”

“It’s not your job to respond to moodiness with a smile. It’s not your job to bend over backwards to give your clients everything they need.” It was all I could do not to wince when Levi said that. I’d certainly given Felix something he needed. Maybe I should put it in my CV. Sexual favors available on request. “It’s not your job to be such a good judge of character that you know when to turn a blind eye. ”

I jerked my gaze to Levi’s, his expression confirming that he was indeed referring to the thing we’d never discussed apart from one coded conversation. I had turned a blind eye to something I shouldn’t have while he was still on parole. I’d weighed up the consequences of him going back to prison and decided that it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Not me. Not my brother. And especially not Levi.

In a way, the reminder that I’d bent the rules before was useful. I contemplated his words while I sipped my coffee, Levi having made it exactly the way I liked it. “Do you really think I’m a good judge of character?”

Levi’s expression said it was a ridiculous question to ask. “Of course you are. You knew I wouldn’t fuck up again, even when I didn’t know it myself.”

“I have a new client,” I said slowly, not sure how much I wanted to reveal to Levi even as I started saying it. “He’s…” How the hell did you describe Felix? Moody, but different to how Levi had been moody, or my brother was. A hard person to read. A square peg in a round hole. “Well… he’s proved tricky.”

“Tricky?” Levi questioned with a raise of his eyebrow. “In what way?”

“He wasn’t supposed to be my client. My colleague went on adoption leave and I had to step in at the last moment.” None of which answered his question, but I was playing for time. “His crime is…”

“Spit it out. It’s not like you to be so cagey.”

No, it wasn’t, but then there were an awful lot of things lately that weren’t like me. Maybe I was having a mid-life crisis. Except, I suspected you were supposed to wait at least until your late thirties, if not your forties, before traveling down that route. “His crime is more serious. ”

“Okay.” Levi dragged the word out like he needed some thinking time of his own. “How serious are we talking? Rape? Murder?”

“An accessory to murder.”

Levi nodded slowly, and I was grateful I was having this conversation with him rather than my brother, because I was damn sure Hayden wouldn’t have displayed the same lack of reaction to my answer. Levi had seen it all firsthand, though. He would have spent time with murderers while he was inside, and he knew it wasn’t as black and white as most people wanted to believe. “He insists he’s innocent, but all the evidence points toward that not being the case. I mean, a jury convicted him. That’s twelve people who didn’t believe he was telling the truth.”

“Juries have made mistakes before. If they were never wrong, there’d be no cases of wrongful imprisonment, and we both know that’s not the case.”

I took another bite of the pastry. “True.”

“Have you spoken to him about it?”

“I tried. He clammed up and didn’t want to talk about it. Sounds like someone else you and I know, doesn’t it?”

Levi snorted. “No idea who you’re talking about. It can’t be me. I’ve always been completely upfront about everything.”

“Right,” I drawled. “No secrets at all. I knew exactly what your living conditions were like, and that you’d embarked on a secret affair with my brother. Oh, and that you were in contact with your old gang leader, a certain David Grimsby.”

Levi’s lips twitched. “Who?” At least he could laugh about it now. The slight smile changed to a frown. “Anyway… what’s the big deal about his innocence?” He grimaced at his own words. “I’ll rephrase that. Obviously, it’s a big deal for him. But I don’t get why it would be such a big deal for you. You’ve said yourself that the past doesn’t matter, that your job is about ensuring a fresh start, that everyone deserves a second chance. Does it matter what the crime was? Do only certain people deserve to have it? Because that goes against everything you’ve ever said.”

My knuckles turned white around my coffee cup, and I had to force myself to relax my grip. Of course Levi didn’t understand. He was missing the crucial information that I was sleeping with Felix. Missing it because I hadn’t told him, and wouldn’t, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit that part. “It’s complicated.”

“That’s a Facebook status, not an answer.”

I laughed. “Maybe so, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. You’ll just have to trust me on that.”

Levi cocked his head to one side. “And it doesn’t explain why you said you’d fucked up.”

Shit! Why had I said that? Now, Levi would keep pushing until he got the truth out of me and discovered I had zero willpower and used my job like a dating agency.

A shadow fell across the table and I looked up to find my brother standing there with a frown on his face, his focus on the plate with the rest of the pastry sitting on it. “What is that? And more importantly, why is it in my restaurant?”

I plucked it off the plate and crammed the rest of it into my mouth. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” At least that’s what I tried to say. With my mouth full of masticated pastry, it didn’t come out quite that audibly.

Levi stood, hooking an arm around Hayden’s neck and dragging him close enough that he could drop a lingering kiss on his lips. “Don’t worry about that. Worry about saying hello to me. How was the exhibition? Did you buy anything ridiculous and unnecessary? Wooden spoon with a slightly different shape that’ll give sauces that extra je ne sais quoi? Knife with an ergonomic handle that makes chopping things far easier?”

Hayden frowned. “I already have ergonomic knives.”

Levi laughed. “Of course you do.” He softened his words by kissing Hayden again, my brother leaning into it this time and returning the kiss with equal enthusiasm.

I took the opportunity while they only had eyes for each other to drain the rest of my coffee and stand. Hayden’s arrival had been timely, saving me from interrogation over the comment I’d let slip. “I’ll see you both later.”

I only managed a few steps before Levi struggled free from the kiss and held up a hand. “Wait! We didn’t finish talking.”

“About what?” Hayden asked, his expression curious.

“Darien’s been having a tough time at work. Something to do with a new client.”

Oh, hell no. I didn’t need two of them on my case. I backed off toward the door. “We talked. I appreciated it. All’s good. Thanks for the pastry and the coffee.”

“Yeah… about that pastry,” Hayden said as I turned and made my escape. I didn’t wait around to see how Levi would wriggle out of it. Probably by taking my brother to bed, and that was something I didn’t need to be thinking about. It was bad enough when they spent most of Sunday lunch at my parents’ house making eyes at each other and leaving very little to the imagination with how fulfilling their sex life was.

Just like you and Felix.

I pulled a face at the intrusive thought as I got behind the wheel of my car. Hayden and Levi were nothing like Felix and me. They never had been. Or at least I didn’t think they had. But then I’d been as much in the dark as everyone else at the beginning of their relationship. From what Hayden had said since, though, it had been far from smooth sailing. And Levi had been in prison for stealing cars, not for aiding and abetting in the murder of a minor. Which brought me full circle to his crime mattering despite Levi reminding me that my rhetoric had always been the opposite. I didn’t enjoy being a hypocrite, but it seemed I was. I should be relieved Felix hadn’t been in contact. It gave me a couple of weeks of blessed peace before I’d have no choice but to speak with him.

At least the documentary about mature escorts—and when they said mature, they really meant mature, like grandma age—was distracting enough that I stopped checking my phone. I’d foregone wine, my alcohol units seeming to have crept up lately. And if there was one thing Felix Church wasn’t worth, it was becoming an alcoholic.

The documentary was half over when my phone rang. I groped for it, the name on the screen causing simultaneous excitement and alarm to erupt in my chest. What did it mean that he was calling rather than texting? Why so late? And why had he been silent for five whole days? I rode the rush of questions for so long while I contemplated not answering that I risked my phone going to voicemail before I snatched it up. Worried the maelstrom of emotion might come across in my voice if I didn’t compose myself first, I said nothing.

“Darien? ”

It was funny that I’d been worried about sounding emotional when there was nothing of Felix’s usual bravado and attitude in the way he’d said my name. “Yeah, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

“It’s… shit! I don’t know where to start.”

I muted the TV, stopping a grandma of three from detailing what she got out of pleasuring a man younger than one of her grandchildren in mid-flow. “Start at the beginning.”

Felix laughed. “Well, I guess the start was the graffiti all over the front of the house.”

“Graffiti?”

“Murderer in big red letters. Nothing imaginative. That was yesterday morning. The press turned up a few hours later.”

“How did they know?”

Felix let out a sigh. “I think it was my neighbor, Mrs. Featherstone. She saw me in the garden and made a big production out of telling me she knew exactly who I was. No surprise there when I lived next to her for the first eighteen years of my life. The only thing that proves is that the old bat doesn’t have dementia yet. Anyway, she was less than friendly.”

“You think she graffitied your house?”

Felix’s laugh had an edge to it. “No, Darien, I don’t think a woman in her late seventies got nifty with a spray can. I think she started a whisper network and news of me being out of prison spread like wildfire around the neighborhood, and someone else took it upon themselves to make a few improvements to the house and show their disapproval at me staying there.”

“Right…” The practical part of my brain kicked in. Graffiti was manageable. Not ideal, but manageable. I’d certainly dealt with bigger problems. “You need a power washer.”

“A power washer? ”

“Your house is brick, right? You need a power washer to get the graffiti off. There are places that hire them out. I can probably find one for you tomorrow and send you the details.”

“Will it get rid of the press camped on my mother’s doorstep?”

I grimaced. “Shit!”

“Yeah, shit. Anyway, to cut a long story short, my mother doesn’t want me staying there anymore, so this is me notifying you of a change of address.”

“Okay…” I reached for a pen and a piece of paper. “Go on.”

“Go on, what?”

“Your address.”

“I don’t have one yet. I’m gonna have to stay in a hotel or something tonight.”

Felix sounded beaten down, like he’d had all the stuffing knocked out of him. “Where are you?”

“Do you need to know that in an official capacity?”

The bite was back in Felix’s voice. It should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. It meant he was feeling vulnerable enough that he’d gone on the attack. Classic behavior when you felt backed into a corner. Particularly for him. “No.” My voice was as soft as I could make it and still be audible. “I’m asking as a friend. Someone who’s concerned about you.”

“A friend! Is that what you are?”

A few answers circled through my brain. I could be. I want to be. Okay, we’re not friends. I went with none of them, repeating my earlier question instead. “Where are you?”

“I’m in a park. Happy now? Me and the ducks are having a great time. I’m waiting for them to discover my past and turn on me. At least none of them can notify the press and I assume holding a spray can would be difficult for them. ”

“Which park?”

“Regent’s Park. I walked, and this is where I ended up.”

“Okay. Stay there.”

“All night? I know you don’t like me, but surely even you don’t want me to spend all night on a park bench?”

“I’m coming to pick you up.”

“Yeah?”

There was surprise in Felix’s voice. I couldn’t exactly blame him. I’d surprised myself with my announcement. Still time to back out. He’s a big boy who’s capable of finding a hotel to stay for the night, and unlike most of your clients, he has the money, thanks to his mother. I was already grabbing my car keys and shrugging into my jacket, though. Thank God I’d foregone any wine and could drive. “Yeah. We’ll work out your next move together.”

“You don’t have to do that, Darien.”

“I do. I’m your probation officer.”

“I don’t think picking up clients at this time in the evening is in your job description.”

“Look, do you want me to come or not?”

A long silence. Long enough that I considered what I’d do if he said no. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Great. Well, that’s decided then.”