Chapter Two

Darien

Tension had me gripping the steering wheel too tightly as Wormwood Scrubs, or The Scrubs, as it was often nicknamed, came into view. I visited a lot of prisons in London, but this was one of the more distinctive ones, with its twin turrets of red and white brick. It was an understandably slow process to gain admittance to the prison even if you visited regularly and staff recognized your face, a plethora of security checks needing to be carried out, including being patted down by a burly prison officer and having a sniffer dog dig its nose into your crotch, neither of those activities half as fun as they sounded. I understood its necessity, though. Even the most straitlaced of government employees had the potential to be corrupted if the circumstances were right and the stakes high enough.

Once in the building, a prison officer led me through a series of locked gates and then to a small seated area to await Felix Church being escorted to the room where we’d meet. Left to my own devices, I squeezed my fingers inside my collar to cool down, regretting the tie. Why had I worn one when I didn’t most of the time? What was I trying to prove? That I was super professional? That there was a huge divide between myself and someone like Felix?

If so, that deserved some contemplation when my approach was usually the opposite, my ethos to be friendly and put them at ease. But then I’d never had a client so notorious before. Giving up on the tie, whatever its purpose might be, I unfastened it and shoved it in my pocket before undoing my top button. I immediately felt more like myself rather than someone playing dress-up.

The minutes ticked by, my thigh jigging up and down of its own accord. To relax, I concentrated on my surroundings. The Scrubs smelled like it always did, that distinctive mixture of stale air, body odor, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, and food. On a good day, you got a higher percentage of laundry detergent and cleaning supplies. Today wasn’t a good day, curry from last night’s meal the prevalent scent.

A jangle of keys heralded the prison officer’s return. He unlocked the gate and then jerked his head down the corridor. “This way, Quinn.”

I obediently climbed to my feet and joined him, waiting patiently as he went through the rigmarole of locking the gate once more. I wondered if their dreams were a constant cycle of locking and unlocking gates. Probably not. They no doubt had enough of it during the day. That didn’t stop me from writing pre-sentence reports in my dreams or running over pleas to parole boards, though, so perhaps it was the same.

He led me to a door, making no move to open it for me. When I dropped my usual gung-ho approach in favor of hesitation, he gave me a strange look. “Just wondering if anyone’s informed him about the change in PO?” That hadn’t been what I’d been thinking. From experience, I could predict the answer to that question being a resounding no, that the news would come from me, but it was the best excuse I could come up with. I certainly wasn’t about to admit to suffering an attack of nerves.

When the prison officer shrugged, I gave in to the inevitable and pushed the door open. The words “I’ll be outside,” floated through the ever decreasing gap as the door closed in my wake. And then it was just me and Felix Church in a room together—the man who’d supposedly been so devoted to his older and more experienced lover he’d helped him cover up the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl who’d had her whole life ahead of her.

I pasted a smile on my face as I turned to face him. My first thought was that I should have done an internet search to find some pictures of him, or studied the file more closely. If I had, perhaps his good looks wouldn’t have packed such a punch. He had short, dark blond hair. Really short. On another man, the cut would have been too severe, but he had the bone structure to carry it off. Strong jaw covered in stubble. Regular well-shaped nose, neither too big nor too small. And a pair of stormy gray eyes currently narrowed on me.

There was no smile to be had in return for mine, but that was nothing new. I’d had plenty of clients where extracting a smile from them was akin to digging for treasure. One of them would be my brother-in-law. Levi smiled a lot these days. Usually every time he saw my brother, Hayden only needing to look at him in a certain way for Levi’s stony exterior to crack.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The delivery might have been a bit on the harsh side, but it was a fair question. I took a seat at the opposite side of the table, Felix choosing not to sit beneath it, but to sit at an angle, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He wore the usual prison uniform of pale gray sweatpants and sweatshirt, with the sleeves of the latter pushed up to reveal muscular forearms. On Felix Church, the prison uniform looked good, a feat I couldn’t remember any other man or woman pulling off. The phrase he’d look good in a bin bag came to mind, because I suspected Felix would.

Don’t fall for him.

Yeah, the warning from Katherine was making sense. Because physically, Felix Church was smoking hot. Tall, muscular, unmistakably masculine, and with beautiful gray eyes. I cleared my throat, disguising—hopefully—the way his physical presence had thrown me by opening my briefcase and pulling out the folder with his name across the front. Only then did I trust myself to speak. “Unfortunately, Katherine’s had to step down as your probation officer. I’ll be taking over.” I held out my hand. “Darien Quinn.”

He eyed it for a few seconds. Just as relief was setting in that I wouldn’t have to touch him, he took my hand, his skin warm and slightly callused as it enfolded mine in a handshake that left quite the impression. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why has Katherine had to step down?”

I bit down on the urge to tell him it was none of his business. There was no reason not to be honest, especially when I’d be demanding honesty from him. A good relationship between a PO and their client depended on it. “Katherine and her husband have been on the adoption list for some time. They’ve just been given a baby. Short notice is very common. I know she would have liked to tell you herself if it was possible, but obviously the baby comes first.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy. ”

“Does he have a name?”

I reached for the folder. “Perhaps we should get on with discussing the matter at hand. I don’t want to take up more of your time than I have to.”

Felix swiveled round to face me, tucking those long limbs of his under the table. I immediately retracted my feet, worried we might touch. “Oh, yeah,” he said with derision dripping from his voice. “Because my time is so precious.” He leaned forward over the table, bringing his face far too close for my liking. “What do you think I’ve got on my schedule today, Darien?”

He said my name like a challenge, making me uncomfortably aware that although there was an officer just outside the door, there were plenty of things you could do to a person in the time it would take for him to reach me. “I don’t know. I apologize if I’ve offended you. I didn’t mean to.”

“It was a simple enough question,” Felix pointed out. “I like Katherine. I was showing interest in her baby. I was being polite. Would you rather I wasn’t polite?”

Sweat prickled under my armpits. Difficult, was the word Katherine had used to describe him, and I was getting a firsthand example. I chose my words carefully. “I appreciate you being polite. More than I can say.”

“’More than I can say,’” Felix parroted, his tone giving me a glimpse of what him not being polite might look like. I definitely preferred the former.

“Oliver,” I said, to broker peace and get us back on an even keel. “The baby’s name is Oliver.”

Felix sat back with his arms crossed over his chest, forearms bulging in a way that I couldn’t help but notice. “See! That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He regarded me silently for a few moments. I managed not to twitch beneath his scrutiny, but it was a hard-fought battle. “How old are you?”

“I’m fully qualified if that’s what you're—”

“I didn’t ask about your qualifications. I asked how old you were? Is it a secret?”

“No, it’s not a secret.” I had a routine when meeting clients. I was friendly and chatty. I disarmed them by being nice, by treating them like human beings no matter what they’d done, by believing in them and telling them that with my help, they could turn their lives around. That patter had all deserted me today, leaving me feeling like a butterfly pinned to a board. Felix Church had hold of the pins, and was currently deciding whether he’d remove the ones that were already in, or add more. It was a strange analogy, but it fitted. “Thirty,” I answered.

Felix nodded. “And how long have you been a PO?”

“So it is about qualifications?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is it? Or is it about me building a bond with my new PO? I’m supposed to do that, right? Only, I know very little about you with which to do that, so I started with the obvious questions.” He sat forward again, elbows braced on the table and head cocked to one side. “I’ll be more imaginative.” His gaze dropped to my left hand. “Not married. Are you straight, Darien?”

I gaped at him, Felix not only smiling, but barking out a laugh. It transformed his entire face, softening his features and making him look less dangerous. I fought the wave of heat threatening to turn my face red, meeting his gaze instead and refusing to blink. He was still smiling, the tiny laughter lines around his eyes making him look even more attractive. “No, you’re not,” he said, his voice even. “But then I knew that from the way you looked at me when you came in. You’re gay or bisexual. ”

How the fuck was I supposed to answer that question? Not answering it would look like I had something to hide, or that I was ashamed. But answering it didn’t seem like a good idea either. I was always open and honest with clients. How had Felix Church got me figuratively curling up in a fetal position so quickly and easily? I took a deep breath in and then let it out again, refusing to let him win. “I’m bisexual, if you must know, but I prefer women.”

“Do you?” A slow smile spread across Felix’s face. “So you have a girlfriend?”

“Not currently.”

“But you’re looking for one?”

“My work keeps me busy.” I stressed the word work, hoping it would serve as a reminder why we were both here, that this wasn’t a social visit.

“When was the last time you went on a date?”

“Last night, actually.” I was suddenly glad about the date with Emily. It might not have been much fun when I’d been on it, but it was serving a purpose now.

“Was she hot?”

“None of your business.”

Felix held his hands up in a defensive gesture. “I overstepped. I apologize.”

He didn’t look sorry. He looked like he was having a lot of fun at my expense. I tapped my finger on the folder. “We should—”

Felix bit his lip to stop himself from smiling, something about the way he did it going straight to my cock. He waved his hand in a grand gesture. “Go ahead. But don’t worry about rushing. My schedule for today is fairly blank. The same as it’s been for the last seven years since they threw me in this hellhole.” Bitterness tinged his words before he seemed to give himself a mental shake. “All I’ll be doing once you leave is going back to my cell, stripping down to my undies, and…” He left a pause, his voice having dropped to a deliberately low timbre. “… working out every single one of my muscles until it hurts. My cellmate likes to watch. He finds it fascinating. I don’t know whether he wants me or he’s just jealous that he can’t get the same muscle definition as I can, but he can barely take his eyes off me.”

The fucker was flirting, the picture he’d conjured up an alluring one. It was working as well, my cock swelling in my trousers. Don’t fall for him. Had he flirted with Katherine? Is that why she’d seen fit to give me a warning? If he had, I expected she’d given him short shrift. I couldn't imagine anyone more loved up than she was with her husband. Unfortunately, I had no such buffer to hide behind, only my weak insistence that I preferred women. Which was true. Usually. But there was something about Felix Church that had me forgetting that.

Felix reached over and tapped the folder, his finger dangerously close to my hand. “I thought you had some questions to ask me.”

I pulled the folder in front of me, leaving Felix with no option but to lift his hand. He seemed to be all about control. Everything on his terms. It made me wonder who’d really been in charge when it came to the murder of the young girl? Had it been Felix, and he’d set his boyfriend up as a stooge? If so, the courts had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, Felix getting a much softer sentence and escaping a murder charge altogether. I vowed to do what I never did with my client’s crimes and carry out some research. With the man sitting opposite me, it seemed like being forewarned would be forearmed.

“Mr. Church,” I began, having opened the folder to the first page.

He snorted out a laugh. “Really? Are we going to be Mr. Church and Mr. Quinn? How delightfully old-fashioned. What about when we go to bed together? Will we keep it up then? ”

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him. By the time I’d concluded I hadn’t, he was already laughing. “That’s not… We won’t… That is…”

He laughed harder at my discomfort. “Relax. I’m just having a bit of a joke. My method of flirting is rusty. More sledgehammer than feather duster. I’ll try to tickle rather than pound in future. Although…” That slow smile appeared again. “Some people like a good pounding.”

Before I said something I might regret, like telling him he should be extremely grateful I’d agreed to take on his case, and that if I walked out on him, he’d have no one, I counted to ten. That wasn’t my style, and I didn’t want it to be. He might be difficult, but it was on me to work out how best to handle him. “I’d rather you didn’t flirt.”

“Why?”

“It’s not appropriate. I’m your PO and you’re my client. Our”—I hesitated to use the word, but for want of a better one I did—“relationship, is and always will be purely professional.”

Another smile. “I was just having a bit of fun. I enjoy seeing if I can make you blush. I don’t get a lot of fun around here, as you can probably imagine.” When I stayed silent, he sighed. “Go ahead. Ask your questions.”

I quickly scanned the page of notes from Katherine, her handwriting not the easiest to decipher, but then she wouldn’t have expected anyone else to have to read it when she’d written it. The major bone of contention seemed to be where Felix would stay when he got out of prison. “It says here that you’ll be staying with your mother when you get out?” I glanced up to find that Felix’s expression had gone tight, all traces of flirtatiousness gone.

“That’s right… I will.”

“Only… we haven’t had confirmation of that from her yet. We’ve contacted her a few times, but she hasn’t returned any of our calls. ”

“She will.”

“Your release is next Tuesday. That’s only six days away.”

“I can count.”

“Of course you can. I wasn’t insinuating you couldn’t. I was just pointing out how little time there is between now and then.”

Felix leaned forward again, his wide shoulders seeming to block all the light. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I wasn’t, I…” I stopped myself from saying more, worried we’d go round in circles. “Without confirmation from your mother that she’s happy for you to stay with her, I need to outline the alternative, which at this late juncture will be a room in Benedict House.”

“I’m not staying in a halfway house.”

I kept my gaze fixed on the page of notes. “I appreciate you don’t want to, and it will only be a back-up plan if we don’t hear from your mother. But… just in case, I have to go through Benedict House’s expectations.” I spent the next few minutes detailing the facilities at Benedict House and the curfew and sign-ins that Felix would need to adhere to if he wanted to meet his conditions for parole and stay out of prison.

Felix had turned his head away, his body language screaming that he wasn’t really listening. Yeah, he was difficult alright. If only the adoption services had held off for another few months. As soon as I thought that, I felt guilty. It was uncharitable when Katherine and her husband had already waited years.

“Does that all make sense?” I got a grunt in response and decided that would do. For Felix’s sake, I hoped his mother came through for him, but it was looking unlikely. History had shown that he had a far better chance of making a fresh start within a parental home rather than exchanging one building of criminals without freedom for another building where they had slightly more .

“Any drug or alcohol habits I need to know about?”

“No.”

“That’s good.” I offered him a smile. He didn’t reciprocate, Felix back to the man I’d first encountered when I’d walked into the room. Which, in some respects, was disappointing, but in others came as a relief.

“Any thoughts on what kind of job you might look for?”

“No.”

For a moment, I imagined a world where Felix had come before Levi, and I’d convinced my brother to take on Felix at his restaurant. Yeah, that wouldn’t have been pretty. Felix was far more combative than Levi was. Putting those two in a room together would have been like pouring oil on a fire. “We’ve got time to work that out.”

“Oh, we have, have we ?”

I sat back in my chair and studied him with what I hoped came across as supreme confidence. “My job is to facilitate a smooth passage into starting afresh, and I’m very good at what I do.”

“Does it come with a blow job?”

I held his gaze and didn’t blink. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. “You’re trying to shock me.”

“I’m trying to get a blow job.”

“That’s not a service I offer, I’m afraid.”

“Shame.” Felix punctuated his sentence with a slow once-over that should have angered me, but had my cock once again sitting up and taking notice. Don’t fall for him. Oh, how wise Katherine was. Not that I’d be telling her that.

“One more thing I need to discuss,” I said, keen to bring an end to the strange atmosphere pervading the room. “Because of the nature of your case, you may want to think about using another name. A middle name, perhaps, if you have one. ”

“’The nature of my case.’” Felix’s voice was low, alarm bells ringing.

“Murder is...”

I didn’t get any further before Felix surged to his feet. I automatically shifted my chair back, my heart hammering inside my chest. “I didn’t murder anyone.” His voice was still low, but no less emphatic for it.

“I’m sorry. That was a poor choice of words. Your sentence was for being an accessory to murder. That’s what I should have said.” I could have kicked myself. It wasn’t like me to fuck up like that. “All I’m saying is that there were strong opinions about your case and some of those opinions may not have gone away. So my advice to you would be to change your name. And I’d appreciate it if you sit down.”

Felix sat. “I’m not changing my name. Do you know why?”

I took a breath in and then let it out again in an effort to bring my rapid heart rate back to something approaching normal. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t do any of what the courts said I did. And I’ve already lost seven years of my life because they couldn’t get it right. Do you know how much of myself I’ve already lost?” I shook my head, my mouth too dry to form words. “A lot. So… you’ll have to excuse me, Mr. Quinn, if I refuse to give up that last part of myself just on your say-so.”

I shuffled my chair back to the table and picked up the pen, pleased when my hand didn’t shake. “No name change. I’ll make a note.” Katherine had been right then when she’d said that his acceptance of his incarceration had been about saying what people wanted to hear. Now that his parole date was set, he could revert to type, and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone, including me, could do about it.

“Thank you.” There was bitterness in the way he said it, but then he took a deep breath and seemed to calm himself. “I apologize if I scared you. That wasn’t my intention. I just get a little het up when the subject of my guilt comes up. I think any man would be resentful after serving seven years for something he didn’t do.”

I twisted the pen in my fingers, keeping my gaze fixed on the form while I tried to work out the right words to soothe the man sitting opposite me. I was blank, though, my usual breeziness deserting me when I needed it most.

“You don’t believe me.” The words had bite, Felix punctuating them with a sharp laugh. “I should be used to it by now. No one ever believes me. I wonder if it would have been different if I were younger. I was twenty-four at the time, old enough that I was supposed to know what Julian was up to. To know that he wasn’t just cheating on me, that he was apparently capable of murder.”

“And Julian was...?” I knew who he was, but I wanted to hear the details from him.

“My boyfriend. We had something of a tempestuous relationship. I tried to leave him more than once. If only I’d gone through with it, things might have been different.”

An awkward silence followed, neither of us seeming to know where we were supposed to go from here. Eventually, when it had dragged on for long enough, I cleared my throat. “Your history doesn’t matter.”

“It matters.”

I conceded his point with an inclination of my head. “All I’m saying is that it’s the future we need to think about. You’re still young enough to make something of your life. And on that note, I wish you’d reconsider changing your name.”

“I’m not changing my name.”

Knowing it wasn’t an argument I was going to win, I closed the folder definitively. “We’ve discussed everything we need to today. Thank you for your time… Felix.” His name sounded all kinds of wrong on my lips, making me want to take it back immediately and revert to Mr. Church, no matter how much mockery I might get from him for doing so.

Felix stood when I did, the action far more controlled than the previous time. “Will you be there next week? When I get out, I mean?”

"Yes." I’d never wanted more to say no, but it had always been my policy to offer support from the first moment of release. And to retract that, would be an admission of how much he threw me off my game. He was like a storm, all wrapped up in a pretty and muscular package. There’d been an edge of vulnerability, though, when he’d talked about the past, and it was that edge that made me agree and say I would be there.

As I made my way out, I barely registered the locking and unlocking of the gates, my mind too consumed by the enigma that was Felix Church, and the equal measures of attraction and intimidation he’d engendered in me. There was no doubt in my mind that he would provide an enormous challenge in more ways than one. I could cope. I was a big boy. And at least from here on in, I’d know what to expect.

Back outside the prison gates, I leaned against my Toyota for a few minutes before getting back behind the wheel, letting the cool breeze blow away the last few strands of my agitation.