Page 28 of Broken Promises (Soho Knights #5)

PATRICK

Jason: I’m home safe with Charlie and Paolo. Will call you soon xxx.

That had been three days ago. The term “soon” was far too subjective.

He didn’t want to come across as pushy, but the silence was driving him crazy.

Patrick was supposed to be the daddy, yet Jason was clearly the one in charge.

He just needed to know Jason was okay, and that would only be satisfied by seeing him with his own eyes.

Sebastian had advised him to be patient, which was a skill Patrick had in droves, but something in his gut told him that keeping his distance from Jason was a mistake.

Patrick still had the envelope Grant had left.

He hadn’t looked at its contents, and wouldn’t, but he knew they needed to talk about it.

There was no way he was giving that kind of power to Grant Kincaid.

The man didn’t deserve someone like Jason, though Patrick couldn’t argue that the guy wasn’t objectively handsome.

He’d seen it for years in his career– the bad boy always got their guy, or girl, even when they didn’t deserve to– but not this time.

His diary was also in disarray. Milo was off sick, and all he’d had was a garbled voice message saying he wasn’t feeling well.

It had sounded like he was crying, but perhaps he was in pain with some kind of stomach infection.

Milo could stay where he was, especially if he was infectious, but it had become clear in the last twenty-four hours just how much crap Milo kept away from him.

As soon as he was back, he was getting a pay increase.

Patrick had received some more pictures of the deputy prime minister that were even more sexually explicit.

It wasn’t clear if it was the same man he was with as before, but again, it was just the pictures and no note.

Patrick got out his magnifier, trying to see if there was a way to identify the mystery man, but they’d been cropped expertly. There was no way to tell who it was.

“I think this is what you’re looking for,” said a voice, which snapped his attention up.

A dozen more photos were dropped on his desk. He looked up to see the grinning face of Grant Kincaid.

“How did you get in here?”

“I just walked in, and as your assistant is at home licking his wounds, I didn’t even get stopped outside your door.”

Grant took a seat and had the audacity to put his feet up on Patrick’s desk. He was tempted to call security, but they’d let him in, so who knew if they’d even be on Patrick’s side, and his journalist’s brain wanted to hear what he had to say. It was then something clicked from what Grant had said.

“What do you mean by Milo licking his wounds?”

Grant gestured to the photos. Patrick inspected them. They were the same pictures he’d received over the last month, but this time the mystery man wasn’t cropped out. It was Milo.

“What the fuck?” was all he could say.

“You’re welcome,” said Grant.

“For what?”

“Giving you the biggest story of the year, and I don’t even want paying. ”

“What makes you think I’d run this? I don’t believe in outing people.”

“That’s admirable, but I think you’ll run the story.

If you don’t, I’ll send these pictures to all of your competitors.

How will it look if everyone else but you prints the story, and the mystery man is your assistant?

Won’t look too good for you now, will it?

Playing favourites when it’s in the public interest to know that the deputy prime minister has a fetish for being railed by twinks. ”

Patrick felt sick. Grant was right. If he didn’t publish the story and everyone else did, their reputation would be fucked. If he ran the story, it could destroy Milo’s life. There was no win out of this situation. Grant had to want something else.

“This is about Jason, isn’t it?”

“Knew you were a smart man, Patrick. Look, he’s my husband, and he’s had his fun. Now he needs to come home with me.”

“What makes you so certain he even wants to be with you?”

“I’m ready to forgive him for what he did to me. I know he didn’t mean to cheat on me. I was away a lot on business, and that boy loves getting dicked down, doesn’t he?”

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

“He’s my husband, Patrick. You’re the one who’s fucking a married man.”

“Wait. Did you just say he cheated on you?”

“You really didn’t look at the envelope, did you? Very honourable. But it doesn’t change the fact he cheated on me, and not just once, it was multiple times.”

Patrick was speechless. Jason had cheated on Grant? His sweet boy was a cheater? He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. The boy he’d fallen in love with would never do something like that.

“I think I should talk to Jason first. ”

“Just look in the envelope and there’ll be all the evidence you need. I know what happened to your mother, Patrick.”

“You keep her out of this,” he snapped.

This was all getting too much. The revelation about Milo, Jason being a cheater, and now Grant knew about his mother...

“Does Jason know why she killed herself?”

“I told you to keep her out of it,” he shouted.

“Got a temper on you. Has Jason been pushing your buttons as well? That boy loves a spanking, doesn’t he? Did he tell you he’s never had a daddy before? He was bullshitting you. He used to love calling me daddy when I tied him down and fucked him for hours.”

“Get the fuck out!” shouted Patrick.

This got the attention of others and two security guards appeared.

“Just think about what I’ve said, Patrick. You’ve got a week to break things off, or those pictures get distributed.”

Grant stood up with a smile, unfazed by the security guards. One went to touch his arm, but the look from Grant had him cowering away.

“Just look in the envelope, Patrick. Maybe then you’ll believe everything I’ve told you.”

He left with the security guards, and Patrick closed his office door and locked it, not wanting to be disturbed by anyone.

Every instinct in his body was telling him to ignore everything Grant had told him.

It had been done to inflict pain, and he’d succeeded.

But if Jason had cheated on Grant, and done it repeatedly, then how could Patrick ever trust him?

He’d seen what repeated infidelity did to his own mother, and how she’d felt there was no other way out.

And what had his shithead father done in response? Brought his latest tart to the funeral.

Patrick knew he needed to hear Jason’s side of the story before he believed a word from Grant, but he had the supposed evidence in his desk drawer.

Against his better judgement, he pulled the envelope out and saw it was printouts.

There was a sense of relief that they weren’t photographs of Jason with other men.

That relief was short-lived when he saw there were screenshots of messages between someone using TwinkBoy as a profile name and a faceless torso picture.

Looking closer, he could see the freckles he’d explored with his tongue.

There was no doubt it was Jason in the photo.

There were pages and pages of screenshots of online conversations, with at least a dozen different men, some of them going on for months.

Some messages were sweet– it was clear Jason was lonely– but others were explicit, and the men he was talking to were getting frustrated that he wouldn’t meet them.

Patrick spent over an hour reading everything, going through every emotion. There was a sense of sadness in many of the messages. From what he’d seen, Jason just wanted somebody to talk to, and his husband didn’t seem to be an option. Why was that?

This changed nothing. Jason had never physically cheated.

Was there a moral issue with what he’d done?

Yes. But he knew Jason, and that boy had such a beautiful heart that something had to have happened for him to be pushed into doing this.

Patrick needed to talk to him, but Jason was still being quiet.

He had to think of a way to speak to Jason without him feeling blindsided, but he also wanted to respect his need for space.

It would be difficult, but he could give him a bit longer if that’s what his boy needed.

After another three days, Patrick’s patience was done.

Still no contact from Jason, so he needed to take action.

He’d spoken with Milo, who had begged him not to print the story.

What was he supposed to do? There was no way he was giving up Jason.

If every other newspaper got the story and Patrick didn’t run it, he’d be fired.

There was no question about it. If the owner found out he’d sat on a huge story like this and done nothing, he’d be done for.

Maybe it was time to retire? What the fuck was he talking about?

He was only forty-three. He had another twenty good years in him.

Jason hadn’t been to work all week, according to Sebastian, but he couldn’t get any more out of his friend.

All Sebastian did was keep reminding Patrick to give Jason time, but with Grant’s deadline looming, that wasn’t an option.

It was the weekend, so he would walk from his flat to Jason’s, which would take him about forty minutes.

It was still bitterly cold, but that was February in the UK.

Winter could last until April in some years. At least it wasn’t raining.

The South Bank was milling with tourists who were entranced by Tower Bridge, given it was open for a ship to pass through.

He’d seen it a hundred times, and the only thing he felt now was irritation, as it meant a delay in getting over to the north side of the river.

He took London Bridge instead, wanting to walk through the city.

It was always like a ghost town on the weekend, and preferable to the tourist areas when he was playing out how his conversation with Jason would go in his head.