Page 36 of Your Pace or Mine (Running for the Romance #1)

Darius

F rom the moment he’d left Jamie standing in the rain, Darius had been plagued by nothing but regret. Regret for letting his heart get too attached to a man who could never love him back. Regret for the whole sordid affair. Regret for not waiting just one more moment to see if maybe he’d meant it.

Their kerbside blow-up hadn’t gone unnoticed, and the tabloids were on form. Fortunately, none of them quite caught on to the exact nature of the argument or mention of a fake dating scheme, but speculation was rife on the status of their relationship.

On Sunday, he was still angry at Jamie. He’d misled him about who he was, about why he needed positive press in the first place.

When Darius had overheard those two directors talking about Jamie as if he were a piece of meat to pass around, he had been ready to barge in and stop them from talking about him like that.

But when he’d gone back to the table, and heard Jamie arguing with that woman.

How he didn’t even deny using Darius. That was when he realised it was how Jamie operated, how he made his way through the world.

It made sense, really. Of course, he was using Darius; that’s what people did. God, his friend Cressida had said as much in the car on the way there, ‘Lock him down before tour,’ she’d told Jamie. He scoffed at his former naivety.

On Monday, Darius missed Jamie so much that even dragging himself out of bed for his morning run was a struggle.

He did it. Obviously.

But the whole time, he wondered if he was wrong. If he’d thrown away something special, something unique. Jamie had said he loved him, and Darius had walked away. It seemed… unforgivable .

On Tuesday, another headline came, bringing back the anger. This one painted Darius as pathetic, a poor excuse for a Marquess, for falling for someone chasing fame. They even posited it as a hereditary trait.

Jamie had caused this. If he had just been honest with Darius from the start, he’d have never agreed to their ridiculous arrangement.

And the things he’d said about Darius. He’d been cruel, cruel in a way Darius hadn’t realised he was capable of.

Still, he missed his constant presence. He missed his energy, the way he’d challenged him.

Wednesday’s article, though, broke Darius’s heart.

There was an exposé on Jamie splashed across the internet, a sordid tale of him seducing an engaged man, Stephen, from their table at the awards.

It talked about Jamie breaking hearts and using his body to substitute for what the article deemed a lack of any substantial talent .

It was brutal, and even in Darius’s emotional state, he could see it was patently untrue.

Jamie had talent in spades; whatever else he’d done, Darius knew he’d worked damn hard on his craft.

And, after hearing the way Stephen had bragged about his plan to get Jamie on tour again to his fellow director, well, he didn’t think that arsehole was the victim in this situation.

Tabloids, though, and British tabloids in particular, were vicious, and any scent of scandal, especially amongst the aristocracy, had them prowling like wolves.

This was, well, it was Darius’s fault, wasn’t it?

Jamie wouldn’t have faced this level of scrutiny if he hadn’t been noticed in the first place because of his relationship with Darius.

Sure, it was what he’d wanted, but he couldn’t have expected this kind of fallout.

And he’d left so dramatically, running away instead of facing up to his feelings.

No wonder it had caught the press’s attention.

This was why Darius didn’t do relationships. Any kind of social life wasn’t worth the pain he brought onto the people around him.

He went to bed early. Determined not to check the news the next day. He was just going to keep his head down, pace the marathon next week and hope that Anders had some miraculous change of heart in the meantime.

Fuck. The marathon.

There would be enough people in the 3:30 pace group, thousands probably, that he’d likely be able to avoid Jamie.

He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he saw him now.

He wondered, had he not reacted so harshly, if this was a storm they could have weathered together, at least as friends?

But now he’d probably lost even a shot at that.

In the days that followed, Darius threw himself into training harder than ever, avoiding all news outlets and potential interactions with other people. He was probably chasing injury at this rate, and Ellison would have killed him if he knew, but he’d finally taken his wife on that promised cruise.

It didn’t matter, it wasn’t like he had some major event coming up or anything—sitting the London Marathon out was starting to feel like a well-deserved punishment. Darius screened all of his calls. Unable to bear the thought of speaking to anyone at all.

No, Darius avoided everything in the best way he knew how. He did nothing but run, stretch and lift for days on end. Two-a-day workouts became three or even four, anything to avoid thinking about Jamie.

With less than a week to go until the marathon, Jackson had finally returned from altitude camp. True to form, he’d shown up completely unannounced at Darius’s door.

“Can’t leave you alone for a damn minute, can I?” Jackson said as he pulled Darius into a tight hug.

Jackson dragged him into the kitchen and started pulling mugs and tea out of Darius’s cupboard. Darius remained silent as Jackson bustled about, leaving a mess in his wake that was almost impressive for someone who only needed to boil water and toss some tea bags into cups.

“What the hell happened?” Jackson asked. “You realise your baby sister called me, panicking that you won’t answer your phone.”

A hint of guilt crept up on Darius. He shouldn’t have been surprised. One ignored Selena at their own peril; she’d probably have shown up herself, if she weren’t stuck at school.

Darius fidgeted. He never bloody fidgeted. What was happening to him?

“What the hell is going on, Darius?” Jackson prompted.

“I think you might need to be more specific.”

“With Jamie!” Jackson shouted. “One minute you’re all, ‘he’s it for me, Jax, I’m going to tell him,’ and the next I’m seeing articles about a breakup and how he’s some modern-day gay lothario, and you aren’t answering when I ring. The fuck, mate?”

Darius felt himself sink into one of the rarely used kitchen chairs. “It was horrible.”

“Is any of it true? What they’ve been saying?” Jackson asked.

“Sort of, some of it,” Darius replied. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated my arse,” Jackson said. “That man bloody loved you, and you know it. If you had a fight, you need to fix it.”

“I don’t think it can be fixed, Jax. Some things are too broken to fix.”

Jackson wasn’t having it. “Well, this isn’t one of those things.”

“He was just using me, Jackson!” Darius exploded. “For the press, the attention, fuck, for the money even.”

“You said he wouldn’t take a penny from you. Complained about it even!” Jax argued.

Darius glared. “Can’t you take my side for like five minutes? You’re genuinely the worst friend.”

“Love you too, babe. Now tell us what happened.”

So Darius did. The whole thing. From the agreement to the dates, and the sex, and how he’d fallen so damn hard he could barely think straight.

And the night it all went wrong, from the car with Cressida and how he found out about everything the papers had been reporting through an overheard conversation.

Jackson let out a low whistle when he finished. “In fairness, that does sound quite bad, but it just doesn’t add up to me,” Jackson insisted. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that is something he’s done in the past.”

“It is,” Darius grouched. “You saw the articles.”

“Okay, so for argument’s sake, the tabloids have got something right. Doesn’t mean he’d do it again. Doesn’t mean he was using you, does it?”

Darius was silent for a moment, allowing himself to fully process what Jackson had said. “But why would he say he loved me then? If it wasn’t to get something from me?” he asked, voice quiet and unsteady.

Jackson sighed. “Darius Hewitt. You are a goddamn idiot. Do you really have no idea how many people love you? How many people just want to be around you for who you are? You’re a fucking great man, Darius. You’re driven and intelligent and thoughtful and fucking sexy.”

Darius’s cheeks burned, and he ducked his head.

“No, listen,” Jackson continued. “I know you don’t see it, I know it’s been drilled into you that all anyone wants from you is a payout, but you have so much more to offer, and I know Jamie saw that. He’d have had to be fucking stupid not to.”

Silence fell over them as Jackson finished. The words sank in slowly as Darius’s tea grew tepid. He sipped it absentmindedly, as he thought.

“But if he didn’t want something from me... then do you think he meant it?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

“Oh fuck,” Darius hunched in on himself. He felt physically ill. “And I, I... Jackson, I was horrible to him, and then I just left.”

Over the past few days, Darius had oscillated between anger at Jamie’s deception and deep-seated sadness over not having him in his life.

Now, he found himself sinking into a new reality.

One where he had thrown away his chance at a meaningful relationship.

Where the man he loved had said those words to him, and he’d thrown them back in his face.

A reality he didn’t think there was any coming back from.

That was what he needed to face; there might be no coming back from this at all. “Jackson, I don’t think there’s anything I could say to him to make this okay.”

“Well, you’re going to have to figure out something, because you can’t be this mopey for the next four months; Olympic training will be unbearable.”

Darius felt like he’d lost the thread of their conversation. “What are you talking about?”

Jackson gently took the empty mug from Darius’s hands and busied himself tidying for a moment.

Darius spent the brief interlude musing over what he could possibly say to Jamie to go back to where they were, or even start over.

Darius knew he didn’t deserve a second chance, but maybe he could, one day.

“Come on, mate. I know you’re down about Jamie, but you’ve got to remember why this all started in the first place. The Olympics, Darius, you’ve been working towards this forever.”

The Olympics had been his dream since he was small, but now, the idea of competing at that level seemed to pale in comparison to the cloud of doom he was ensconced within. When Darius was silent, Jackson continued.

“Anders is still not coming around on you, but the rest of the selection committee are,” he began.

“All this media attention lately, well, even the most press-wary of the selectors have seen something about you lately. Anders’s whole argument against you centred around your ‘making other athletes uncomfortable,’ he really pushed the homophobia idea, even if he didn’t say it outright…

and now, well, you made him look daft in front of the other selectors. ”

“You think they’ll override his vote?”

“I think they’ll convince him to see things their way. If begrudgingly. You just need one more big push.”

“Like what? I don’t exactly have a relationship to flaunt anymore,” he sighed.

Jackson laughed. “Is that what you were doing, flaunting your relationship with dates in hidden restaurants and holing up in your townhouse?”

Jackson might have had a point, for all that they’d intended to use their fake relationship to generate publicity, they’d quite deftly avoided too much of the spotlight up until the catastrophic awards night. Still, fake or not, there was no relationship to speak of now.

Jackson smiled. “My vote is for a grand gesture.”

“Your vote is always for a grand gesture, Jax,” Darius replied with genuine fondness for his friend’s sunny outlook.

But he didn’t have an idea for one of those grand gestures Jax was so fond of.

“I’ll think about it.”

That was the most he could offer right now.

Before leaving, Jackson stopped him once more. “Do, because if you don’t come up with something, you could end up losing out on the Olympics and Jamie.”

Darius felt frozen after Jackson left. He didn’t know what to do.

He leaned against the counter and tried to open Jamie’s Instagram, but it came up as User Not Found.

He’d blocked him. The only evidence of Jamie still existing was on Cressida’s profile, where she’d posted another call to support his fundraiser.

Darius clicked.

It looked like it was nearly there. Maybe that was one thing the added publicity from the last few days, however negative, hadn’t hurt.

Darius had never believed the saying ‘all press is good press.’ He’d been burned too hard, too young for that.

At least in this case, though, something good seemed to have come of it.

His finger hovered over the donate button.

He might not be able to get Jamie back, but at least he could ease this one burden for him.