by Clare London
“His background. All that shit with his parents?” Matt hazarded a guess.
“I… yes. I wasn’t sure he’d told you.” She looked very surprised. “He doesn’t usually tell anyone. I always thought—”
“He’d blocked it out?” Matt nodded. He’d seen the effort it took for Joel to tell him about his past. The pain was still real, still current. They stood in silence for a moment. Matt was a jumble of confused emotions. He wanted to run—and yet he dreaded leaving. His thoughts of Joel were a mix of hatred, disappointment, desire, need, and love. Dammit, the love was still there. The conflict was agonizing. “What’s going to happen to the project?”
“I don’t know.” Teresa’s eyes were damp with threatening tears. “He’s still talking about surrendering it.”
“The whole thing?” Matt was stunned. “Pull Starsmith out completely?”
“I don’t know. He cares so much about Project Palace, he can’t bear the fact it’s being cheapened. Being ridiculed.”
“Jesus, it’s just a couple of videos. And the final jewelry will be so much better anyway. That teddy shirt was a pale imitation, from what I can see in the video.”
“You’ve seen it?”
Matt had the grace to blush. He was so out of social media, he’d had to download the YouTube app from scratch, but he’d wanted to know what the fuss was about. “Looked it up while I’ve been waiting for the cab. And to me, it didn’t look like the designs were an exact copy. At least, not of what we’re working on at the moment, the final version. You can tell, or at least anyone in the team would if you challenged them. The leaves are too sketchy, and we’ve recently changed the position of the diamonds.” He let a sad chuckle escape. “But Joel is spectacular, I must say. I didn’t know he had that level of fury in him.”
Teresa grimaced. “And that’s a positive for you?”
“Yes, actually. He’s letting go of that cool façade he carries around all the time. Letting his feelings rip, expressing his true emotions, not thinking about how he has to act or move or sound. Just surrendering to it all. Though maybe not in the middle of a London souvenir shop, right? But I liked seeing that. I liked it a hell of a lot. It’s the real him, you know? The Joel Sterling that no one sees very often.” When he looked back at Teresa, her eyes were soft with some inexplicable emotion, and her cheeks a little pink. “What did I say?” She shook her head as if he should know the answer already, but he was damned if he did.
“Matt, please don’t go. By all means, go home today, but don’t give up on Starsmith completely. He’ll need you.”
Matt remembered that cold, accusatory look in Joel’s eyes. Joel Sterling, need him? Matt couldn’t even imagine. “Not if the project’s abandoned. Lost.” He was startled to realize how disappointed he felt about that. Not just for the glory of working for the Royal Family, but for losing the time he’d had so far, the friends he’d begun to make. Getting closer to Joel.
Believing, even for a second, they might have a future together.
What a bloody fool he’d been!
Chapter Twenty-One
IN the end, Matt decided not to go to Norfolk that night, however much he wanted to escape there. The whole episode had made it really awkward to continue staying with Dan, on many levels, so he went back to the flat while all the guys were mercifully out at work, packed up his gear, and left a note that he was moving on. Moving on. Maybe not as easy as it might once have been.
But now he’d been forced to face up to it. Firstly, he was not going to go crawling for his job! He wasn’t going to sit hunched in front of the tiny TV screen in the local hotel he checked into, feeling sorry for himself. He wasn’t going to sit with his phone in his hand for the rest of the day and on into the evening, wondering if he should—or could—find an excuse to phone the team to see what was going on.
But that’s what he found himself doing.
He should be feeling vindicated, because he’d known he would never fit in the glamorous, shallow, cutthroat world of London’s jewel trade and—look!—he’d been proved right. They had never accepted him. They’d never respected him as much as they respected profit and prestige. Yes, he knew he had talent, but it wasn’t about the art, was it? Not really. It was about what a person could get out of another person, and the financial gain involved. And Starsmith was a business, first and foremost.
Joel said he loved the beauty, not just the money.
Matt gritted his teeth. It had just been a line, to get Matt to work with them. All the talk about beauty and enduring style and the wonderful lessons that could be learned from past craftsmen—Joel had sounded sincere, true. But a sincere spiel could be manufactured as smoothly as metal could be molded. Surely Joel wasn’t lying when he said he was falling for Matt? Christ, the thought of that hurt so much.
But someone stole my design.
Yes. That hurt, definitely. That made him bloody angry. But there wasn’t much he could do about it, now it was out there in the marketplace. If Joel bloody Sterling was so bloody concerned about keeping his credibility and exclusivity, he should have taken better bloody care of it in the first place—
Joel’s hurting too.
For God’s sake. Matt was arguing with his own brain now. His pain at being so betrayed was mixed up with anger at all the stupid pillocks—those who’d stolen his designs and those who’d thought it was funny to post a man’s distress online for all to laugh at. There was no excuse for Joel having been such a shit to him. But the look in Joel’s eyes in that video… the bleak pain and awful humiliation as he’d faced the team, with the news that they’d possibly lost the best work they’d ever had….
That made him angry too.
That wasn’t the Joel he wanted to see. He wanted the man who’d taunted him in bed, who’d lifted his legs to pull him closer, who’d grinned at him from under a sweaty fringe, with lips red from kisses, stubble burn starting up on his jaw, and eyes shining with challenge and desire as he moved in and out of Matt’s body.
He wanted Joel, the man who ran a successful company, whom his team admired and respected, who would stride with Matt out into a muddy field just to see what had Matt so excited. Who gave his team credit for all their hard work, who cared about his company’s reputation above his own, who cared about giving two men in love the very best accompaniment to their wedding.
When his phone buzzed with an incoming call, Matt picked up reluctantly. He wasn’t sure he was up to Gary’s call tonight.
“You seen YouTube, mate?”
No need to ask what Gary was talking about. Presumably Gary and Caro’s boys were online every minute they weren’t doing homework or working on the farm. No chance the debacle would have passed them by. “Yeah, I’ve seen it. Joel all but accused me of being behind it.”
“So I guess you walked out?”
“Yes, I bloody did.” Of course he did! What did they expect?
Gary’s voice went in and out of hearing. “No, I’m handling this…. Caro, stop that! No, wait—”
Caro came on the line, to a background noise of Gary yelping with outrage.
“What did you do to him?” Matt asked.
She chuckled. “I stamped on his toes until he gave me the phone. He’s fine. He has another foot.”
It gave Matt the first laugh he’d had for hours. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it tonight. I know you weren’t expecting me this weekend, but I’ll get a train up tomorrow—”
“No, you won’t!” she snapped. “You’ll stay and sort this out, Matt Barth. That’s what your dad expects of his family.”
Now it was Matt’s turn to be outraged. “You can’t tell me what Dad would want me to do. And as for staying to sort things out, I don’t think he’s one to talk—”
“Matt? Are you there, son?”
Bloody hell, now it was Dad on the line. Matt could imagine them all huddling over the kitchen table in the farmhouse, squabbling over whose turn it was next to harangue Matt. “Are you all ganging
up on me or something? I’m the one’s been accused of industrial espionage. I’m the one treated like shit. And by….” No, he couldn’t say that aloud. By a man I thought was in love with me.
“I need to talk to you, son. Get on Skype right now,” his dad barked.
Blimey, what now? Matt fiddled with his phone until he had his Skype window up and a picture of Gary and Caro’s kitchen in view. There was a long, weird minute where they settled the laptop—one of the dogs’ ears flapped into view, then out, and Caro’s shoulders filled the screen totally for a moment—then his dad was there, frowning at him.
“You okay?” Matt searched quickly and hopefully surreptitiously for signs Dad was unwell, but his concern was blatantly ignored.
“This vendetta you think you have to maintain with Starsmith,” his dad said abruptly.
Vendetta? Matt had almost forgotten the anger he’d been nursing when he first went to Starsmith—until today had brought it all back. The accusation in Joel’s eyes, the suspicion raising its ugly head between them again—
“You’ve got it all wrong, son.”
“What?”
“I know you care about me, Matt. I know you were proud of the company, on my behalf. I know you thought it was all I had in life.”
Matt just stared. He hoped they’d attribute his dropped jaw to a glitch on the Skype screen.
“Tell him, Dad” came Caro’s voice, more gently than she’d spoken to Matt.
His dad sighed. “It was actually a relief to me. To sell the company, to pass over the management of all those old collections. Starsmith is a damned good company. I know there will be changes, but you and I made sure they kept on as many staff as they could. And they’ll treat the work you’ve done in the past with respect. The rest of it?” His dad snorted. “I don’t give a pig’s tit for it.”
Matt heard Caro’s robust laugh in the background. What exactly was going on here?
“It was the stress of all that that gave me the panic attacks, Matt. Yes, I’d been having them for a while, just never told you. I couldn’t get the books to balance, we hadn’t released anything new for years, and the retail business gets more and more cutthroat by the day.” He cleared his throat, and even on the little phone screen, Matt could see his eyes were suspiciously damp. “I was glad to give it up, to tell you the truth. Now I have the money and time to do other things with my life. And Matt?”
“Yes?” Matt said weakly.
“You can too.”
Jesus.
His father moved away, then came back into view. He was blowing his nose rather too robustly and his fingers clutched a large mug of tea as if he needed it to anchor him. “You angry with me, son?”
“Me? Of course not. I just… I got the wrong end of the stick.” For so long, he’d thought his father had been cheated, robbed, and discarded. Looked like he’d been wrong. That hurt. But Matt Barth had never been afraid to face being wrong, had he? “We’ll talk this through when I get home.”
His dad smiled encouragingly. “Yes. Next weekend is fine.”
“Well, like I told Caro, I can get a train tomorrow—”
“And like she told you, I want you to stay in London and get this thing sorted with Starsmith Stones. This is the best opportunity of your career, and if I know you half as well as I think, you’ll have thrown your heart and soul into designs for it. You deserve to get them in front of the client, to be proud of your work. Those royal boys will be bloody glad to have you.”
Matt felt stupidly proud. “But Joel and I…. Dad, we had a falling out. It was bad.” Even those simple words hurt to say.
“You’ll make amends. I know the man. He’s good.” His dad nodded firmly. “Young, and maybe not as tough as he pretends, but he’s a good man. You could do worse.”
“I… what has Caro been telling you?”
“Matt?” Caro came back into view, half scowling, half smirking. “Don’t tell me it’s still a secret you fancy the pants off him. You had your damn tongue out all the time he was here. Why d’you think Gary and I stayed out in the fields that day for so long? You’d better have made hay while the sun shone is all I can say.”
“Pigs, Caro. We keep pigs, we don’t farm wheat” came Gary’s mild complaint in the background.
Matt started to protest, “Maybe we had a moment, but now it’s all over.”
“Crap,” she said. “I know you too well. You don’t do moments. You’re not a one-night-stand kind of guy, Matt Barth. You’ve staked your claim, and the heart knows best. But you’ll never get anything off the ground with him if you come scuttling back here.”
Matt frowned. “I might as well. Joel thinks the palace will cancel the project because of the bad publicity.”
“More fool them!” his dad announced from over Caro’s shoulder. “They won’t do better than Joel Sterling with you on his side. I’d tell ’em so to their faces if I were anywhere near Buckingham Palace. So you’ll have to do it instead!”
“Me?” Matt spluttered. “What am I meant to do?”
“Sort things out,” his dad said, then softened his voice. “For the sake of the pair of you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
I WAS so wrong.
Late that evening, Joel found himself in the bar at Claridge’s, where he’d met Matt that very first time. When the man’s humor and looks had attracted him, when his conversation had captivated him. When the kiss they shared had woken Joel to the prospect of sharing himself with another man, for the first time in so long.
But he’d dodged in here tonight because he knew it was secluded, away from the London crowds outside. It was somewhere he could take stock of what a stupendously cruel, unfair, and pathetic bastard he’d shown himself to be that day, in front of everyone at Starsmith. It was somewhere he could hide.
Coward.
While he and Matt argued, the tension in the boardroom had been like a physical pain, a pressure in his head and his chest like a heavy weight. When Matt stormed out, the tension had lifted—but only to be replaced with total, abject misery. No one had said a word to Joel after Matt slammed the door behind him. No one moved to go after Matt, although Joel could see Teresa’s anguished expression, as if she didn’t know which of them needed her more. For a whole minute, everyone stood there stunned, Joel’s harsh words echoing in the total silence.
And then he’d left the room as well. Gone into hiding among the glamor and sophistication of a London hotel, where guests wandered in and out, some of them stopping for a drink, some of them meeting up with friends and colleagues. But tonight the bar was a shelter for him. No one approached, apart from the bar staff. No one asked what he was doing there. He couldn’t have chosen a better place to privately pull himself together and analyze what the hell he’d done.
Pathetic coward. And so, so wrong.
He’d known, even as he ranted, that Matt couldn’t have sold out the design. It was as precious to Matt as it was to Joel. Matt’s honesty and integrity had never been found wanting. He was fiercely loyal, fiercely protective of the team and Project Palace. He’d proved it at the palace reception, in his dealings with the team, in the companionship he’d shown Joel.
And Joel had thrown all that back in his face. What the fuck had possessed him?
He had no idea how long he’d sat at the bar. He’d left his phone in his jacket pocket over the back of the chair, and just couldn’t be bothered to check. The bartender was so efficient, every time Joel drained his glass, it was cleared away, the napkin replaced, the bar wiped down. Joel only wished this day could be wiped away that easily.
When he’d first arrived at Claridge’s, every man who passed through the doorway caught his eye. His heart had leapt every time—maybe it was Matt, somehow miraculously finding Joel in this unexpected place, like he’d found him the first time. He’d be demanding an apology or an explanation of Joel’s behavior, of course. Joel would have welcomed that. It was deserved, after all. But it never was Matt, and after a while, Joel
stopped reacting to new visitors to the bar. He would have known Matt’s tread; he would have heard Matt’s voice. He never realized how attuned he’d become to the man. Or how lonely he felt now he’d lost him.
Finally he was distracted by another voice, almost as familiar—Teresa’s. “Joel?”
He didn’t move from his seat, but out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Addam behind her. Was this an intervention? “I can’t talk to anyone at the moment.”
Teresa pulled up a tall stool and sat beside him, Addam doing the same on Joel’s other side. “You don’t need to, honey,” she said quietly. “Everyone in the office has gone home—I didn’t think you’d worry about anyone not putting in a full day today.”
“No. Of course I don’t.” There wasn’t much point to any future days either. “I’m the one who made a scene.”
“You were just caught unawares. It’s a kind of shock.”
“Teresa, please.” He didn’t need her to make excuses for him.
“You’re such a good boss, Joel. But you do that at the expense of yourself.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Too late to bite back the sharp edge to his words. He dropped his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”
“To be honest, boss,” Addam said, “it’s not entirely yours either. You’re wound up as tight as a spring waiting to bounce out of an opened ballpoint. Something was bound to give.”
Joel wanted to laugh at the visual. There were days he did feel like that, the stress like a knotted ball in his throat, his temper barely held in check at fellow commuters, his food as tasteless as sand. But he kept it all together—that was his job. He wasn’t going to be found wanting.
Teresa rested her head briefly on his shoulder. “You can talk to any of us, Joel. If it’s getting too much.”
“Thanks,” he said curtly. “I can cope on my own.”
She shook her head, unfazed. “I’m an orphan, Joel. Dylan and the kids are my only family, and we treasure each other because of it. I want you to know it’s not pity if I say I understand what it’s like not having your parents as a support, whatever your age. And I could see you were getting close to Matt. He would have—could have—given you that companionship instead. But then you thought you’d been let down. Betrayed.”