Page 71 of Your Pace or Mine
Darius stared at Jamie, almost blankly, for a moment before he turned and opened the door of the waiting car. With a short nod, he climbed into the back and disappeared into the winding London streets.
Jamie stood there for what could have been minutes or hours in the dark street, watching long after the man he loved had been spirited away, unsure if he regretted it all or not.
Chapter 18
Darius
1 week to the London Marathon
From 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 theirrelationship.
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 alack 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, andBritish 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?
