The Law of Attraction (6 page)

Alec was on his way back from a meeting with the guys in Real Estate when he took a detour to the bathroom. The sight of a familiar figure at the urinals sent a jolt of nerves through him. This might not be the ideal place to talk, but they were currently alone and it was the best chance he’d had all day without anyone overhearing them.

He shifted his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. Luckily, Ed was finishing, zipping himself back up, so Alec didn’t have to wait like a creepy lurker for long. “Hi,” he said as Ed turned around and saw him standing there, just inside the closed door that led out to the corridor.

“Am I allowed to talk to you now?” Ed’s voice had an edge to it as he walked over to the sinks and started washing his hands. He met Alec’s gaze in the mirrors, his blue eyes challenging.

“I don’t think having this conversation in our office space would be in either of our best interests, do you?” Alec clenched his fist in his pocket, irritated by Ed’s attitude, by his very presence that threatened Alec’s orderly existence.

Ed shook the water off his hands and used a paper towel to dry them. “Well, you’d better make it quick.” He balled the towel up and threw it into the bin with perfect aim. He turned and leaned back against the sinks, arms folded, waiting.

Alec bit down on his rising annoyance, determined not to give Ed the upper hand in this situation. “I just wanted to make sure you realise it would be a very bad idea to let anyone know about what happened on Friday night.” He gritted his teeth, willing himself not to flush as he alluded to their night together.

Ed’s cheeks were pink and his eyes glittered in the bright spotlights that were positioned in the ceiling. “I already told you I wouldn’t,” he said tightly. “I’m not completely stupid. I want to focus on work and do my job. I’m hardly going to go around bragging that I’ve fucked my new boss.”

His words made bright anger pour through Alec, and heat flooded his face and neck. He opened his mouth to retort, but Ed spoke again before he could find the words.

“Look. I don’t want anyone to know either. Not because I’m ashamed of my sexuality, but our little encounter on Friday night doesn’t make for a fun anecdote that I’ll be sharing with my new colleagues. I’m a professional, and I’m planning on behaving like one.”

“Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.” Alec relaxed a little at Ed’s assurances.

“I presume you’re not out at work, then?” Ed raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not out full stop.” Alec met Ed’s blue gaze and saw it soften, almost imperceptibly.

Ed paused for a moment before he spoke again. “That sounds lonely. But don’t worry. I’m not going to out you.”

Somehow Alec knew he could trust him. He nodded and swallowed around a lump that had appeared in his throat. “Thanks.”

“But just so you know, I’m not planning on pretending to be anything I’m not. People often assume anyway.” Ed shrugged. “I’m not very good at flying under people’s gaydar.”

Alec’s lips quirked. “I can imagine.” There was a flamboyance to Ed, a brightness he didn’t try to hide.

“These days, when it comes up, I tell people. I prefer to be upfront about it. I wouldn’t have minded being in the closet at school, but it wasn’t really an option.” The tone in Ed’s voice made it clear he wasn’t joking.

“They gave you a hard time?”

“You could say that.”

There was a long silence. Alec wanted to ask Ed to elaborate, but this wasn’t the time or the place for a lengthy conversation. He knew from his own experiences at school how ruthless kids could be in making life miserable for anyone they perceived as different. Alec had escaped that himself. He had fit the masculine stereotype, and it was easy to pretend to be fascinated by girls, when in an all-boys boarding school, he naturally had very little contact with the opposite sex. He remembered how it had been for boys who had drawn unwanted attention by being gender non-conforming. The irony was that most of the boys who were teased for being queer at school were probably straight. Outward appearances were frequently deceptive, and half the boys doing the teasing weren’t averse to a bit of mutual masturbation on occasion, whatever their sexuality. All those teenage hormones made for a melting pot of sexual confusion.

“You should get back to your desk.” Alec hadn’t intended for it to come out as a dismissal, but the shutters came down on Ed’s face immediately, and the brief moment of connection they’d shared was over.

“Of course.” Ed straightened up from his position against the sinks and moved towards the door.

When he reached it, Alec called after him. “Ed?” Ed turned. “Thanks.”

Ed nodded in acknowledgement, and then he pulled the door open and was gone.

Alec was sitting at his desk.

The rest of Alec’s team had packed up and gone home. Ed had been among the last to leave, staying until nearly half past eight to finish the filing James had given him to do.

He’d left with a wave and a tentative smile. “See you in the morning.”

Alec had raised a hand and made himself smile back.

He sighed and rubbed his temples, the familiar ache indicating he’d overdone the screen time. He saved and closed the document he was working on, shut down his laptop, and then started to pack away the things he needed to finish this evening from home.

Alec
was
lonely.

Loneliness was such a fundamental fact of his life that Alec rarely paid attention to it anymore. But ever since the conversation with Ed earlier, in the bathroom, Ed’s words kept replaying in his head on a loop:
That sounds lonely
.

Alec had good relationships with his colleagues, just as with the friends he had socialised with at university. Yet hiding a significant part of himself meant he inevitably kept people at a distance. It was hard to develop any sort of close friendship while constantly worrying about giving away his secret.

Usually it didn’t bother him that he was so emotionally isolated. He’d had a challenging relationship with both his parents at the best of times. He’d never been particularly close to his younger brother, Caspar, either. Despite being only two years apart in age, they were very different in temperaments and interests. Caspar had been the wild rebel, whereas Alec had always tried to toe the line.

Alec leaned wearily against the wall of the lift as it descended to the ground floor, lost in unhappy memories.

Desperate to please his demanding father, Alec had worked hard at school and achieved what was expected of him. But it had all fallen apart in his final year at school on the day his housemaster had gone on the prowl looking for boys smoking illicit cigarettes in the shrubbery. He got more than he bargained for when he found Alec getting sucked off by Harris, one of the fifth-formers, a pretty boy with long eyelashes and a mouth like a vacuum cleaner.

Unfortunately for Alec and Harris, their public school—one of the top five in England—had been working hard to clean up its reputation after an old boy had published a scandalous memoir the year before. Prior to that unfortunate publicity, they might have got away with a stern warning. But now the game had changed. The headmaster was informed, their parents were called, and both boys were expelled immediately.

The fallout had been ugly. Alec preferred not to remember the hour he’d spent in his father’s study the day his parents brought him home. He still carried the scars from it—on his skin as well as in his psyche—and thinking about it still made him nauseous.

He’d only had a few months to go until his A levels, and he’d already had an unconditional offer from Oxford. Rather than sending him to another school halfway through the year, his father had kept him at home with a tutor. Alec suspected it was so that his parents could keep an eye on him.

Alec’s already difficult relationship with his parents had become intolerable during those few months. His father’s disappointment and obvious disgust was hard for Alec to bear, and his mother had hovered on the edges of their antagonism, trying not to get involved. Eventually, Alec managed to convince his father it meant nothing—it was only a bit of youthful, hormone-driven stupidity.

I’m not gay
.

Everyone knew things like that happened at public school. Alec’s only mistake was getting caught.

Afterwards, Alec made damn sure he never got caught again.

He stepped out into the cold evening air and breathed in deeply. The scent of city streets and car exhaust made him long for the clean air of the countryside. Maybe once he’d closed this deal, he could have a weekend away in a place where buildings didn’t block the sky.

CHAPTER FOUR

“So, how did it go?” Fiona asked as soon as Ed got through the door of their flat.

“Uh. Okay… sort of.” Ed didn’t even stop to take his coat and shoes off before collapsing on the sofa in the living room. He paused to gather his thoughts, and Fiona spoke again before he could elaborate.

“I made some soup, there’s enough for you if you want?”

“Oh God, yes please.” Ed’s stomach growled at the thought of food, and he realised it was about eight hours since he’d eaten lunch.

Fiona studied him, a mixture of sympathy and amusement on her face. “You look knackered. I’ll heat some up for you while you get out of that suit, then you can tell me about your day.”

Five minutes later, Ed had curled up on the sofa again, dressed in slobbing-around-at-home clothes with a hot mug of soup and toasted cheese sandwiches.

“You’re an actual angel,” he told Fiona. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, tell me what it was like. I want to know everything.”

“Well… it was what you’d expect. Swanky offices, terrifyingly efficient people everywhere. But it was amazing too. I’m so excited just about being there, about being part of the organisation. This is what I’ve always wanted. I still can’t believe I’m doing it.” Ed paused to sip his soup. He was deliberately saving the best of his story till last. Ed couldn’t resist spinning it out for maximum drama. If his life was going to be a soap opera—and apparently it was turning out that way—then he was damn well going to enjoy spilling the juicy details.

“And your boss?” Fiona asked.

“Yeah, about him….” Ed side-eyed her and felt the curl of his lips give him away. He had no idea why he was laughing. It wasn’t funny. It was a fucking nightmare, to be honest, but he had to laugh about it—because crying wasn’t going to help. “Remember the guy I fucked on Friday night?”

She frowned. “Mr Tall, Dark, and Sexy? Sure, I remember—” The light dawned and her expression turned from confusion to half horror, half glee. “Nooooo!” She covered her mouth with her hands, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.

“Yep.”

“Oh my God. Oh. My.
God
!”

Ed nodded. That pretty much summed up his thoughts on it. He’d been reeling ever since he first clapped eyes on Alec that morning. What were the chances? Of all the guys in London he could have picked up, it had to be his new boss.

“Did he recognise you? Did he say anything? Holy fuck, this is huge! Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course he recognised me!” Ed said, offended. “He ignored me all day, and then he got me alone in the toilets and warned me not to say anything to anyone—like I would. But I think he’s as freaked out as I am, maybe even more because he’s in the closet. I actually felt a little sorry for him, even though he was a bit of an arsehole about it.”

“Wow. Is he married or what?”

Ed’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t even considered that. “I don’t think so?” Alec’s flat had looked like the home of a bachelor, and unlike James, Alec had no photos on his desk of a wife and children. “No. I’m pretty sure he isn’t. But he’s definitely not out, at work or anywhere. He told me.”

“So with you showing up, he must be shitting himself.”

“Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I told him I wouldn’t say anything, and he seemed to relax a little. But it’s going to be very weird working with him with that hanging over us.”

“And you liked him too.”

Fiona cut right to the heart of Ed’s dilemma. Because despite everything, he couldn’t help feeling drawn to Alec. They’d been such a good fit sexually. His body responded to Alec even when his brain told him it was a terrible idea. And during the conversation in the toilets, he’d seen a flash of vulnerability in Alec that only made him more appealing. The chink in Alec’s armour had showed Ed a hint of a lonely man, and it made Ed want to get closer to him. If things were different, he’d probably be tempted to try.

“Yeah, well. He’s my boss now, so I’ll have to let that go. This job is my priority.”

Ed’s first week at Baker Wells flew by in a blur. The learning curve was like scaling Everest, but it was thrilling to be working at such a prestigious firm. Alongside the mundane duties of filing, copying, and coffee making that fell to him as the newest on the team, Ed also had to read vast quantities of paperwork to get him up to speed with the deal the team was working on.

He worked twelve-or-more-hour days alongside the rest of the team and barely had the energy to do anything other than shower, eat, and sleep when he was at home. He tried watching TV with Fiona in the evening a couple of times, but inevitably dozed off within a few minutes of sitting still.

The atmosphere between him and Alec still felt tense to Ed, but nobody else in the team seemed to pick up on it. Their interactions were strictly work related, and every time Alec spoke to him, Ed’s heart rate picked up a notch, and when he caught Alec’s piercing gaze on him, it made the back of his neck prickle with heat. Alec was so bloody attractive, and having known him in the biblical sense, it was very hard to see him as just a colleague now. Ed’s traitorous libido wanted more.

By late afternoon on Friday, Ed was light-headed with exhaustion. He was sitting at his desk, supposedly proofreading a letter that needed to go out on Monday, but his eyes kept glazing over. Ed dragged his gaze up to the window and stared at the darkening sky. He left home in the mornings before it was light, and he got home in darkness too. Thank goodness the office had large windows. But he missed getting outdoors in daylight hours.