The King - S.R. Jones Page 0,29

8pm at Maxim’s.

I name the bar we sometimes used to meet at for drinks, before we got down to the fucking around that’s gotten me into this mess.

The place always reminds me of my friend from childhood, Maxim, a boy as talented with paints as he was with his imagination. Maxim was quiet, and sensitive in a lot of ways, and probably still lives in the shithole where we came from.

No, I’m at your office. Meet me now.

She’s at my office? Cheeky bitch.

No. Busy. Tonight, 8pm.

Three lines appear, disappear, and appear again before her next missive.

Screw you, K, I need to talk to you now. It’s urgent.

My thumb almost breaks my phone as I jab at the letters on my screen.

I don’t think that bump is going anywhere fast. I’m not at my office. I’m at work elsewhere. You either talk to me tonight, or not at all.

I wait as three dots appear and disappear once more, then finally, she says:

Fine. See you at Maxim’s.

I rub my temples and sigh. A few minutes ago, I was contemplating what delicious things I might get up to with Cassie, once she’s done what I need her to do, and now I’m facing fatherhood with a woman I can’t abide.

Fatherhood has been something I’ve both craved and dreaded. I crave it because I want to right the wrongs of my past, and I feel in Michael, my stepson, I have a least atoned for some of my mistakes. Biological fatherhood is a different matter, though. I dread it because my own father was the biggest fuck up you’d never wish to meet. He left my mother when she was heavily pregnant. He walked out on us, leaving her to try to survive with two kids and her mother-in-law. Yes, he was that shitty he left his own fucking mother too.

When the news of my success reached him many years later, he tried to crawl back into my life. I didn’t let him, but he took it badly. He was part of a break-in where my wife, Yulia, was raped and killed.

Him doing that, it killed something in me. The last remaining scrap of decency I had was shredded. I sent Vasily to deliver a message, both to my sperm-donor and the wider world. You fuck me or mine over, and you will die—horribly and slowly.

That’s who I am in my native Russia, but that wouldn’t work for me here. Now I wear a mask, a disguise. I go through this life shredding other people, other businesses the way he shredded me, but to look at me you’d think I'm a wealthy businessman. I’ve learned to make small talk; the British love this talking about empty things like the weather or the television. I’ve learned to offer bland smiles and fake reassurance. All the while, I make more money and gain more power, but what for?

I tell myself it’s for Michael. Now … could it all be for someone else? Someone who’s my own flesh and blood? It would be incredible, but with Liza as the mother, it would also be a curse.

Needing to move before I explode and smash up this room, I gather my things and head out of the boardroom. I storm into to the hallway and stalk through the open plan office.

Eyes follow me, and I notice Suzy, Cassie’s friend, watching. Cassie is busy working, head down. As I walk by, she glances up, and our eyes meet. I look away immediately.

If I’m about to become a father, I can’t fuck around with Cassie; no matter how much I want to. I always swore that no matter what I did in this life, no matter how depraved and violent, I would never be like my father and leave my kids in the lurch. You shouldn’t have kids unless you’re one hundred percent committed to both them and the woman you’re going to have them with. I’ve never met a woman I could stand for longer than six months on average. Hence me not having any children.

Now I’m about to be a father and with a woman I don’t remotely like.

The realization of it all hits me hard and makes me want to throttle myself for ever getting involved with Liza.

Once outside, I take in a deep breath of fresh air and begin walking. I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that the blue sky, the birds singing, the sun shining down, none of it penetrates the cloak