If It Drives (Market Garden, #7)(35)

Cal swallowed. “To be fair, the high-powered banker type doesn’t quite mesh with . . . with this side of you.”

“On the surface, maybe.” James smiled, and this time he was the one watching their hands. “But that’s only at work. That power is . . .” He trailed off and rested his head back against the headboard. Gazing up at the ceiling, he said, “It’s part of the job, but it’s not me.” After a moment, he turned his head slightly towards Cal. “Who we are on the job isn’t necessarily who we are, is it?”

“Maybe not.” An automatic “sir” almost slipped out of his mouth, but Cal caught himself. “So if who we are at work isn’t necessarily who we are, then how well do you and I really know each other?”

“How much does anybody in this place know about anybody else?” James gestured tiredly, as if to encompass all of London. “As long as the machine works, who cares?”

Cal felt his chest tighten. “Is that it?”

James shook his head. “I guess that’s why therapists and whores make a killing these days. Somehow along the way, we all stopped talking to each other about important things in life.”

“Wow, that’s deep.”

James laughed. “Not really. If you’ve ever been at an investor conference . . .” He lifted an eyebrow, then smiled with a big dose of self-deprecation. “Oh, don’t bother.”

“Was that what you wanted to be? I mean, I can’t imagine anybody getting where you are by accident.”

“I read Classics at Oxford. Joined a City firm as an intern, switched to McKinsey, then decided to join people who buy companies rather than fix them. Moved to bigger firms, bigger departments, more power, spun out, founded my own.” James hesitated. “But I guess you read my CV on the website.”

“I didn’t.” Cal settled on the bed, back against the headboard. “You’ve probably seen mine, though.”

“Honestly, I haven’t.” James turned towards him. “I hired your uncle’s company, but didn’t know much about the specific driver I was getting.” He was quiet for a moment. “What’s on your CV?”

Cal smirked. “Not a hell of a lot.”

“What did you study?”

“I dropped out of law.”

“You did?” James chuckled and ran his hand over the thin sheet covering Cal’s leg. “Well done.”

“It was killing me—like it was breaking down how I thought, the way my brain worked. It became all so terribly banal, life.” Cal rolled his shoulders as the subject brought back an inkling of the tension and stress he’d been so desperate to escape back then. “I started reading the small print of every web service I subscribed to, bought computers with my mind much more focused on my statutory rights than what I was going to do with the bleeding thing. It twisted everything.”

“And now you’re happier?”

Cal considered it for a moment. Happiness. Well, he was content most of the time, unless he was drooling over a guy he thought was out of his league, or when the words on the page didn’t even bear a passing resemblance to how glorious they’d sounded in his mind.

“Happier than I was then, yes.”

James furrowed his brow. “Does that mean you aren’t happy now? Just less miserable than you were back then?”

While law hadn’t been the right fit, getting a degree in English and literature also meant he’d studied to be a taxi driver or a barista; all the debt, and nothing to show for it. Cal gnawed on both his lower lip and James’s two-part question. “I guess I am. Still kind of finding my footing, I guess.”

“I know the feeling,” James said absently.

“What do you mean? You’ve got that house, the career, the—” That divorce we both know cost you more than just the kids and the huge chunk of cash she took when she left. “I . . .” Fuck.

James sighed. “Money isn’t everything, believe me.”

“So what’s missing?” Cal’s heart beat a little faster as he steered the conversation in that uncomfortable direction.

Looking down at their hands again, James was silent for a moment. Cal almost retracted the question, but then his . . . boss? Lover? Who was James to him anymore?—met his eyes. “The job and the house are pretty much all I have now. So what’s missing?” One shoulder rose in a halfhearted shrug. “I know it sounds melodramatic, because God knows anyone who’s got money has no right to be unhappy, but I’d say almost everything. I’ve got a roof over my head, an income, a job. But I . . .” He paused, then shook his head and gave a soft laugh, another self-deprecating sound. “Yeah, it does sound melodramatic, doesn’t it? But I guess I’ve had to rethink my priorities in life since Irina and the kids left.”

There it was. The mention of her name. The nod towards that dark period when Cal had wondered a few times if James would unravel completely. That, or spend every last pound at Market Garden as he tried to drown himself in anything other than his divorce.

Cal squeezed his hand. “You’ve, um, been doing better, though. Since things ended. Right?”

James nodded. He ran his free hand through his dishevelled hair. “Better, yes. Less miserable.”

“If you want to talk about it . . .”