About Breaking Point

by Chris Quinton
9 pages / 3600 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

When Ben Tremayne walked out on his lover and business partner, the infuriating and irresistibly gorgeous David Granger, he never expected David to get over him so quickly.  A year later, Ben is still stinging from the way David just picked up with their mutual friend, Barbie Curtis. 

Yet, when David needs a favor, Ben can't bring himself to say no, even when David stands him up at the last minute. Feeling like a fool, Ben goes to confront David face to face, but when he gets there, he finds the truth he'd spent a whole year trying not to see.

Sample

He was late.

Ben Tremayne looked at his watch. Again. David was now forty-seven minutes behind time, and Ben had a pretty damned good idea why.

Ben scowled into his empty coffee cup and signaled the waiter for a refill. This would be his fourth. It had been David who’d phoned his hotel room out of the blue and asked for the working breakfast meeting in Café Nero on the Strand. David who’d wanted Ben to go along with him to the auction to check out the eighth-century missal, no matter that they hadn’t seen each other in months. And David Bloody Granger was now -- Ben checked his watch -- fifty-one minutes late. The mystery of how the man had even known Ben was going to be in London for a few days would have to wait.

With an angry snort, Ben took out his cell phone and punched in numbers. He’d taken David off the speed dial when their affair had ended, but he couldn’t erase it from his memory any more than he could throw away the key-card to the man’s riverside apartment. It took a long time before the call was answered.

“H’llo,” said the too-well remembered voice. It was husky with sleep and, Ben was certain, sex.

“This is your one and only wake-up call,” Ben snapped. “If you don’t get your arse over here in the next half hour, I will go to that auction, buy the fucking missal in your name and shove it up your fucking arse, page by fucking page!” He cut the call and stared at the small, silvery thing in his hand in shock. The ultimatum had gone from brain to mouth so fast he hadn’t known what he was going to say until he heard the words. Then he shrugged impatiently. Who the hell cared? He didn’t, that was for sure.

They had been partners for five years -- working partners, that is. Their brief love affair had been an incandescent mess, and even after a year apart, it could still raise a nasty burn. It had ended badly, breaking their business apart as well as their lives. Tremayne & Granger Antiques was now Granger & Curtis. Barbara had been hovering in the wings for years, and had slid in to take Ben’s place in all departments. Well, David had never pretended to be anything other than bi.

But David had wanted commitment. Something that Ben had never given to any of his bed buddies, and that had included Tall-Dark-and-Impossibly-Handsome. It didn’t matter that they’d clicked on all kinds of levels, that being together was the nearest thing to perfection Ben had ever known, that even the everyday living together stuff was right up there with the so-hot sex--

Ben swore, knocked back his coffee and signed for another. Only last week Bloody Barbie had flounced into Sotheby’s New York auction room, and sat beside him in a swirl of magenta silk and expensive perfume.

“Ben!” she’d exclaimed, pressing a coral red kiss on his cheek. “It’s so good to see you again. My, but you’re looking fine. There’s something about blond men and suntans.” She’d giggled and patted the place she’d kissed. ”Don’t worry about the lipstick, darling. It’s guaranteed not to come off.” There had been a time when he’d considered her a good friend. Not any more.

“Here for the Lalique?” he’d asked, resisting the urge to scrub his face anyway.