He eventually moved his joined hands to his lips, staring straight ahead at nothing, his strong body even tighter sitting than it was standing. His brown eyes were dark like shots of espresso, and his five-o’clock shadow looked coarse like a bunch of small blades protruding from his face. He blinked a few times, but his eyes still remained wet, as if there would never be enough time for him to forget what just happened.
I couldn’t stay there forever, even though I was embarrassed for him, embarrassed that I’d been there to witness such a personal phone call that obviously ripped him to shreds. I should have texted him first. I shouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake. I got to my feet as I lifted the bag. Instead of making it more awkward by putting it in his closet, I just left it against the table before I turned to leave.
“I just want my son…” His deep voice was steady and calm, strong like a piece of steel. The emotion on his face was a complete contradiction to that, but he managed to control that part of his body.
I stilled, surprised he didn’t just let me walk out the door. My hands came together in front of me, hanging at my waist. “I didn’t know you had a son…” He didn’t seem like the father type. He was just so cold, devoid of any emotion besides hatred.
“He’s five.” It was the first time he’d actually talked to me. He didn’t snap at me or give me a clipped answer. His eyes weren’t on me, looking at the other wall, but he was still having a conversation with me.
So, I crept to the couch across from him and took a seat, my back straight and rigid with my hands together in my lap. I’d never been so uncomfortable with a client, so unsure how to navigate a conversation, unsure how to help him. He was so difficult for me to read. I was afraid if I pushed it, he would snap at me, but I didn’t want to leave either…when it seemed like he needed someone to talk to. “What’s his name?”
He closed his eyes for a moment as he whispered it. “Derek.”
Now I saw this man in a new way. He was a father who loved his son…and that completely redeemed all his previous behavior. He was heartbroken, bitter, and broken by the loss of the one person he actually did care about.
“We’d only been seeing each other a few weeks when I knocked her up. To this day, I think she did it on purpose, but I stopped caring the second Derek was born. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, so who gives a fuck?” He dropped his hands and stared at them as they hung above his knees. “I offered to marry her because I wanted to be a family…to be a father the way mine was to me. But I never loved her. I hated her. Every fucking day. But he kept me going.”
I just listened, my heart aching for him.
“But she was spiteful. When she didn’t get what she wanted from me, she’d cheat on me, which is fucking bullshit because I’d been faithful every fucking day, even though there were times when I didn’t want to be. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left. But then I had to move here for work…and now she won’t let me even fucking talk to him…just to be spiteful.” He covered his face again, starting to breathe hard once more, like he was so mad he couldn’t see straight. After a minute, he lowered his hands again. “I just want my son…he’s everything to me.”
There were two sides to every story—but I already hated this bitch. “I’m so sorry…”
He closed his eyes again and sighed, his nostrils flaring with anger. “I knew this would happen. But I did it anyway.” He dropped his gaze. “I’m a piece-of-shit father—”
“No, you aren’t.”
He lifted his gaze and looked at me, staring at me straight on for the first time.
“Parents don’t need to be together to be a family. You deserve to have both. You deserve to have a wife you love and be a father.”
He sighed quietly and shook his head. “I don’t want to be married again. I didn’t want to be married in the first place.”
“Alright, you deserve to be free of a toxic relationship. And you shouldn’t be penalized for doing the best for yourself. You did nothing wrong. I know it’s hostile right now, but it’ll calm down…”
He shook his head again, as if he didn’t believe me.
“I can get you the best lawyers in this city, Mr. Hamilton—”
“Call me Deacon.”
I faltered for a moment, surprised he was giving me a measure of intimacy after what I just did. “We’ll do this the legal way, get you the custody you deserve.”
“No. If I do it that way, I’ll lose.”
“Why?” I asked. “You’re a successful man who wants a relationship with his son.”
“I’ve got skeletons in my closet. Let’s just leave it at that. If we go to court, I’ll lose.”
“We have to try—”
Now, he snapped. “No.”
I went quiet, knowing I’d overstepped my boundary.
“Now she’s in Beverly Hills, and I’m here…I’ll never see him. After he starts school in the fall, I’ll be lucky to see him a few times in the summer.” He took another deep breath, like he might start to cry, but he didn’t. “We’ll never be close. Valerie will get remarried at some point, and her husband will be his stepfather…and he’ll forget about me.”
A lot of men would like the opportunity to start over, to return to bachelor life with no responsibilities whatsoever. They would leave and never look back.
But not Deacon Hamilton.
“Is there a chance she would move here?”
He shook his head. “Even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t, just to get back at me.”
“Get back at you for what?” If he was telling the truth, he had been in a loveless marriage out of commitment, sticking it out even if he didn’t want to be there. She was the one screwing around.
He never answered. “She’ll never move here. She took half my money…and now she took my son. I’d give her everything I had if she would just give me Derek.” He dragged his hands down his face again, so frustrated he couldn’t sit still.
I wanted to give him everything he wanted, just like I did with the rest of my clients. I wanted to wave my wand and pull off a miracle. The reason I was good at my job, becoming the director at such a young age, was because I really cared about the people. Others might be envious and jealous of their rich clients, but I saw them as regular people with problems just like everyone else. They just had different kinds of problems, rich people problems, so they actually suffered greater repercussions for their mistakes. “We’ll figure it out, Deacon.”
He ran his hand over the back of his head and down his neck. “I know you said you can do anything, but you can’t fix this. No one can fix this.”
Maybe. But I was definitely going to try.
I didn’t tell anyone what happened with Deacon, to protect his privacy, even among my coworkers.
Days had passed and I hadn’t interacted with him, but I thought about him often, the depressed single father who didn’t care about money, just his son. It explained his potent bitterness, the reason why he looked pissed off every second of the day. He probably even looked pissed off when he slept.
Now I felt bad for him.
Life had been so unkind to him.
My phone vibrated on the desk, Deacon’s name on the screen.
My heart raced at the sight of his name. I quickly took the call, assuming it was important. “It’s Cleo.”
As if nothing had happened, he barked orders again. “I need you to grab my laptop and deliver it to me at my office.”
I was disappointed he’d reverted to his coldness, but I didn’t indicate that in my tone. “Where’s your office?” I had no idea where he even worked because I tried not to Google my clients, not to view them the way the internet depicted them.
“Hamilton Pharmaceuticals.”
I raised an eyebrow, not expecting him to say that. He seemed like a stuffy suit who just crunched numbers on Wall Street or something. “Where’s your laptop?”
“Nightstand. I thought I put it in my bag last night. Guess not.”
/> “I’ll take care of it.”
“I’ll tell my assistant you’re coming. Hand-deliver it to me. Give it to no one else.”
“Alright.” He’d told me that before, and I’d followed through.
He hung up without saying goodbye.
He was a little kinder to me…but only a smidge.
I rose from my chair. “Anna, I have to do something for Hamilton. Could you take care of Jim Scott for me? He’s expecting me to bring him the items he requested.” I pushed the bag toward her.
She grabbed it. “Yeah, I got it. Anything else?”
“No. I’ll be back in about forty-five minutes. Call me if you want me to pick up anything on the way back.” I took the elevator to his floor, let myself into his residence, and moved into his bedroom.
The bed was unmade, a couple ties lying on the edge of the bed as if he couldn’t decide what to wear that morning. His laptop was open on his nightstand, space gray and sleek. When I grabbed it by the edge, my thumb pressed down on a key, so the black screen lit up, showing the last item he’d been working on.
It was porn.
It wasn’t my place to judge, but I was at a moral crossroads. I had no idea what he was going to do with the laptop once he got it, if he would step into a meeting right away, hook up his computer to the sound system, and if he forgot the page was open, he could be humiliated.
So I closed out of it.
Sometimes I had to use my discretion, so I used it.
With New York traffic, it took me forty-five minutes just to reach his building, which was on the other side of the tunnel, outside of Manhattan. We had two company vans we used for deliveries, so I took one of those to make the trip.
It was a six-story gray building, sleek on the outside with a matching sign out front. The parking lot was full of cars and had a security check-in. Deacon must have given my name, because they let me through once I showed my ID.
I parked and carried the stuff inside.
When I glanced at the directory, I realized the place was a research facility.
2A Analytical Chemistry
2B Biochemical Analysis
2C Antibody Research
The list went on and on.
The corporate offices were at the top, where Deacon’s name was located.
Deacon Hamilton, MD. PhD. CEO.
I had no idea he was a doctor.
I took the elevator to the top floor and checked in with his assistant. “Hello, I’m Cleo Thompson. I’m Mr. Hamilton’s personal assistant. He asked me to drop off something.”
She was just as cold as he was, typing something on her computer. I imagined it was a chat box, her text appearing on his monitor in real time, probably because he wasn’t a fan of talking. Then she nodded. “You can go in.”
There were two large solid doors that led to his office, and his assistant’s desk was just outside. There was another desk with a security officer, like his only job was to protect Deacon’s doors, although I didn’t see why he needed protection.
I moved to the double doors and opened one, which was just as heavy as it looked.
Deacon sat behind his desk, wearing a charcoal gray suit with a gray tie, his dark eyes formidable as always. He had a wall of windows behind him, but the other walls were solid, covered with bookshelves and textbooks. He also had his degrees mounted.
Harvard School of Medicine
Deacon Hamilton, MD. PhD.
He had other degrees too, his undergraduate degree completed at Stanford. There were other awards, old articles framed that had his name in the headline.
I tried not to stare, but I was interested in all of his accomplishments. I wasn’t usually intimidated by my clients, but I was definitely a bit intimidated by his brilliant mind. His personality made a little more sense now.
Because he was a genius. An analytical type who only cared about data, who was so cerebral he didn’t know how to socialize with other people.
He didn’t look up from his desk as I approached, continuing to work on his monitor.
I approached the desk and set his computer on the surface, along with the plastic bag. “I know it’s almost lunchtime, so I grabbed you something.”
He pulled his gaze away from the computer and stared at the bag, as if he didn’t know what to make of it. “I didn’t ask you to bring me lunch.”
I pulled out the contents so he could see it. “I know. I just thought it would be a nice surprise.” It was salmon, broccolini, and wild rice. Salmon was the most common protein on his weekly grocery list, so I assumed he would like it. I set the plastic fork on top.
He didn’t say thank you. He turned to his laptop as if nothing had happened.
I tried not to take it personally.
He opened the laptop, and once that happened, his eyes immediately narrowed.
Like he knew something was wrong.
His eyes flicked back to me as he rose to his feet, over six feet of pure man. His looks were deceiving, because he was so handsome, so good-looking, it didn’t seem like he could be the intellectual type. But he had it all, brains and good looks. Well…he didn’t have the social skills. “I told you to bring my computer, not open it.” He kept his voice low and dispassionate, but the anger was obvious in his tone. “What I do in my free time is none of your business. I watch porn like all other men, and I’m not ashamed of that.”
“I didn’t know if you were stepping into a meeting—”
“Don’t look at my computer again.”
I didn’t think less of him for watching porn. I watched porn too. And I actually liked him more for not being ashamed of it, for not being even slightly embarrassed about it. His confidence was in full force. “I apologize.”
He shut his laptop again, a distinctive snap because he closed the top so hard. He lowered himself back into the chair and pulled the lunch toward him, opening the plastic lid so he could get to the food underneath. “You can go.”
“Is there anything else you need—”
“If there were, I would ask for it.” He held his fork as he looked up at me, his dark eyes dismissing me.
“Have a good day, Deacon.” I turned around and left his office.
He didn’t say it back.
When I checked the mail that afternoon, there was a large manila envelope for Deacon Hamilton. There were other envelopes too, bills and a lot of junk. I tossed all the pizza ads and DirecTV coupons and took the elevator to his floor. The envelope looked important, might be related to his divorce, so I wanted to make sure he had it in case he was waiting for it.
I texted him in the elevator. I’m dropping off mail.
There was no message back.
I got to his front door and rang the doorbell.
No way in hell was I going in there unless I knew for sure he wasn’t home.
He texted me. It’s open.
I entered his residence, finding him at the dining table with his laptop open, stacks of papers around him along with a black notebook. When I’d first seen him like this when we met a month ago, I assumed it was all just numbers and dollar signs on those papers. But now I wondered if it was his research.
He continued to type on the computer, in the middle of an email, and he didn’t greet me.
I put one pile on the desk but held the manila envelope.
When he was done, he looked at me, a beer on the coaster beside him. There was an expectant look on his face, as if he’d asked me a question that never left his lips.
“This came for you. It looked important, so I didn’t want to wait.” I handed it to him.
He took the envelope, read the sender’s address, and then sighed as he set it aside.
When I glanced at his paperwork, I realized it was, in fact, research. There were graphs of data, patient reports, and nothing to do with profits or payroll. “I had no idea you were a doctor.”
His eyes flicked up to mine, his t-shirt stretched over his muscular shoulders and strong chest. He always wore black
or gray. So far, he’d never left the residence in anything else. Whenever I was in his closet, I only saw a few splashes of color. “You don’t Google your clients?”
“I try not to.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why?” He was talking to me again, having an open dialogue. It’d been almost two weeks since we’d had that deep conversation about his son. He’d turned cold immediately afterward. He was still cold now, but at least not an ice cube.
“I like to get to know my clients as people—not their titles.”
All he did was blink.
“The media never portrays them accurately anyway. So, the way I would treat them would be based on public images, gossip, and most of the time, lies. I prefer to give them a clean slate.”
He could stare for long periods of time, hold eye contact like social decorum didn’t exist. Minutes could pass and he would hardly blink, like that level of intimacy with another person didn’t register as inappropriate in his mind.
“What are you working on?” I broke eye contact because I couldn’t take it anymore. I glanced at his paperwork on the table.
“Research and clinical trials.”
“So, you’re a pharmaceutical company that makes drugs and sells them to people?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing slightly as if I hadn’t guessed accurately at all. “No.”
I waited for an elaboration.
There was none.
Now I wondered if his shortness wasn’t rudeness. He just didn’t know how to talk to people. “I’d like to know more about what you do, if you’d care to share it with me.”
His expression didn’t change, so it was unclear if he was annoyed or not. “Most pharmaceutical companies are just spitting out pills that treat one problem, but cause a multitude of others. My research is focused on the eradication of diseases, or at least the delay of delivery. Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diseases of that nature. I work with patients with advanced cases and attempt to cure them or, at least, buy them more time. I don’t make pills so men can get hard. I don’t make antidepressants. I want to save lives—not alter them.”
The Man Who Has No Soul Page 4
