22. Chapter 21
Darcy
Ipull up outside the Morrison Mansion, the engine of my convertible cutting off with a growl. It’s another predictably perfect Beachside day, with the sun slicing through palm fronds and the waves sighing against the shore.
To me, it feels anything but perfect.
I take a breath to steady myself, slam the car door shut, and start up the driveway. I've walked into hostile boardrooms before. I've presented data to men who wanted me to fail.
I once told a room full of international hotel executives their growth strategy was flawed while my father sat three seats away. I was fifteen, and Charles Madden told me he'd never been so proud.
But today?
Today could ruin everything.
I knock on the door right on nine o'clock, with Beck Morrison's future in my laptop bag and every organ in my body currently fighting over who gets to malfunction first.
Diego opens the door and gives me one long look.
"Before you come in, I would like it officially noted that I voted against this."
I pause on the threshold. "Against what?"
"Whatever is about to happen in my house." He gestures vaguely toward the kitchen. "I already have Declan pacing, Mason stress-eating grapes and Colin Holden wearing an awful necktie before ten in the morning. I cannot have you unraveling too."
"I'm not unraveling."
"Wonderful." He steps aside. "Then perhaps you can convince everybody to eat something before the bloodshed."
He steps back from the door, and of course, the place looks immaculate.
Morning sun pours through the wall of glass, illuminating the entire kitchen where I can see the ocean glittering beyond the infinity pool.
The island is a gorgeous scene of decadent hospitality, though in place of blueberry pancakes, I notice Diego has laid out a spread from Goldie's instead. He catches me staring at the croissants.
"I thought breakfast would soften everybody." He glances mournfully toward the untouched spread. "Nobody has eaten a single thing. Darcy, this kitchen is full of grown adults and nobody has eaten a single croissant. Do you understand how serious that is?"
Unfortunately, I do.
Across the room, Colin Holden sits at the huge kitchen table in an actual suit, which is how I know today is serious. Colin only wears suits at funerals and top-level league meetings.
Coach Pearson is beside him with his arms crossed, looking like a mountain someone forced into a polo shirt. Pete Langford has his iPad in front of him, sipping his coffee while studying the screen with an intense look.
I swallow hard, but lucky for me, Biscuit weaves between my legs, tail thumping, one ear up, deeply convinced this gathering is about him.
I wish it was.
"Darcy." Diego breezes up at my elbow again, this time with a cappuccino, the foam swirled into a perfect leaf. "Please, drink this. You look like you slept four hours and cried into your laptop."
"Thank you, Diego."
I move closer to the table, greeting Colin and Pete just as Declan comes down the stairs in a black t-shirt, hard eyes already set in place. Mason follows, but as he almost reaches the open-arched doorway into the kitchen, he turns back and waves—
"Rose?!"
Mason cuts me a murderous glare and immediately raises one finger to his lips.
Shhh.
My eyebrows climb.
A second later, Rose darts past the kitchen archway carrying her heels and handbag against her chest, still wearing the clothes she had on at The Yard yesterday.
Her hair looks thoroughly slept in, her lipstick is gone, and she's clearly attempting to sneak past her own father after spending the night doing something that isn't in her contract.
Naturally, Biscuit chooses this exact moment to notice her.
His tail starts hammering against the wall and Rose's eyes go enormous.
Mason catches Biscuit around the middle before he can launch himself at her, wrestling sixty pounds of delighted dog against his chest while Rose sprints the final six feet to the front door.
From the table, Colin glances up. "What was that noise?"
Mason, smooth as ever, says, "Just Biscuit being Biscuit, Colin. Shall we begin?"
He lowers Biscuit to the floor and takes the empty chair beside Declan, somehow managing to look completely innocent while Rose presumably flees Beachside before her father discovers she's been defiling his defenseman.
Good for her.
I have significantly bigger Morrison problems to deal with right now.
I carry my cappuccino to the table and slide into the remaining chair, setting my laptop bag at my feet. Around me, the last traces of conversation disappear as Colin pulls a folder closer.
This is it.
I take out my laptop and place it in front of me, then glance around the table one more time.
Colin. Pete. Coach.
Declan and Mason.
My eyes move automatically to the empty chair beside them.
I frown. "Where's Beck?"
Colin's eyes flick toward the empty chair. "Your guess is as good as mine. I expected him here." His mouth tightens before he pulls the folder closer. "But given what has happened overnight, we should start. Sit down, Darcy. There were some… developments."
My body drops one floor.
"Developments?"
"Vegas came back." Colin shuffles papers like a man dealing cards he doesn't want to look at. "Their offer improved. Significantly. Naturally, the negotiations moved fast from there. Faster than anyone expected, honestly."
The cappuccino goes very heavy in my hands.
Coach Pearson nods along, then looks across the table at me. "As of about six this morning, the Bears and Vegas have essentially reached an agreement on terms."
The teams have reached an agreement.
Beck told me that Vegas wanted an answer. He had the offer. Everything he ever wanted.
Oh my God.
He chose Vegas.
He stood at that cage yesterday and told me to write the truth, and then he went home and… what? Called his agent? Said yes? Packed a bag while I was rewriting the version of his report that I haven't even had the chance to present yet?
"Hold on." Declan's deep voice rumbles from beside me. "What agreement? Since when do the teams agree on anything without the player's people in the room?"
"His people were in the room," Colin says. "That's rather the point of people."
"I'm his fucking people," Declan fires back.
Mason raises a hand. "Also people."
"So don't give us that shit." Declan plants both hands on the table. "You remember my contract. You wanted me in Beachside, you agreed my brothers would be looked after."
Colin sighs. "I remember every clause in your contract, Declan. Unfortunately, none of them appoint you Beck's legal guardian."
Mason makes a strangled noise beside him.
Declan doesn't find it funny. "You know what that agreement meant."
"Yes. It meant we'd look after Beck. It did not mean we'd ask his older brother for permission before speaking to his agent."
"I'm his family!"
"Unfortunately, family isn't a contractual party, Declan."
"He lives HERE." Declan's face is growing redder. This is going well. Really well. "You're doing a deal about my brother in the middle of the night and holding the meeting in his own kitchen and he's not even—"
"Dec." Mason's voice has turned quiet. He reaches across and places a hand over Declan's. "Let the man talk."
Biscuit, sensing emotion, puts his head on Mason's knee. Declan huffs and slumps back in his seat.
"Thank you, Mason." Colin clears his throat and pushes on like a man wading through surf.
"Which brings us to the formalities. Darcy, the final assessment was the purpose of today's meeting.
Now, as circumstances have changed, we'll enter it into the record for future reference, and then we can discuss the transition timeline—"
"Fucking transition timeline," Declan spits back, shaking his head.
"—so, Darcy. Your recommendation?"
The whole kitchen looks at me.
Coach Pearson. Pete over his glasses. Declan, breathing like a bull. Mason, careful and watching hopefully. Diego is also frozen mid-wipe at the counter, cloth suspended like he's suddenly turned into the world's best-dressed statue.
I take a steadying breath. Because somewhere in this town, the man I love has apparently already made his choice.
It wasn't Beachside.
And it wasn't… me.
No. Not now. Do the work. He told you to do the work.
I open my laptop. The report sits there already open.
"Okay. Before I present this, I need to say something for the record."
Colin waves a hand. "Darcy, the record can wait, we've got meetings and the forecast is—"
"I'm changing my recommendation."
The kitchen goes silent. Even Biscuit stops thumping his tail.
Coach Pearson leans forward. "Changing it to what, exactly?"
"After careful consideration, I do not think the Bears should trade Beck Morrison. Under any terms. At any price."
Pete's eyebrows climb over his glasses. "Y-you don't?"
"Darcy." Colin's voice takes on a careful tone that does not suit him. It's almost like he cares. "You wrote the original report. You built the model our entire roster recruitment strategy is based on. You stood in Coach's office and told us the numbers—"
"And my numbers were incomplete." My voice doesn't shake. That surprises me more than anyone. "Which means my analysis was incomplete. Which means—"
I stop.
Because twenty-eight years of Madden training claws at the words on their way up. We do not make mistakes. We do not admit fault. We are always, always right.
I think about Beck's fingers threaded through chain-link yesterday. He muttered the wisest words I have probably ever heard from that man.
Then make the mistake. The earth keeps spinning, Spreadsheet.
"I was wrong."
It comes out clean, and as Beck predicted, nothing collapses.
No trapdoor opens beneath my chair. My mother does not appear in the doorway holding a corset and a disappointed expression.
The earth, as promised, keeps spinning.
"My original model measured Beck as an isolated asset," I continue, and now the words come fast, because I've been holding them for days. "I measured his goals, assists, penalty minutes, and his salary efficiency. What it couldn't measure is what he does to everyone around him."