Chapter 9
Those words were devastating: ‘I think we should keep things professional.’ They were the right words under all other circumstances.
His recent break-up with Rosani, the precarious position of Ohpaua and his uncertain thoughts on the future.
But that didn’t make his heart feel any better.
He’d spent the rest of the previous day answering emails and making dull telephone calls to clients regarding things he no longer cared about.
The passage of time had dragged, drawing the hours on for weeks!
Eventually, he’d given up on working, switched his phone off and fallen asleep in the comforting embrace of frilly pillows.
The warm morning sun beating down on his face was the perfect weather for pursuing summer romance.
But Brierley had stopped the orc dead in his tracks.
When he looked back on their kiss, she had wanted it as much as he did; Brierley had taken absolute delight in teasing his ears, attempting to explore the reaction she stirred.
Their day together, distributing leaflets for the looming relaunch of Ohpaua, had been a dose of heavenly fun.
The merriment had come crashing down when he’d tried to kiss her, and he couldn’t fathom what had gone so terribly wrong.
The mixed messages left him utterly confused.
A glimmer of hope arose when his phone rang, quashed when he saw the name of the caller glowing vibrantly on the screen. With a groan, he lifted the phone to his ear; “Ma,” he answered with a single word.
“Mr Merloft. You’ve not been giving me updates on your venture,” his Matriarch informed him with no preamble. No asking after his health and well-being. Two could play that game, he thought indignantly.
“We’re relaunching tonight with a new product range,” he announced.
“Good,” She uncharacteristically encouraged. “Enlighten me?”
“I’ve encouraged Brierley…” he started to explain.
“Brierley?” She questioned.
“Miss Mirren, the owner,” he elaborated with a pang of complicated emotions.
“Go on.”
“I’ve encouraged her to take her business more up-market; a better product commands a higher price.
Working with higher-end materials with her designs to capture a more niche market,” he’d picked his words very carefully.
Not daring to say that the designs she’d been working on were of his imagining, alongside her own.
Brierley had been nothing short of incredible in accepting his artworks; his Matriarch wouldn’t be so understanding.
“Sounds positive.”
Breht could imagine her nodding her head in satisfaction on the other end of the phone, but knew the encouragement would only go so far. “I know Bri… Miss Mirren is eager to reopen Ohpaua…”
“You couldn’t persuade her to change the name then?”
“No, the paua stone has a deep personal connection for her. It’s the one thing she insisted on keeping.”
“A pity,” Dura commented. “It’s a stupid name.”
Breht’s expression soured, even though he had initially thought the same. A frown deepened the lines of his face. Of course, Dura wouldn’t understand personal connections. She was as corporate as they came.
Breht leaned back on the wooden bench, letting the rays of the morning sun heat his face.
Listening to the business jargon that Dura was unrelentingly subjecting him to.
Some of his accounts needed looking at upon his return to the office, and his thoughts drifted to the ever-growing list of clients he needed to call.
It was a stark reminder of all the responsibilities to come, one that filled him with apprehension.
Although Brierley had suddenly closed the doors on what they could become, he felt a fondness for his home town.
If there was one small business that was ailing here, then there would be more.
What was stopping him from setting up an enterprise of his own, right here where he belonged?
“Are you listening, Breht?”
“Yes, Ma,” he replied subserviently, putting a pause on all thoughts of potential happiness.
“When will you be returning to the office? You’re due back tomorrow, correct?”
“We’re relaunching tonight, so, yes,” he answered sullenly.
His time here had been so short. So much had changed in such a fleeting amount of time.
One relationship had ended, and another bloomed in its wake, only to be stunted.
His thoughts towards inheritance and his future had shifted, changing so rapidly that it blindsided him.
“Good, we need you here, Breht.”
The orc swallowed hard behind his tusks.
That was as close as a compliment came from his Matriarch, and he’d take it for what it was.
He was about to speak, ignite the casual conversation a Mother and Son should be able to have over the telephone, but she hung up before the words formed in his throat.
“I love you, Ma,” he whispered half-heartedly to the droning tone that signified the call had been cut.
Had he ever heard those three words come from her mouth?
Love was something he clung to; it was precious, something to be nurtured.
To feel it denied felt like the ultimate tragedy.
He poured everything he had into his relationships; he treated his girl right, even if everything turned sour in his hands.
He found himself at the beach without quite remembering how he'd gotten there.
The sun was beginning its descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of amber and rose.
He sat on a weathered bench overlooking the shingle, his elbows resting on his knees, and let the weight of everything settle over him like the salt-tinged breeze.
The waves crashed against the shore in a rhythm that felt almost meditative.
Pebbles skittered back and forth with each surge and retreat, worn smooth by years of the ocean's patient work.
Seabirds wheeled overhead, their cries sharp and insistent, while sparrows chattered in the beach grasses behind him.
It was a symphony of the seaside—one he'd forgotten existed in the years he'd spent in corporate towers and boardrooms.
Dura's words echoed in his mind: We need you here. Not ‘I need you.’ Not ‘I’m proud of you’.
Just the cold, practical assertion that his presence was required.
That he was a resource to be deployed, not a son to be loved.
And he'd accepted it, as he always did. Because that was what he did—he bent himself to fit the shape others needed him to be.
He'd done it his entire life, and it had never been enough.
But sitting here, watching the light dance across the water, something shifted inside him.
What if it didn't have to be?
He thought of Brierley—the way her eyes lit up when she talked about her craft, the genuine passion in her voice when she described the stories behind each piece.
He thought of the designs he'd sketched, the ones that had come from somewhere deep inside him, a place that had nothing to do with profit margins or quarterly reports.
He thought of how alive he'd felt these past few days, helping her rebuild something meaningful, something real.
And then he thought of returning to the city.
To Dura's cold office. To endless meetings about businesses that meant nothing to him, to decisions made purely on the basis of what would generate the most revenue.
To a life where love was something you earned through productivity, never something freely given.
The inheritance loomed before him like a prison sentence. CEO of Merloft Corp. The title that was supposed to be the pinnacle of his ambitions. But when he imagined it—the desk, the responsibility, the endless cycle of acquisition and displacement—he felt nothing but dread.
What if he didn't go back?
The thought was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
He could establish his own venture. Help struggling businesses like Ohpaua survive and thrive.
Work with his hands and his heart instead of just his spreadsheets.
Build something that mattered, something that helped people rather than displaced them.
And Brierley. Gods, Brierley. He'd lost her because he'd been too drunk and too raw to think clearly, too respectful to push past her sudden coldness. But what if he didn't have to lose her? What if he could choose a different path—one that kept him here, in this seaside town, with her?
The peace of the moment wrapped around him like a benediction.
For the first time in years, Breht felt like he could actually see his life clearly.
Not the life that was expected of him, but the life he wanted.
The one that involved art and small businesses, and a woman who made jewellery that told stories.
The one where he was enough, simply by being himself.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the salt air, feeling the weight of choice settle on his shoulders—but it was a different kind of weight. Not the crushing burden of duty, but the solid, grounding weight of decision. Of agency. Of possibility.
He was going to do it. He was going to leave Merloft Corp. He was going to build something new. And he was going to fight for Brierley, no matter what it took.
The silken touch of fingers covering his face tugged a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Bringing with them a cascade of wonderfully affirming emotions, hope paramount amongst them.
Admittedly, it was a strange way for someone to greet him after they'd announced they wanted to keep things professional, but he relished in his change of fortune.
Until they spoke, "Guess who?"
He tensed like a bucket of ice-cold water had been thrown over him. His eyes snapped open in an instant. He'd know that ghastly voice anywhere.
She settled herself in his lap without invitation, looping her thumb into his septum piercing and pulling his head toward her like she owned him.
"Rosani!" He protested, exclaiming her name like an expletive.
She lowered her face to kiss him. And he was tempted.
Gods, what kind of man would he be if he wasn’t?
She was an undoubtedly beautiful woman, dressed to kill, and it was him on her hit list. He couldn’t.
Wouldn’t wander down that dark path again.
Not now that he had found perfection in the arms of another, even if she’d crushed his hopes.
Just before her mouth brushed against him, his brow twitched.
White-hot anger surged to the forefront of his mind.
He stood. His fist clenched as tightly as his jaw.
Shrugging off her unwanted advances. Her feet touched the floor, stopping her from landing on her backside.
She looked at him thunderously for his lack of reciprocation.
For spurning her in the flesh as much as over the phone.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He fumed.
His anger swiftly enveloped him. He whirled around, turning on her.
The park span as he turned to face the long-eared elf.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of whom he had hoped it’d have been covering his face; in that moment of unknowing, Brierley.
The expression on her face was nothing short of mortified, catching him like a guilty teenager.
Suddenly, he recalled, Brierley had been cheated on before, had her heart toyed with.
Now that baggage was his burden to carry, his mistake to put right.
He didn’t wait to hear Rosani’s answer. It was obvious what she was doing.
Stalking him. All the small hints fell into place; the change of his ringtone, the hearts.
How had she known he was here, in the park at this exact time?
A tracking app on his phone. Thus, she’d turned up, trying to get her wicked claws back into him.
There was absolutely nothing she could say that he wanted to hear. So he shrugged her off, shouting after Brierley, who was having none of it.
A tug on his arm stopped him in his tracks.
His anger rose swiftly, his thick fingers curling tighter into a fist, and he barely stopped himself from lashing out at the elf.
Only she could cause his ire to well over into violence, and he checked himself, right at the last moment; “Get off me!” Breht fumed, viciously shrugging out of her feeble grip, giving her no choice.
“Don’t you get it!?” He ranted, raving at her despite the public display, heads turning in his direction at the heated words.
“We’re through,” he said, throwing his hands in the air as he walked away from her.
The sound of metal clinking on the floor twitched in his ear and, despite all warnings in his head, he looked back.
A plain gold band spun in circles on the floor, and Rosani covered her humiliated head in her hands, leaving the lush green park.
Sobbing. This was the perfect circle they’d drawn together.
A relationship that was so terribly wrong, how could either of them have thought otherwise?
All the orc hoped was that in her humiliation, she understood. It was over between them.
He took a step to chase after Brierley, but stopped as his foot kicked his tusk band across the pathway.
He leant down to pick it up, holding it in front of his face.
Such a small thing to cause such wretched torment between two former lovers.
Carefully, he put it in his pocket where it would do no more harm.
He then turned on his heel and chased after Brierley; he had to clear up the mess of what she had just witnessed.