Chapter 22 #2
Gareth leaned his head against the wall with a groan. Now he was annoyed that he hadn’t been taken to a larger police station, but to a mini-lockup in Vernon, five miles outside of Los Angeles.
“Why did you bring him?” Gareth complained.
“He’s a lawyer! I thought we might need one.”
“He’s a divorce lawyer.”
“That’s right, and I want to divorce you from this cell!” Penny said irritably.
Cian grinned broadly and pulled out his phone. “I’m so glad you told me. Connor and I are hanging this picture in the office.”
Gareth gave the camera the middle finger.
“Wonderful!” Satisfied, Cian snapped the picture before putting the phone away.
“Just a tip,” Penny said, smiling sweetly. “You could make several thousand dollars from this photo if you sold it to the gossip rags.”
“Fantastic idea!”
“Penny!” Gareth snapped at his sister in disbelief.
“What? You’re lucky there aren’t reporters swarming outside, Gare! Not that there won’t be. So, what the hell got into you? Why did you have to knock the guy down?
“Oh, may I?” Cian exclaimed, feigning excitement, raising his hand as if he were in school. “If I had to bet, I’d say Kosianos insulted Hazel, and Gareth was defending her honor. Which is beyond stupid because you probably made Hazel angry, not happy.”
Sighing, Gareth rubbed his eyes. Yes. Probably.
“Gare, I told you to figure out what you wanted,” Cian continued. “I just didn’t realize you were longing for a cell.”
He looked gloomily at Penny. “Do you see what you’ve done?”
But his sister just stared at him, her mouth gaping. “This is about Hazel?”
“No,” he lied. “Everyone's telling me to make myself happy. Knocking down that jerk made me incredibly happy.”
Penny pressed her lips together, scanning him warily. Finally, she muttered, “Shit. Hazel’s Party B, isn’t she?” She narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t found the cover page, and I haven’t gotten to the end yet, so I haven’t seen who signed it. But she must be Party B!”
“What are you talking about?” Cian asked, puzzled, as all the blood drained from Gareth’s face.
“This,” Penny said, pulling a folder from the jute bag on her hip.
Oh no. Gareth knew the folder all too well. It had been on his desk because he and Hazel had added the new clauses he’d negotiated in the janitor’s closet before the practice match.
“That is private, Penny,” he growled.
“No. It’s stupid and unprofessional!”
“Well, I take that personally. The contract is beyond professional!”
“But not what it says, Gareth!” she retorted loudly.
Cian grinned and took the folder from Penny. “Oh, it’s such a beautiful day,” he said happily, opening it.
Penny didn’t look. Apparently, she knew most of it, or at least parts of it well enough to quote it.
“Additional clause X-1: Physical favors are encouraged — and are to be treated with absolute secrecy! What the fuck, Gare?”
“Hey!” Cian complained. “No spoilers.”
Gareth rolled his eyes. “We wanted to…handle it responsibly and do it right.”
“Do it right?” Penny echoed angrily. “You're in business together. I repeat: This is unprofessional!”
“Says the woman who sleeps with her player. At least I’ve covered myself. The contract is bulletproof.”
“Bulletproof? In what respect? In the sense that you contractually state that you have no feelings? That you’re lying to each other in an extremely professional way?
Although you both seem to have realized that your plan had a few holes in it.
God, Gareth.” She tugged at her hair. “You should have just told me you were in a relationship!”
“We’re not in a relationship.”
“This contract says otherwise! It may have started as a behavioral contract and then a sexual contract, but you’ve slowly but surely defined a relationship, you idiot!”
“Hmm, she’s got a point,” Cian muttered, still frowning and studying the folder.
“Your new rules are very clear. You have to finish on time and make time for Hazel. She has to say goodbye to you and contact you while she’s away on business.
You can’t sleep with other people, and you have to feed each other.
You even have the other’s favorite sweets on hand, for God’s sake!
Sounds like a relationship contract to me too. ”
“Fine!” he snapped, annoyed, and got up from the bench. “Maybe I subconsciously wanted to turn the contract into a relationship!”
There was no point in denying it anymore.
He had succumbed to chaos and to Hazel. She might be scared, and that was okay.
She should have talked to him seven years ago instead of just breaking up with him.
He understood how panicked she must have been at the thought that he had become more important to her than her ambition and the financial security she had fought for her entire life.
He could understand that the idea of spending the rest of her life in his shadow and, therefore, not receiving the respect she deserved for her success had made her unhappy.
Perhaps it was better that she had first found her own way and achieved her goal independently of him.
But that was then, and it didn’t mean he wouldn’t still take every precaution today to convince her that a relationship with him was a brilliant idea.
“Speaking of contracts,” he added in a businesslike tone. “Penny, I’d like to hand over all of Hazel’s contracts to you. Or to Cravitz. He should be promoted. He’s wasting his talents if he continues being just my assistant, and I need someone to take some of the work off my hands.”
If he and Hazel didn’t negotiate the players’ terms between them, she might be less afraid of losing her clients if their relationship became public knowledge, or even if they broke up.
They would have to keep their jobs clearly separate so that she didn’t feel like her entire existence depended on Gareth and their marriage.
Because, yep, he’d marry her if she agreed.
Penny looked at him in shock. “What? Why? Are you sick? Have you been hiding that from me too?”
“No! But I can’t continue negotiating business contracts with my girlfriend. Some might consider that unprofessional!” He looked at her meaningfully. “Hazel and I should keep that strictly separate. We’ve gotten a bit carried away with it. And I need more time. A wife and a family need more time.”
Cian dropped the folder. “Girlfriend? Wife? Family?”
Yep. Hazel wanted children, and shit, with her, he wanted them too. For that, he needed enough time to make her and himself happy. That is, assuming she could overcome her panic. Assuming she even liked him enough.
Fuck. What if over the past few years, she’d inevitably come to the correct realization: That she was too good for him?
“So you’re really messing around with an agent? I was right?”
Gareth looked up abruptly. Five minutes ago, he would have sworn things couldn’t get any worse, but seeing his father’s face proved him wrong.
Anger pooled in his stomach. “Watch what you say, Dad. You’ve already done enough damage. And if you imply again that Hazel is using her body to negotiate better contracts, I’ll end up not just in a holding cell, but in fucking jail!”
“He did what?” his sister asked incredulously.
“I was just surprised,” Clark Senior replied, defending himself. “That’s all. But I admit my statement was unfortunate…”
“I don’t give a damn, Dad. You’ll apologize to her — and fuck, Penny. Who all did you call?”
“He just happened to be in the office when the call came in,” she replied, pained. “Because he wanted to talk to you.”
“And you two went on a nice father-daughter outing?!”
“Man, if everyone had such a detailed and well-drafted relationship contract, their divorces would be a lot less messy,” Cian stated aloud. “And hey, Mr. Clark, long time no see.”
Gareth groaned loudly, his dad extended his hand to a grinning Cian, and Penny sighed.
“Cian, could you please step outside?”
“Yep, no problem,” he replied. “I wanted to make a quick call anyway. Penny, can I use your phone? My battery is dead.”
“Sure,” she replied and handed it to him.
“Great.” He waved the folder and disappeared down the hall toward the entrance.
Naturally. Just when Gareth could have used him as a buffer, the guy disappeared!
“What the hell is going on?” his father demanded. “Isn’t it enough to have to retrieve one child from a holding cell in your lifetime?” he asked, gesturing at Penny.
“Hey, that’s not fair. I saved rhesus monkeys. Gareth just fought like a Neanderthal!”
“Thanks, Penny,” Gareth said drily.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s true. And I bet Dad thinks what happened with Hazel is worse than your fight. You really didn’t do a great job there, Gare.”
Her father sighed heavily. “Penelope, don’t be so mean to your brother.”
Penny gasped. “He started it!”
“By fighting?” he exclaimed in disbelief.
“By sleeping with Hazel without telling me!”
“Like you told me about when you slept with Jack West?”
“That was completely different.”
“No, not really,” her father grumbled.
That silenced Penny.
“Okay,” he said firmly, folding his arms. “What exactly is going on? Gareth, you know how important it is to keep your personal and business lives separate.”
“I know that, Dad!” he growled, annoyed. “Maybe you haven’t realized.” He spread his arms in the cubicle where he stood. “But I’m not perfect. Even though you and Mom seem to think I believe I am.”
Darron Clark sighed. “You approach your job with an unhealthy arrogance, Gareth. We all know that.”
“Unhealthy arrogance,” he said, forcing his voice to sound calm, almost laughing at the expression. “What makes it unhealthy?”
“The fact that you think you can do it better than the others and therefore refuse to share your responsibilities,” his father replied stoically. “You have staff, Gareth. A team. You just don’t use it.”
“What?” He stared at him, puzzled. That was the point?
“You’ve always been a perfectionist loner and we’re worried that by being so brilliant at everything, you’ll overextend yourself and…”