Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aunt Hazel, that’s my ice cream! Dad, she’s eating too much!”
“Melody, learning to share is important,” Moreau muttered.
“But later, Uncle Austin will want some too, and then there won’t be any ice cream at all!” his five-year-old daughter replied in a panic.
“Don’t worry, Mel. Hazel’s the only one here with a broken heart. I don’t need ice cream.”
“My heart isn’t broken!” Hazel replied with her mouth full. “I’ll just text Anna to buy more ice cream, okay?”
The girl next to her sighed with relief. “Okay.”
The corners of Hazel’s mouth twitched, even though she really wasn’t in the mood to smile.
“What does broken heart mean?” Mel added.
Okay, the corners of her mouth had another bout of weakness.
“A broken heart happens when you do something really stupid. Like sleeping with a business associate known for having no feelings…”
Moreau gave Fox a warning look.
Austin cleared his throat. “…It's going to the playground. And then wondering why he was only there for the slide, and not for you.”
Melody frowned. “Huh?”
”Gareth wasn’t just interested in the slide! And he has feelings,” Hazel replied irritably. She suddenly felt the need to defend Gareth because people were too quick to judge him. “He basically told me he didn’t care about the playground! That he only cared about me.”
“What?” Austin frowned. “I thought you were crying because he dumped you?”
“No!”
“Then why?”
“Because he…he doesn’t take the contract seriously anymore.”
“What kind of contract?”
“The…playground contract.”
“You’ve lost me,” Moreau said. “And thanks for that. Now, Melody is about to ask for a slide.”
“Oh, can I have one, Dad?” she asked enthusiastically. “We still have so much room in the yard.”
Moreau sighed heavily. “Melody, will you go upstairs and brush your teeth? I’ll be right up to tuck you in.”
“But I want to wait for Anna!”
“She’s meeting her brothers and won’t be home until late.”
“Dad? I want a brother too.”
Fox grinned. “Yes, Moreau. Why doesn’t Melody have a brother yet?”
Moreau glared at him before fixing his gaze on his daughter. “Go brush your teeth. Now.”
Pouting, Melody got up, walked out of the kitchen, and stomped up the stairs.
God, Hazel wished Gareth were that easy to boss around.
Okay, no. She didn’t. One of his best qualities was that he didn’t let her boss him around like all the men who had bored her after a few weeks. But Gareth…he was still as exciting as the first day. And he wanted a relationship! And their sex contract had worked so well.
Groaning, she shoveled another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth before resting her forehead on the table. There was a hot ache in her chest that was expanding with every passing second…and the stupid ice cream couldn’t fill it.
“Okay,” Moreau said calmly once Melody was out of earshot. “I feel like I’ve missed something important.”
“Me too,” Austin piped in. “What’s a playground contract? Sounds dirty.”
She grimaced. “Well, it kind of is…”
Moreau groaned. “Why did you have to ask, Fox?”
“Well, excuse my childlike curiosity! So if Clark didn’t break up with you, what happened?”
“Wait. Are we talking about Gareth Clark?” Moreau stared at him, dumbfounded. “You’re sleeping with Gareth Clark? I thought you hated him.”
“Your information is outdated,” Fox muttered. “Who did you think I meant by business associate?”
“I don’t know! Another Gareth. Not our boss, whose goodwill determines whether we’re sold or not.”
“Gareth would never sell you simply because he’s angry with me!” Hazel snapped. “He’s not an asshole!”
“The internet says otherwise,” Moreau grumbled.
“The internet’s wrong!”
“Okay, okay. So the boss broke up with you?”
“No!”
“Then what's so terrible? What did he do?”
“He…” She swallowed. “He told me he loved me.”
“What a jerk,” Fox replied drily.
“Yeah! Thanks, I knew you…” She trailed off when she saw her friend’s expression. “Oh. That was sarcastic.”
“You think so?”
Frustrated, she ran her hands through her hair. “It’s complicated! He wants something serious. I don’t want anything serious.”
“Why not?”
Blinking, she stared at Moreau. She wished he would stop asking such terribly difficult questions. “A relationship with Gareth Clark would only cause problems. Besides, I’m not ready.”
“Didn’t you say the other day that you wanted children and marriage? That sounded ready to me.”
Her uterus happily agreed, while her heart felt as if its chambers were filled with lead. “It’s not that simple!”
“Why?” This time, it was Fox asking an impossible question.
“We do business together!” she blurted out, shaking her head.
“If we were serious… I would have to give up so much for him. He would have to give up so much for me. We wouldn’t be able to negotiate contracts anymore.
That wouldn’t be ethical. And if we split up, I’d lose my clients at the Hawks because they wouldn’t trust me to negotiate… ”
“I’m your client and I work for the Hawks,” Fox piped up. “I would never think you’d do a worse job just because you had a thing with the boss — or didn’t have one anymore. Would you, Moreau?”
“Nope. You’re the best agent I’ve ever had.”
Her eyes stung, and warmth flooded her chest. “Really?”
“Yes!” Fox said. “And since you don’t sign assholes, I can’t imagine anyone else seeing it that way.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose. “Well, okay, still. Everything would change. We would only have this one chance…”
And if they screwed up, they would be nothing: not colleagues, not enemies, not friends. They'd be nothing. And she might not be able to live with nothing because if Gareth disappeared from her life completely…
Moreau cleared his throat loudly. “Maybe I’m mistaken…but isn’t what you described earlier called compromise? When both parties make concessions? And aren’t compromises a good thing at the foundation of every relationship?
With her mouth gaping, she stared at him. “I liked you better when you weren’t happily in love.”
He smiled tightly. “I didn’t like myself then. So, you don’t want to compromise with him?”
“That’s not it! If they’re balanced, compromises are fine…”
“But they wouldn’t be with you two?”
“I don’t know! I just know…shit.” She narrowed her eyes. “If he’s unwell, I’d do too much just to make him feel better. If Gareth were sick in bed…I’d stand up Leon Alvarez to take care of him, regardless of whether the appointment with him would secure him as a client or not!”
Austin frowned. “First, Leon deserves to be stood up by a woman once in a while. And second, Gareth doesn’t do anything when you’re feeling bad to make you feel better?”
She bit her lip, thinking about how Gareth had postponed all his appointments for her. How he’d put his work on hold. How he’d talked to Blake about his personal problems… “Well, not nothing.”
“But less?”
“I can’t say that.”
“What can you say?” Moreau demanded, frowning. “Do you love the guy or not?”
“Of course, I love him, you idiot!” she said irritably. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be at your kitchen table right now.”
She wouldn’t be panicking if she didn’t love him. She wouldn’t have considered lowering her price for Devreaux. She wouldn’t feel like she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time and then laugh again.
“Oh man.” Fox sank further in his chair. “Not you too.”
Moreau gave him a stern look, as if Austin had also refused to go brush his teeth. “Hazel, if you love him…what’s the problem?”
“Sometimes, love isn’t enough,” she whispered. “Love doesn’t always last. Love doesn’t stop all the agents in the industry from talking about me and saying I sleep with all my clients and associates and therefore don’t deserve any respect for my success.”
“Hazel,” Austin said gently. “Screw them. Really. Don’t let them ruin your life.
We know you don’t need boobs to be the best at what you do — and our opinion matters.
Do you think when hockey players listen to opinions about agents, they ask other agents about them?
No! They ask their clients if they’re happy.
Those bums can’t hurt you; they only have power over you if you give it to them. ”
She lowered her gaze to her hands, her heartbeat quickening. “But…”
“But what?” Austin asked patiently. “Really, there’s only one question: Are you just scared, or do you truly believe it can’t work?”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Because they were too…
“So, scared it is,” Fox concluded. “Well, that’s a stupid reason that I won’t accept.”
“I agree,” Moreau muttered, nodding to his teammate. “If you want to be with Clark – which I truly don’t understand, but to each their own – and your only reason for not doing it is being afraid, then that’s a shitty excuse, Hazel.”
Her shoulders stiffened. She’d taught them both too much. When she’d first met them, they’d been emotionally illiterate! She opened her mouth again. Her fear wanted to contradict them, but the rest of her body…
Her phone vibrated, and she automatically pulled it from her pocket. Penny was calling. Why…?
“Hello?” she answered warily.
“Hey. This is Cian. Sorry, I didn’t have your number, so I used Penny’s phone, but I thought you might be interested to know that your boyfriend is in jail.”
Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest. “My boyfr... Gareth is in jail?”
“You’re quick to catch on. And yep, he whaled on Kosianos.”
“Again?”
“He just doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Why else would he let you break his heart a second time?”
Her stomach rumbled. “I didn’t…”
“The guy’s in a holding cell, Hazel!” Cian said incredulously.
“The guy who is so controlled that even I’m sometimes unsure if he’s proof that artificial intelligence is already being used for human experimentation has beaten a respected lawyer and now has a lawsuit on his hands.
Or do you think he’s on a rampage because someone ate his last Milky Way? It’s worse than it was back then!”