“No!” Penny objected. “Because they’re so happy.”
“Shouldn’t you laugh when you’re happy?” Gareth muttered.
“How unhappy are you, Gare, if that’s your opinion?” she asked challengingly.
“Ilaugh,” he said tensely.
“Nah,” Leon objected. “At least, I’ve never seen it.”
Slowly, Gareth turned to the ice hockey player, his eyes narrowed.
“But I like your serious face so much better, Mr. Clark!” Leon replied hastily, sinking back in his seat. “Very handsome and…masculine. Just great!”
Gareth snorted and rose, following the guests to the pier. He made out at least fifty round bistro tables with white linen tablecloths on the wooden walkway, and on the beach in front of the pier, a gigantic dance floor marked out with lit torches. A DJ booth stood at the edge, playing soft pop music that drifted on the sea breeze.
“Did Payne rent the whole damn beach?” Jack asked, shaking his head.
It looked like it. But Gareth found it difficult to concentrate on the fact that Penny was quickly calculating in her head how much the whole thing must have cost. His gaze was on a bare back that he would have recognized even in the dark.
If he’d been president, he would have gladly used this occasion to legally ban Hazel from wearing dresses, especially high-necked, light-blue, backless ones, a dress that would have made priests faint.
Hazel’s long black hair fell in curls over her shoulders, and Gareth would have shamelessly stared at the silky skin beneath it, giving in to the familiar tug in his chest for a few seconds…if an arm hadn’t blocked his view. Fox’s arm, draped familiarly around Hazel’s waist. She was leaning against his side, laughing, as if the hockey player had said something witty. She was his date for the day. He knew that. But Fox was also her damned client, and one really shouldn’t be so intimate within one’s work environment.
Hazel grinned at Fox, pulled her phone out of her purse, stared at the screen, and then turned it off.
Gareth rolled his tense neck. He used to think that he and Hazel butted heads because they were too similar: both ambitious, smart, dogged, and competitive. But that wasn’t it. She’d always been better at letting go, at forgetting work and all the pressure. He’d always envied her for that.
“Gare, move, now!” Cian said tensely. “Hailey is coming, and she and Ada have been trying to convince me for weeks that we need another turtle.”
Gareth blinked and tore his gaze away from Hazel. “Just say no.”
Cian snorted. “I said no!”
“Then it’s settled.”
“You obviously don’t know Hailey as well as I do!”
Gareth sighed, but quickened his pace so that they caught up with Penny and Jack.
“Great. Which table do we want?” Cian asked. “Let’s go to a full one.”
“We’ll go to that one,” Penny said loudly, heading for the round bistro table where Fox and Hazel were just taking their seats.
Gareth shot his sister a dirty look, which she returned with an innocent smile.
Great, she was serious.
“Oh, shit.” Cian glanced from Hazel to Gareth and back. “That might not be a good idea, Penny…”
“It’s a fantastic idea!” she contradicted immediately.
Jack turned and frowned. “I tried to talk her out of it yesterday, I really did.”
Gareth nodded curtly. He believed him. But when Penny had made up her mind…
“Is there any room here?” she asked pleasantly, smiling at Hazel and Fox.
Time stood still for a few seconds as Hazel’s gaze flicked to him, and she raised both eyebrows, silently questioning if Penny was having a seizure.
