It all made sense. The apology – which certainly wasn’t his idea – and the fact that he’d agreed to this dance in the first place.
She pressed her lips together and averted her gaze. “I guess I’m not the only one who’s bothered by our behavior,” she mumbled tonelessly.
“What?”
“Austin hinted at something similar,” she reluctantly admitted. “That he’s not happy with me and my working relationship with you.”
“Austin?”
“Fox!”
“Ah. Right.” Gareth laughed dryly. “You really are too close with your clients.”
She snorted. When Hazel had started out as a sports agent, she had been determined to keep business and personal life strictly separate. Five years later, her two biggest fish were herbest friends. She babysat for her clients, mended the broken hearts of hockey giants more often than she’d given any thought to her own, and one of her figure skaters had asked her to be a bridesmaid.
Life was chaotic. Her personal and business lives were too closely intertwined. It was no longer worth trying to separate the two. God, she could practically see Gareth shuddering at that statement.
“Since I care about the players, it makes me a better agent. Maybe it would make you a better owner if you didn’t just know the players by their last names and force them to call you Mr. Clark.”
“No. That would mean not only Alvarez bugging me about Snickers, but the whole damn team.”
“Maybe. But if you knew them better, you wouldn’t have replaced Snickers with Milky Way in the first place! You didn’t do yourself any favors with that.”
Gareth lifted one corner of his mouth. “Favor… I like that word. It reminds me that you owe me one.”
She blinked. “What?”
“When I held your champagne glass, you said you owed me a favor.” The smile that spread across his face was almost wolfish. “I’d like that in writing, by the way.”
She snorted. “The favor in return for holding my glass?”
“Yes.”
“You’re serious? It was just talk.”
“You’re a lawyer too. You know verbal contracts are worth nothing.”
“It’s not a contract…”
“I disagree. I want it in writing so that at the end of the evening I can force you to go to my sister and tell her that I’ve been a true gentleman and that you’d love to keep me on as a negotiating partner.”
She narrowed her eyes. There was a glint in his pupils. He wasn’t serious. He was teasing her.
“Okay,” she said lightly. “Then I want it in writing that you will always be polite to me when Penny is present. Otherwise, I’ll tell her how terribly mean you are to me.”
He laughed dryly. “If I give you that in writing, I want a signature under the sentence:I will no longer include gummy bear clauses in my contracts.”
“You can have it,” she said, unmoved. “If, in return, I receive a binding statement that you will never yell at my assistant again.”
“No problem. In return, I want your cell number so that I don’talwayshave to talk to your assistant first.”
“You’ll only get my number if you call Devreaux and tell him the contract is as good as done, and that I’m the best agent he could ask for.”
“Deal. If you stop bad-mouthing me to your clients.”
“I’ll sign that right now because I don’t badmouth you!” she replied irritably. “Then you have to stop advising players not to hire me as their agent.”
“Idon’t dothat,” he growled. “So, yeah, no problem! And you’ll stop telling people we used to be together because, shit, Hazel,everyoneknows now and it’s annoying.”
