Page 76 of The Hanukkah Hoax
Alec scoffed and mindlessly tossed Hugh his rope toy.
When Christmas morning had rolled around and he hadn’t heard from Marisa, Alec had sped over to her apartment and all but sprinted out of his car to see her, to beg her to listen to him, so he could explain how much of an arse he’d been and hope she’d understand. He already knew forgiveness was likely out of the question, but he had to try regardless. Instead, Enzo had been there, standing outside the restaurant and brandishing a pizza peel like it was a semi-automatic weapon. With one silent gesture toward Alec’s parked car, the man evicted him from Marisa’s neighborhood and her life.
The gym had been his refuge after that, but even pushing his body to exhaustion couldn’t help him escape all those bloody mirrors reflecting his raw selfish stupidity back at him.
So, no, he didn’t fucking want to go to the gym.
“I’m almost done reviewing this contract. I’ll sign it and send it back to Brennan. Then that’ll be done, and we can all just move on.”
Cal took another sip and leaned over Alec’s shoulder to read the documents. “I thought you had negotiated for the remote-work clause. Did I miss it, or is it on another page?”
“This is the original contract. I asked to revert back to it.”
Hugh pounced over to Alec with the rope toy in his teeth and shimmied just out of reach when he went to grab it.
That was just fine with him. He had no interest in forced revelry, let alone being dangled about by a dog.
“Why the hell did you take it out?”
“Because there wasn’t a point in keeping it in any longer.”
“Yes, there is. It would free up a bit of your time to?—”
“Do what?” Alec seethed, hating the clog of emotion he couldn’t keep from his voice. “Waste it here? She doesn’t want to see me, and I’ve done enough damage. I won’t be adding on the pain of my presence to her plate.”
And that was perhaps the heaviest truth of all, the one that tipped his scales so extremely, there was no recovering from it.
He’d hurt her and likely ruined her business’s reputation in the process.
“I get that she won’t talk to you, but you’d be foolish not to give it some time. Maybe she’s not interested in hearing from you now, but in a week? A month? Wouldn’t it only make things worse if she finally gets to a point where she’s ready to hear your groveling and you’ve taken your explanation halfway round the world with you? She deserves to hear the whys of it all and take as much time as she needs getting to that point, but if you rob her of that, she might just hate you more for it.”
“I’m pretty sure she couldn’t hate me more than I hate myself.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a bet you wouldn’t win, but what the hell do I know? Phoebe played a fucking awful hand. I knew she was jealous, but this was a new level of treachery.”
And there was the other name Alec was trying so hard not to think of. Phoebe. Fucking Phoebe. She of the Plant Nanny narcissism who wore bloody camera glasses to meet him at a bar and spliced his words together so she could ruin all the things he cared about.
Because he’d fucked her life up, too. Strung her along with promises he knew he’d never fulfill because rugby had had more of his heart than she had at the time.
And now, he had nothing.
Despite his fingers itching to strangle the woman or threaten her with litigation, none of it would make the situation any better.
None of it would bring Marisa back or reverse the absolute crushing heartache that destroyed the damn near perfect smile he’d put on her face seconds before everything went to shit.
“I’ll deal with her. Preferably from an ocean away and through a mountain of legal paperwork. She knows what she did, and she’d be a fool to assume I wouldn’t bark back. But I don’t entirely blame her. Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he amended when Cal lifted a single brow, “a vile part of me would like to take one of her precious plants and wrap it around her bloody neck, but I’m the reason she did what she did to begin with. When I last saw her, I told her to be well and that I hope she finds peace. I genuinely meant it, too. So, if this is the route she needed to take to do that, it’s my own bloody fault for hurting her to the point where she felt such drastic measures were her only way out.”
Cal plopped his large frame onto the couch and hooked his arms over the back. “You’re a better man than I am, that’s for sure.”
Not even a little bit. Not by half. And that’s why I have to leave.
Alec cleared his throat, already hating the response he knew was heading for him, but he couldn’t avoid it any longer. “I’m leaving.”
Cal’s brows furrowed, and he leaned closer, his beer dangling from his fingertips. “To where?”
“England.”
“But Dr. Campbell hasn’t cleared you yet, has she?”
