He turned to Mick.
His brother looked miserable. “I’m sorry. I fucked this up, made it worse.”
“You did. But that’s on you, and between you and Elizabeth. And I have to take the blame for not stopping it when I should have. I let it go on too long.”
Mick quirked a grin. “You can’t stop me when I’m being a bullheaded ass.”
Gavin smiled. “True.”
“I’ll fix it. At least my part of it. So you love her?”
Gavin had thought he’d hesitate when it came time to say it out loud, but the words fell from his lips. “I do love her. So you’re going to have to live with that.”
Mick grasped Gavin’s shoulders. “I can live with it if she can put up with me. Now go get your girl. And get your ass back to work.”
Gavin left his dad’s and went back to his house. He’d called the Rivers and told them he was ready to play. They’d be back in town from their road trip by the weekend, so Coach told him to be ready to suit up then. In the meantime, he was going to Elizabeth to fix things between them.
He called her. She didn’t answer. He called again, left a voice mail, and waited. She didn’t call him back. He called her again. And again. She wouldn’t pick up.
Dammit.
He drove to her house, knocked, but got no answer. Maybe she’d gone to her office, so he tried there, but the receptionist said she wasn’t in, which meant she either really wasn’t in or she was refusing to see him.
He checked the parking lot and didn’t see her car.
Well, hell, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him, was she? Then again, after what he’d said to her, he didn’t deserve easy. And he damn well wasn’t going to apologize via cell phone or text message. This had to be done in person.
He drove back to her condo that night and didn’t see her car parked in the parking lot, and there were no lights on inside. He waited like a damn stalker in her parking lot for three hours, calling her cell several times, but she still didn’t answer.
And she never came home. He waited until one in the morning before giving up and going home.
It was going to be hard to apologize to her if he couldn’t find her. Her office was no help, refusing to tell him where she was, and the next day she wasn’t at work, either.
He had one more day before he had to report back to the team, and he couldn’t find Elizabeth.
But he knew someone who could help.
GRATEFUL FOR THE TRIP OUT OF TOWN, ELIZABETH stared out the window of her New York hotel room. Contracts and negotiations for a potential new client had kept her busy for the past two days, and she was so damn glad for that, too, because the last thing she needed was surplus time to think.
Time to think meant time to dwell on Gavin, and she’d already wasted too much time on that man.
She crawled onto the bed and picked up her laptop, putting the finishing touches on the contract language for her new client, an up-and-coming NBA player for New York. Not quite as high profile as Gavin, but a couple of more players added to her roster would make up for what she lost by dumping Gavin. She’d put some feelers out and gotten the line on a few guys unhappy with their current representation, and she was well on the way to evening out the loss with some stellar gains. First the basketball player, next up was a running back for Baltimore she intended to meet with the first part of next week. And that guy was a moneymaker. If she could sign him, she’d not only have a coup, but a laugh at Don Davis, his current agent.
It was all in keeping the balance. And she would maintain the balance.
Her cell buzzed, and she grabbed it off the table, hoping it wasn’t Gavin again.
It wasn’t Gavin. It was his mother.
Shit. Her stomach dropped, and she clicked the phone, hoping like hell Gavin’s father hadn’t had a relapse.
“Hello?”
“Elizabeth? It’s Kathleen Riley.”
“Hello, Kathleen. Is Jimmy okay?”
“He’s fine, dear, don’t worry.”
She blew out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. I’m so glad to hear that.”
“I’m calling about Gavin.”
“Oh.”
“You really fired him?”
This was going to be difficult. “It was getting to be too hard, Kathleen.”
“You don’t have to pull punches with me. I understand. Was he awful to you?”
There was only so much she was going to tell his mother. “There was a conflict of interest I couldn’t deny any longer. I was in love with him. I couldn’t represent his best interests with that kind of conflict. I had to make the break.”
“He said you won’t answer his calls.”
And he had his mother call to run interference? Really? “I’m working right now so I’ve been busy.”
“He said you haven’t been at home or at your office.”
Looking for her, was he? Good. “No, I’m in New York on business. Whatever he and I have to say to each other will have to wait.”