“Amandine, of course.”
An alarm went off in his head, and he sat up straight. “Is she all right?”
“Define ‘all right’.”
“Brooke.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you. She fired everyone.”
“What the hell?”
“You heard me. She fired everyone, including me! So I have to find a new job.”
“Has she hired new staff?” She might have wanted to get rid of the people he’d selected, though he couldn’t begin to guess why she’d fired her best friend.
“Nope.”
The muscles in his jaw tightened. “Why not?”
“Who knows?” Brooke shrugged. “Maybe she’s being temperamental and unreasonable. The pregnancy and all…” She made a vague back-and-forth gesture. “Hormones tend to go wild when women are expecting.”
“That’s precisely why she needs to have the staff on hand. Her blood pressure is bad, and she might have gestational diabetes. What she needs is proper rest. There’s no way she can take care of the house on her own.”
“I agree. But my hands are tied.” She crossed her wrists and wriggled her fingers dramatically. “She won’t see me either. Me! Her best friend!”
He swore out loud.
“Unless… You want to intervene. You are still her husband. And you’re the one paying for the house and all.”
He didn’t want to intervene. To see her again, knowing how he had made her miserable…that he’d screwed up everything between them? Unbearable.
“You know, I heard stress is bad for you, and it’s even worse when you’re pregnant. Amandine’s stressed. A lot.” Brooke turned to Ethan. “Don’t you agree?”
“I wouldn’t know. Haven’t spent much time around pregnant women,” came Ethan’s diplomatic answer.
Gavin narrowed his eyes. Brooke seemed entirely too upbeat. What the hell kind of “best friend” was she?
“The source of her stress isn’t even from the pregnancy,” Brooke said.
“Then what is it?” Gavin burst out. “She has no money worries, nothing!”
“She’s stressed about you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“What did I do?”
Brooke gave him a meaningful look. He couldn’t figure out what she was trying to communicate. He’d never bothered to learn what women’s “meaningful looks” meant since they signified whatever the woman felt like at the moment.
“Gavin…” She sighed. “If you can’t see what the problem is, there’s really no hope for you.”
“You think you can just come in to my office and talk to me like that?” he said, his voice tight.
“Uh huh. You don’t sign my paychecks anymore.” She got up. “But if you hook me up with a job… I’ll owe you, and I’ll be nicer. Until then…” She walked out, waving bye-bye at him.
He glared at the closed door. How in the world did someone as sweet as Amandine end up being friends with somebody like that?