Page 56 of Broken As Puck

Delacrue puffed out his chest. “I won’t have our team become a laughingstock.”

Gadot pushed him. “Don’t you dare imply that⁠—”

“Stop,” I hissed, and everything fell quiet.

Everything.

Dread curling in my gut, I slowly turned and saw that Warren now had his camera pointing toward us, and he and Tia were watching with wide eyes.

Oh no. This was so bad.

Chapter Nineteen

CHELSEY

Mr. Robertson rose from his chair with a calmness that was actually quite scary. “Gadot and Delacrue. My office. Now.”

Gadot immediately turned and swept out of the room, but Delacrue protested.

“Now,” Mr. Robertson snapped, his dark eyes threatening hell to anyone who refused him.

Scowling, Delacrue pushed past Freeland, who’d been on his way to back up Gadot, and stomped out of the meeting room like an angry child. Honestly, his behavior was completely inappropriate for a professional, especially in a setting such as this one, where messing up could quickly become public, which would have catastrophic consequences.

I limped between the people to find Stella. “I’m going to go with them,” I murmured. “I overheard everything and can be an impartial witness.”

Well, impartial-ish.

In my opinion, Delacrue was a massive jerk who deserved anything that came to him.

She nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

Mr. Robertson was already heading out the door, so I hurried after him as fast as my throbbing ankle would allow and followed him to his office. Footsteps sounded on the linoleum behind me and when I glanced back, I was surprised to see Matt striding after me.

Deciding not to waste time asking what he was doing, I rushed into the office and stopped short when I realized there weren’t enough chairs. Mr. Robertson was in the process of sitting behind his desk and he paused as I entered.

“Chelsey?” he asked.

“I heard and saw everything,” I said, hovering behind Gadot and Delacrue, who’d each taken one of the chairs in front of Mr. Robertson’s desk.

The door behind me opened wider and Matt came in. When I looked at him over my shoulder, his expression was grim and determined.

Mr. Robertson sighed. “It seems like we’re making a party of it. Shut the door, Matthews. We don’t need anyone else interfering.”

Matt closed the door and came to stand beside me.

“You okay?” he murmured quietly.

“Fine.” It wasn’t as if I’d been involved in the altercation, after all.

Mr. Robertson leaned back in his chair, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “Does someone want to tell me what that display was about?”

Delacrue huffed. “Gadot made a big deal about nothing.”

“It’s never your fault when you get called out for behaving badly, is it?” Gadot demanded. “Because you don’t know how to take responsibility for your own words and actions.”

I cleared my throat. “In my opinion, this situation is something worth making a fuss over because we don’t want it to be repeated. Especially not in front of a journalist and a photographer. Your attitude has the potential to cause conflict in the team and portray us in a negative light to the public. We’re trying our hardest to avoid that.”

Mr. Robertson nodded. “You’re absolutely correct. Any conflict within the team is unwelcome, particularly when outside parties are present. That said, I don’t understand what happened.”