Chapter Seven
You want us towhat?”
Penny’s words echoed off the vaulted plaster ceiling until the expensive plush carpet beneath her feet swallowed them.
“Penelope, lower your voice. A woman of standing doesn’t speak so loudly,” her mother remarked with a sigh.
“A confused, angry woman does!” she shot back, before turning to stare at her father. “You can’t be serious, Dad!”
“I’m afraid so,” he replied, angry but calm. His bushy eyebrows knitted together.
“Dad,” Gareth chimed in, jumping from the large, bulky armchair, his voice alarmed. “Come on! You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“No,” their father replied, adjusting his tie. “I thought long and hard about how to do this and decided that a fair fight for the team was the logical choice.”
Oh, God. He was serious! He didn’t want them to share the Hawks, he wanted them to compete against each other towinthe team!
Penny’s lungs were working so hard that she was dizzy. He couldn’t do that. She didn’t want the whole team! Gareth woulddo what he was best at – run the team and negotiate contracts with icy precision – and she would help him choose charities and keep track of the finances. But, if only one of them received the team, then…
“Fine,” Gareth said, cracking his jaw. “Do it however you want. But whoever wins in the end, we’ll just add the other to the contract.”
“No, you won’t.” Her father folded his hands in his lap and looked at him coolly. “I know you like to look for loopholes, Gareth, at work and in your personal life, but the contract I’m drawing up will explicitly state that only one of you two has control over all the finances and therefore the team.”
Penny opened her mouth, closed it again, and opened it again…but she just didn’t know what to say. She considered herself a rather quick-witted person. Sometimes, she even tended to smartass. She was goal-oriented and liked to find solutions. However, at the moment, her mind was paralyzed.
It was the shock. It was the general aura of her parents. It was the huge living room with its high ceiling, the expensive paintings, the marble busts, and antique furniture that made her feel like the small child who was being pushed from one corner to the next so that, like for the photo long ago, she didn’t block her father’s trophies. She was just another puck shot against the boards, in the hopes that maybe one day it would end up in the goal.
“Why?” she finally croaked as the silence settled in her stomach. “Why do you want to set me and Gareth against each other?”
Her father sighed heavily, his white shirt wrinkling with slight perspiration, which she caught her mother examining critically.
“Pen, dearest,” he said gently, standing and taking her hands in his. “I don’t want to set you against each other. I’m certain youknow how to separate work and family. If you can’t, neither of you has any business at the top of the Hawks.”
That made Gareth snort. “Really? You can’t seem to separate family and business.”
Darron Clark’s sole comment on that was a raised eyebrow. “It’s still my decision and I want to make the right one for the Hawks. And this is the only way I can do that. I have to find out who works best with our general manager, with the PR team, and with the team itself. I know most of the owners are behind the scenes, but it’s never been like that with the Hawks, and we’re not going to start now.” He narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, shifting his gaze between his two children. Penny, however, felt his attention linger on her face for a hundredth of a second longer.
She swallowed hard. He knew she didn’t want to stay, didn’t he? That she didn’t want to return to the world of judgmental critics. That she didn’t want to have so many eyes on her again, or her mother’s running commentary in her ear.
And what was wrong with that? Her time as a teenager and in her early twenties had been horrible. She had never fit into her parents’ world, and she still didn’t. She had rebelled against it before. Now she preferred to disappear. But, her father was blockingbothher paths!
“It’s not fair, Dad,” she said, voicing what she was thinking. “You could at least give us a chance to work together…”
He shook his head. “You two have never worked together before.”
“We ran a lemonade stand together!” Penny said incredulously.
Her father smiled indulgently. “When you were seven and nine, Pen.”
“So what? The stand was a huge success!”
“Penelope,” he said patiently. “You’ve spent the last few years collecting data in South America, and Gareth, you’re still more of a lawyer out for number one than a team player. Whoever takes over the team, hundreds of employees will be relying on you. And I want to make the right choice.”
“We’re the right choice,” Gareth said tensely. “Together.”
This time it was her mother who gave a little ladylike snort. “Honey — as your father said, you’ve never worked together before and you’re incredibly different.” She peered meaningfully down at Penny’s colorful floral dress before her gaze wandered to Gareth’s immaculate blue suit. “You’d get into arguments, second-guess your decisions, and ruin the team.”
“No,” Penny protested loudly.
