“No,” Gareth agreed. “I can take care of the legal stuff, Penny the financial, we…”
“No,” their father echoed. “We’ll do it the way I say, otherwise, neither of you will get the team and I will sell it. So, starting New Year’s Day, you will both work in the executive suite for three months and I will decide who performs the best.”
Penny opened her mouth and glanced at Gareth, who met her gaze, equally shocked, before looking back at her father. “Okay, okay.” Penny raised her hands. “So, the winner gets the team and the loser…”
“Gets nothing,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Nothing?” she snapped in disbelief. “But almost all of your money is in the Hawks!”
“I know.”
“Wait.” Gareth shook his head. “If I win, then…”
“I’ll cut off Penny’s money and she’ll have to live off what she earns from her work as a statistician.”
“But that’s…next to nothing,” she said, perplexed. The only reason she had been able to take on a meaningful job in South America was because she couldn’t care less about money!
“Penelope, that’s not our problem anymore,” her mother replied sharply. “You’re almost thirty and responsible for your own life, as you made very clear to us five years ago.”
“But…but I…” Again, her thoughts were paralyzed.
She needed the money! Not to live on. She would manage that somehow. Shewasself-employed, whether or not she had her parents’ money. But she needed the money to make the world a better place! To save the rainforest, to stop animal testing, to help children in favelas – to set up the foundation that she had wanted to set up for years, as her father fully knew.
She was good with money, good at multiplying it and then giving it away to those needing it most. However, if her father cut her off, it would be decades before she had money that she could evenstartto multiply!
She had wanted to use the team’s publicity to draw attention to injustices in South America. She had so much to do!
She took a shuddering breath and swallowed several times, noticing Gareth staring at her, his eyebrows raised as if he expected her to have a solution. Or…did he expect she would back down from the challenge voluntarily?
“I know it seems a bit harsh right now, but you’ll see that it’s a good thing!” her father continued undeterred. “You’ve benefited from what I’ve achieved over the last few years, now it’s time to prove yourselves. To grow up. Finally start working hard. Not just the way you want or the way that suits you, but the way that’s best for everyone.”
“For everyone except for us, your children. So, like always. Congratulations, Dad. You’re sure to win theFather of the Yearaward this year,” Gareth replied dryly, his sarcasm so sharp that it burned Penny’s own lips. But, before her father could reply, he turned and strode across the room. A second later, the heavy oak door slammed shut.
Penny pressed her lips together and glared at her father and then her mother before hastily following her brother. She caught up with him in the atrium just before the front door, next to the water feature that made the wall look like a waterfall. It was unbelievable that her mother still had not removed it, even though two children had almost accidentally drowned in it, Penny being one.
“He’s crazy, Gareth. He can’t be serious. It’s just a bad joke,” Penny assured him in quiet, urgent words, holding him back by the shoulder so that he couldn’t flee outside.
Gareth’s snort would have blown any drowning child straight out of danger. “As if. Come on, Penny. You’ve been away for a long time, but you know him! He’s teaching us some important lesson with it. Like the time he gave us a dog only to regift it to the children in the orphanage six months later. So that we would learn that giving is always better than taking, even if it breaks our hearts. He wants to tell us that we can’t just have what we want simply because we’re rich.”
Penny grimaced. God, she missed Pongo. He had been the prettiest miniature poodle in the world. Unfortunately, the memory of their dog made her agree with Gareth. Darron Clark was not a bad person, nor was he a bad father, but his decisions, his teaching and parenting methods, were debatable.
He had let them pull weeds for pocket money only to steal it from their rooms at night to teach them not to be careless with hard-earned money. He had every friend who came to visit Gareth or her fill out a questionnaire in advance in which the potential guests had to list at least three character traits that they liked about his children to ensure that they didn’t just become friends with them because of their money and status.
He had taught them over the years that they were no better than anyone else. At the same time, their mother had always pointed out when they were worse than anyone else. Intheir mother’s estimation, it was a privilege to have such high expectations placed on them; it was up to Penny and Gareth to meet them.
That had not been a good mix for a couple of rebellious teenagers. Gareth had rebelled against their parents by proving to them that he was better than everyone else, that he not only met expectations but exceeded them. Penny had simply chosen to do fundamentally unconventional things where she could not be compared to others, like gassing a few chicks in front of her parents and the house staff when she was fourteen to show them what happened when you bought a whole chicken at the supermarket for three dollars.
Who else but her would have done that? And then there was that one time – okay, three times – when she had deliberately left her car unlocked in a terrible area because she was convinced that the people who lived there needed the money more than she did.
She and Gareth had their defense mechanisms. They’d both endured a lot. It wasn’t fair of her father to pretend they’d led an easy life.
She dropped her hand and ran it over her face. “He really took the cake this time, didn’t he?”
“Yep,” Gareth confirmed. “And what was all that stupid talk about us not working hard and not doing what’s best for everyone?”
“I’ve been doing what’s best for everyone for five years!”
“I’ve been working hard since I was ten!”
