“Oh, she’s not going to win the team anyway,” Matt said. “Come on, Gareth Clark is a cold-blooded asshole and he’s going to show up his sister from top to bottom.”
Jack lowered his gaze and said nothing. He hoped that Matt was wrong. Penny didn’t deserve that.
A discussion immediately broke out about how Clark would proceed, but Jack deliberately stayed out of it. He didn’t share the others’ opinion that Penelope Clark wasn’t up to the challenge, but he had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t know her. Yet…somehow he did, didn’t he? At least a little. So, she might be unsettled, but she wouldn’t let it get her down. She was smart and passionate. She would probably never take the conventional route – besides, who said the unconventional one was always less successful?
“Are you okay?”
Jack blinked and looked up. Lucas Moreau was watching him skeptically while the others were shouting.
“What?” Jack wanted to know.
“You haven’t said anything yet. About Penelope Clark.”
“You haven’t either.”
Moreau raised an eyebrow. “Yes, but people are used to me not saying anything. You, on the other hand, can’t keep your mouth shut.”
He shrugged. “I’ll wait and see what happens,” he finally replied softly.
Because, by God, what else could he do? He was slowly getting the feeling that he had to be prepared for anything with Penny. At least forgetting their night together had gone fairly well – hadn’t it?
Chapter Nine
Penny didn’t feel like that had gone well. It was partly due to Leon Alvarez’s open hostility and partly due to Thomas Lyle taking her aside at the door and explaining to her in quiet, urgent terms that she couldn’t tell players how many roosters she had slaughtered on a stage.
“It was only the one and Leon Alvarez asked!” she replied, defending herself. “Should I have lied?”
“Yes!” Lyle stated bluntly and brushed a hand impatiently over his short afro. “Because that’s exactly what we do in the executive suite: We lie when we don’t want to worry players and thus jeopardize their concentration.”
Hm, he probably wouldn’t approve of her sleeping with one of them either, right?
“That’s a morally questionable course of action,” she said, confused.
The general manager gritted his teeth, obviously annoyed. “Yes. It is. And if you have a problem with that, I don’t know what your father was thinking letting you in here!” He narrowed his eyes and rubbed his face. “Penelope, you are nice and I’m sure you are extremely smart, but it takes more than that to lead a hockey team! This idea of Darron’s to have you compete for theteam is absolutely ludicrous! He’s the boss. But if push comes to shove, I’ll choose your brother any day. At least the players take him seriously and he has no problem lying to them if he has to!”
Without another word, he abruptly turned and hurried into the hallway where Gareth had disappeared.
She watched him go, her jaw working back and forth. Fantastic. The players didn’t seem to be the only ones who didn’t take her seriously. Here was another problem she had to deal with – as if Jack weren’t enough. The guy deliberately called her Persephone, but then stared at her the entire time as if he were going to throw her across the table and go down on her. Okay, maybe she was projecting her feelings onto Jack, but he hadn’t taken the “forgetting everything” half as seriously as she had, and that was…
“Shit,” she whispered, putting a hand over her eyes. Maybe she should just give up, do what everyone expected and throw in the towel.
She had never planned to stay here forever! She had believed that she and Gareth would share the team and that her brother would take care of things on-site while she could handle the charity work she still wanted to do. That was now a pipe dream, plus all the stress of the next few weeks might not be worth it…
Coward, muttered a quiet voice in her head that sounded a hell of a lot like Jack, before a louder one added, “Do you need help, Persephone?”
She jerked her hand away from her face. As if she had conjured him up with the power of her mind alone, Jack was standing in front of her. He had taken off his jacket, revealing the shirt underneath, which must have shrunk in the wash because no one in their right mind would buy something so tight. That was…sexually harassing her mind!
She had tried so hard not to look directly at Jack. Now, however, she did, and realized with dismay that he had notturned ugly in the last week. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, so blond stubble adorned his chin, and the mere fact that she was close enough to see that was inappropriate, considering their history. So, she hastily took two steps back before putting on her best totally-cool expression, one that would have made any snowman laugh. She wasn’t good at lying, and, while admitting to things, she was more hot than cold. This was sadly obvious from how long she had been staring at him wordlessly.
She quickly cleared her throat and opened her mouth. “You…”
“I’m Jack. Jack West,” he interrupted, sounding overly patient as he smiled cynically. “Remember?” With dramatic flair, he placed a hand on his chest. “The guy you had the best night of your life with?”
Her face flushed and, shocked, she glanced left and right down the hallway. It was empty; no one had heard him.
“Well, first off, that was rather arrogant,” she hissed, annoyed. “And second, of course I had to pretend I didn’t know who you were! Why should I have known your name and not Leon Alvarez’s?”
“Because I’m the prettier of the two,” he suggested in disbelief. “And do I have to keep mentioning the four orgasms?”
