Page 12 of How to Puck Your Boss (L.A. Hawks Hockey #3)

Chapter Seven

Y ou want us to what ?”

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 to win the 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 would do 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 you know 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 blocking both her 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.

“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.

She was self-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 even start to 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 the Father of the Year award 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.