“That’s not true.”

  “Then what is it, Lennox?” He calls her out. “Why can’t the four of you get along?”

  I think of the years of competition for his attention. A single dad with clients we felt were more important than we were at times. Not by any fault of his own, but more because of his caring nature. We wanted his attention. We lived for it.

  And the bittersweet taste of being the oldest still stings. Stepping in to be a mom at fifteen when you’re not the mom, fosters a lot of resentment. Telling your siblings what needs to be done inside a house ruled by estrogen doesn’t exactly make for long-term peace.

  Lennox flips a lock of hair over her shoulder and meets his eyes for the first time. The only man who can tame her constant snark and fiery temper. “We can get along just fine.” There’s a muffled snort somewhere, and I fight not to look up and glare down whoever it is . . . because I’m not the mom, and I never wanted to be.

  “You fight like cats and dogs,” he says.

  “And we love like lions,” she says and we all snicker. “We’re just very different people.”

  His laugh is boisterous and takes us all by surprise. “Maybe it’s because you are all so much alike.”

  When each of us physically bristle at the thought of actually being like the other, he holds his hands up to stop us. “Sanderson is killing us.”

  The name of our rival agency.

  “As in Finn Sanderson?” Brex asks. “What do you mean?”

  He purses his lips and takes his time meeting each of our eyes before he speaks. “Twelve clients over the past year. That’s what he’s taken from us. I’m not sure if he’s undercutting our commission or if he’s stroking more than just their egos, but it’s not acceptable to me.”

  And my father’s tone says it all—he’s worried.

  Shit.

  “Are we in trouble?” Brexton asks, concern weighing down her voice as she sits forward in her seat. “Is something wrong?”

  He looks to where his hands are clasped in front of him and his pause in response sets the mood.

  “Dad? Is everything okay?” I ask, my voice shaky as worst-case scenarios fill my head. Is he sick? Is he hiding something from us? He’s been the unbreakable pillar of strength to this family. Slayer of Boogie Men and the King of Bear Hugs for teenage broken hearts. He’s been my strength in dark moments, and I can’t imagine him anything other than redoubtable . . . larger than life. But not now.

  When he looks up, his smile is forced, his eyes somber, and that feeling of dread settles in me again. “It’s fine. I just . . . this is all I have to give you girls—this company, my reputation . . . each other.” He twists his lips and nods. “And lately, it feels like I’ve done a bad job at fostering and preserving all of it.”

  We all meet eyes across the table. While the four of us may be fiercely competitive, Brexton was right—we love like lions and will fight to the death to protect each other. By the looks on my sisters’ faces, right now is one of those times.

  “Is it because of your doctor’s appointment the other day?” Lennox asks, disquiet flooding every syllable, as she voices the one thing I think we’re all wondering but are afraid to put words to.

  “We need to take care of Sanderson.” It’s all he says, and a quick glance at Lennox tells me she’s just as worried as I am.

  “I think your meaning to that term and my meaning are very different,” Chase says, blasé as can be, when I know the simple mention of her ex-boyfriend has what he did to her flooding back and boiling her blood.

  “Don’t worry, Chase. We’ll post your bail,” Brexton murmurs.

  While we all laugh, it’s our father’s lack of response that’s most noticeable. He takes his time sweeping his gaze around the table, making sure to stop on each one of ours in that way he has that tells us he’s about to say something profound like he used to do when we were kids and he wanted to make us feel like adults.

  He stops when those bright blue eyes stop on mine. “What is it, Dekker?” he asks as I twist my lips in thought and mull over my assumptions.

  “Of course, he asks Dekk,” Lennox says to the singsong tune of my other sisters murmuring, “His favorite one,” like they used to do when we were kids.

  “You’re just jealous,” I say with a megawatt grin to annoy them.

  “Jealous of your shoe collection, maybe,” Chase teases.

  “Ladies,” my dad warns. “You have the floor, Dekker.”

  I clear my throat and speak. “Obviously the gloves are off when it comes to

  stealing our clients. Sanderson doesn’t give a shit about decorum or professional courtesy or—”

  “—or anything else other than money or how far her legs are spread.”

  If I were taking a sip, I would have spit out the water in reaction to Chase’s remark. It’s a rarity to see any kind of emotion from her, so I nod slowly in response. She’s still hurting all this time later. “That too.”

  “You’re the dork who dated the competition,” Lennox says and rolls her eyes as we all laugh. I nudge Chase, hoping Lennox’s comment will ease some of the anger in her eyes, and am glad when a smile creeps onto her lips.

  “What are you thinking?” my father asks me, attempting to bring us back to the topic at hand.

  “If he has no morals and he’s a prick—”

  “A savvy prick,” he adds.

  “Exactly. So why can’t we be the same way? As much as I want back the clients he stole from us, we need to think bigger than that.” I tap my pen against my pad. “Maybe we all work together and try to land a huge name.”

  “As much as I’d like that”—he shakes his head and chuckles softly—“I’m not quite sure you four working together in that capacity is a wise move. Remember the last time we tried that?”

  Brexton shifts uncomfortably, as Dad glances to the wall to his right where the hole in the drywall from her fit of rage has long been patched up. We’ve since banned paperweights from the office.

  “I think we should steal his clients in turn,” I suggest.

  Lennox snorts, and the sound about sums up everything about the suggestion: it’s impossible, it’s ludicrous, it’s freaking genius.

  Plus, it’s the easiest thing to say—I’m going to steal some of the top athletes in the world away from their current representation as a fuck you—but implementing it is a whole other ball game.

  But the slow crawl of a smile across my dad’s mouth tells me he was thinking the same thing. “Agreed. Fighting fire with fire is the only option . . . especially when it comes to him.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Brex asks.

  “I think we should tackle this on four fronts. Each one of you with an athlete to win over to our side,” he says.

  “Besides more clients, what’s this going to prove?” Lennox asks, despite it being obvious to me.

  “People look at you and they can’t help but notice your overall appeal. They see the former beauty queen”—he looks at Lennox—“the Olympic athlete”—then Brexton—“the girl who graduated top of her MBA program”—then Chase—“and the lawyer”—he meets my eyes—“and they forget the most important thing of all, that my four girls are just as damn dogged, professional, unflinching, and successful as their old man was.”

  “Was?” I catch the word immediately.

  “Is.” He waves a hand my way without meeting my eyes. “Slip of the tongue.”

  “Dad—”

  “You have all been successful recruiting clients thus far, but it’s always been under the umbrella of my name. It’s always been my company. Now I think it’s time you make Kincade Sports Management yours.”

  Silence falls as each one of us wonders why this sudden push, and I hate the answers I assume.

  “Should we assume you have it all planned out as per usual?” Chase asks, making Dad’s smile widen and the sadness clear from his eyes.

  “Of course, I do,” he says. “We divide and conquer. When have you ever known me not to have it all worked out?”

  He always does.

  “What do you need from us?”

  His grin is lightning quick, and it’s the first true glimpse I’ve seen of my tenacious, work-addicted dad since he walked in here.

  “You’re up first, Dekk.” He looks to my sisters as they start their singsong “you’re the favorite one” again. “I’ll get to you next, but yours”—he points a finger my way—“might be making it easier on us with his current antics.”

  Current antics?

  Words no sane agent ever wants to hear.

  Shit.

  This is not going to be good.

  DEKKER

  “HUNTER MADDOX.”

  Definitely not going to be good.

  Every single nerve in my body reacts viscerally to the two words that fall from my father’s lips.

  Thoughts run rampant as I try to process what he’s implying. As I try to fathom how he could think I’d be the right person for the job when Hunter’s the one who broke my heart.

  But how would he know? Texts late at night telling me where to meet and when. Quick romps in hotel rooms when we happened to be in the same city at the same time. Zero promises given of anything more than the physical. How would anyone know when I played our whole sexcapade off as a casual thing I had no attachment to?

  Even to Hunter, himself.

  But I’m looking at my father, and he’s not backing down.

  “This is a joke, right? You’re playing with me?” I ask in a half-laugh, half no-damn-way tone.

  “I wish I were.” At least there’s contrition in his voice when he says it, and I wonder if in his father-sense he has an inkling that my casual dating of Hunter had grown into something more in my heart. “I know you two had a thing a way back and—”

  “A thing?” I snort, realizing I’m reacting off my own emotion and not from something he knows. His lifted eyebrows say as much. “Yes. Sure. Something like that.”

  “I saw you talking to him at the ESPY’s a few months back. I didn’t realize there was bad blood between you.”

  Not bad blood.

  More like unresolved feelings.

  “This is just a bad idea all around.”

  “Personally or professionally?” And it’s that tone—the one that says I need to suck it up, be tough, and professional—that’s a reprimand in itself, but I don’t respond. I’m busy wondering how I’m going to make a man, who despite aggravating me in all other ways, devastated me sensually and brought out an explosive sexuality I never really knew I had, come over to Kincade Sports Management. “Any way you look at it, Dekk, he’s one we have to have.”

  “Why?” It’s one word but it’s loaded with so much tension.

  “Because this is his year.”

  “His year to what?” I snort. “Be an ass and ruin what he has going for him?”

  “To win the Stanley Cup.”

  “I disagree—”

  “Hear me out,” he says with his hands up. He speaks quietly, and that tells me he’s put way more thought into this than I have. “Hunter’s been in the NHL for twelve years. Ten with various teams and then the LumberJacks came along and decided to build their hopes on him because he’s that freaking good.”

  “They can build their hopes on whoever they want, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.” I rise from my seat and pace the room as I think. “There’s that thing with the kid in the wheelchair the other day. The one he snubbed. There are rumors about fights in the locker room with teammates. That management isn’t happy. That—”

  “So, you have been keeping tabs on him.”

  My feet falter as I let his words settle in the room, because anyway I respond means I’m on the defensive when I shouldn’t be about a man I don’t care about.

  “I keep tabs on a lot of athletes.”

  “I see,” he says in that fatherly way that is part all-knowing, part maddening, and nothing I want to address. “The question is why is he acting out? Why has he had an excellent career with a pristine reputation for almost twelve years and then all of a sudden he doesn’t?”

  “I’m not a psychologist, Dad.”

  “No”—he leans forward in his seat—“but you know him better than anyone else in this office.”

  Shit.

  He’s right in every aspect, and yet I want to argue and reject his theory because I’ve moved on and don’t want to revisit a man who broke my heart.

  “Make Lennox go after him,” I say, offering up my sister while at the same time hating that she might. “Give me a different athlete to bring over.” Panic flutters in my chest at the mere mention of Hunter and the vivid memories of him that might still fill my fantasy bank.

  “Hunter and Lennox?” He chuckles. “The two of them together would be oil and water.”

  “Well, so were we,” I throw back as I attempt to fathom why my dad would ever assume I’d be the right one to go after Hunter.

  More like a match to gasoline.

  But oh, that one time with oil was so damn fun.

  “We can use your history with him to our advantage.”

  “Using it to our advantage is one thing. What about what it means for me?” I ask, giving away what I was hiding—that he meant more to me than casual.

  Snapshots of memories flicker through my mind like a tape reel. Volatile and deliciously addictive sex always highlighted—or rather lowlighted—by our inability to remain civil to one another. And despite that, I still fell for him. I still wanted to try to have something more with him.

  He still let me walk away from him without a word.

  “He’s who we need, kiddo,” my dad says, ripping me out of the documentary in my head. “Statistically speaking, he’s phenomenal. He’s angling to surpass records—goals, assists. He’s one of the fastest on the ice out there and his stick-handling skills are unrivaled.”

  “You forgot that he’s an asshole.” I smile sarcastically.

  “Aren’t we all in some way or another?” He raises his brows and returns the same smile. “Look, if he stays injury-free, he might just be one of the next greats. And having him as a client could be a huge draw for us.”

  “Or he could implode and we could be stuck scrambling to salvage his career.”

  “Then let’s swoop in and save him from doing that because, sure as hell, Sanderson isn’t.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “It is, Dekk. He’s coming up for a contract negotiation after this season that could net him a substantial pay increase. Pair that with his poor conduct and his closing in on some long-standing records, and we could help him get there. You could help him get there. I’ve watched him, admired him, for a lot of years, but lately, I can tell he’s struggling.”

  “I am not a nursemaid, Dad.”

  “Don’t I know it.” His chuckle fills the room. “I’m not asking you to be one. All I’m saying is visit him. Talk with him. Travel with the team during their next road stretch and see if you can figure it out. Sell him on the fact that you understand him when it seems Sanderson is just a stat chaser these days—picking up clients with the brightest stars, not necessarily the most talent. And you know what happens to bright stars.”

  “They burn out.”

  He nods, his eyes holding mine as they turn serious. “We can assert that he’ll receive more by going with us. Drop names, and give him examples of the contracts we’ve increased during negotiations.”

  “And that’s why you think he’ll leave Sanderson?” I snort. “The only effect my appearance will have is him walking the other way.”

  Or wanting to have sex. And that just can’t happen, not if we’re to have a professional relationship as my dad is sitting here telling me we need to have.

  “You underestimate yourself, Dekker. You always have.”

  Silence falls as our eyes hold. The hum of my sisters chatting in the main office filters through to us in muffles, but it’s him that holds me rapt.

  “Dad? What’s going on? Is the business in trouble? Was everything okay at the doctor’s the other day? I mean . . . where is this all coming from?”

  His smile is slow and soft, much like his voice when he speaks. “It’s just time for you guys to step up. Nothing’s wrong,” he says, but I don’t believe it. “Make sure you go in with a game plan. Don’t underestimate Hunter. You need—”

  “Trashing bars, fights with teammates, snubbing kids . . . can’t wait.” I sigh.

  “And he’s been the NHL’s MVP two years running, so I think this year is his to win the Hart Memorial Trophy. You keep pointing out the bad, but none of it is affecting his success on the ice. Find out what has affected his behavior off the ice. That’s not like him, and you know that.”

  He’s right. I do know that. I’ve never seen him ignore a fan before. Especially a kid. But I can’t get emotionally involved. Not again.

  “Right now, you need to focus on getting your stuff packed and making travel arrangements,” he says as he pushes his chair away from the table.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You’ll have plenty of time to think about how you’re going to approach him on your flight to Chicago tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I say the word but it takes me a second to digest it.

  “Yes, tonight.”

  “You expect me to just pick up and go, like that?” I ask, like this is something new and I haven’t done it before in the past. But this is Hunter we’re talking about. This is my secret weakness and my silent heartbreak. “I have plans with Chad tonight. His work event is a very big deal. I can’t just—”

  “Yes, you can. I’m sure he’ll understand.” His smile is tight and his expression is stern. “It’s not like he bends any of his business obligations for you.”

  “And there’s the dig,” I mutter.

  He stops in his tracks and turns to face me. “Not a dig, at all. He’s just a man who’ll never commit, and for the life of me I can’t figure out what you see in him. He’s successful and handsome if you go for that sort, which you usually don’t—”