Page 241 of Wild Card 13

“It felt proportionate.”

Despite everything, I laughed. It came out tired and thin, real.

Dad’s smile deepened for one second, and in that second, the whole room changed. Not the owner’s suite. Not the place where calls were made and problems disappeared behind polished doors. Just my father’s office, where he had once let me spin in his chair until I got dizzy and then pretended not to notice when I knocked a stack of scouting reports onto the floor.

“I had it handled,” I said, but there was no bite in it.

“I know.”

“Then why step in?”

Dad’s eyes held mine.

Because you are my daughter, his face said. Out loud, he said, “Because eliminating a companywide threat is for me to deal with personally and swiftly.”

I looked away first, toward the window overlooking the bowl. Down below, the ice gleamed beneath the arena lights, empty and waiting. So much of my life had happened in rooms above ice. Watching. Waiting. Trying to understand where I fit inside a world that belonged to my father before it ever belonged to me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You are welcome.” Then he ruined it on purpose. “Now that we have established I am occasionally useful, I would like to discuss your office.”

I blinked back toward him. “My office?”

“It looks like a conference room having an identity crisis.”

“That is rude.”

“It is accurate.”

“I have been busy.”

“I noticed.” His gaze moved over my face again, and I could tell he was connecting the wrong dots. Late nights. Charlotte. Promotion. Workload. Office lights burning after games. He saw exhaustion and gave it the shape he understood.

I let him. Some truths were not ready for fathers. Especially fathers who owned the team employing the man at the center of them.

Dad reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his wallet.

I frowned. “What are you doing?”

He held out a credit card between two fingers.

I stared at it. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I am twenty-five.”

“And?”

“I have my own money.”

“And?”

“I am not taking your credit card to decorate my office.”

“You are not decorating. You are making the space functional.”

“My office is functional.”