Page 3 of The Cowboy and the Bombshell
“Excellent. This is what we will do then. Pennington Hotels is getting ready to launch into the casino business. Namely, we are opening two casino hotels, one in Las Vegas and one in Atlantic City. Since it has become so…difficult to choose between you and Toddrick for the Vice President position, we will have a little contest, a duel of sorts. Both you and Toddrick will spearhead a launch for one of the new locations. I’m talking entirely new campaigns, from the ground up. We want social media, grand opening parties, galas, celebrity appearances, the whole thing.”
Was this really happening? I had led my own campaigns before, but nothing of this scale. I was already compiling ideas in my head. Sleek and classy, The Pennington Hotel would showcase the very best that Las Vegas could offer. It would be like Sex and the City meets Vegas Showgirl. This could work. I could still earn this position, and it would have nothing to do with nepotism.
“Father, do you really think this is the way to go?” Constance was clasping her hands on the table in front of her, knuckles white, likely to keep herself from clawing my eyes out. I smiled at her, my grin stretching from ear to ear.
There was no way Toddrick would run a better campaign than I would. The man was two cards short of a full deck. I huffed out a laugh at my own casino reference.
“Yes, Connie, I absolutely do.”
“Father, the board will never go for this.”
“You let me handle the board. Now, do you have any reason why you can’t participate, Toddrick?”
We all looked at him, waiting for a full fifteen seconds before he finally finished what he was looking at and raised his head. His red rimmed eyes blinked at his wife, then he slowly turned to look at Harold. “You said Vegas, right?” He actually looked excited about the prospect, though likely not for the same reasons I was.
“No,” Constance cut in. “You can’t go to Las Vegas. I need you closer to home. You will run the Atlantic City campaign. I am chairing the gala fundraiser for the animal shelter in a few weeks, and another for the Save the Seas Fund shortly after that. I won’t have you halfway across the country and unable to attend my benefits. The animals need our support, Toddrick.”
Please. The only animals Constance cared about were the ones used to make her shoes.
Toddrick deflated a little, then shrugged and went back to his phone with another sniff. I could practically hear Constance grinding her teeth.
“Well, then,” Harold said, standing and moving toward the door. “I will have the packages and guidelines drawn up by the legal department by the end of the week. You will each have four months to complete your campaign. Who ever has the best launch will become the new Vice President of Marketing for Pennington Hotels.” I beamed at him, matching his warm smile with one of my own this time.
“Pack your bags, Miss Lund. You’re going to Las Vegas.”
CHAPTER TWO
Penelope
“You’re going to Las Vegas?”
My mother stared at me in shock. Really, she had every right to be surprised. I hadn’t ever been away from the east coast, barely venturing farther west than the Pennsylvania boarder. Honestly, it was as shocking to me as it was to her. Not to mention a little bit overwhelming.
I sat at the kitchen table in our small townhouse in Woodside, Queens, the same one we had lived in for my entire life. My parents purchased it shortly after they were married, because of its close proximity to the Woodside Community School, and they had never left. My mom hadn’t even considered moving when we lost dad. Even now, after everything, my mother was still happier living here, saying that it was the place that held her best memories.
That was one of the reasons I still lived with her. Aside from the fact that real estate in New York was astronomically out of reach for just about everyone, mom and I shared the bills on this place. It was only a twenty-minute ride on the train to get to work, and a thirty-minute walk for mom to get to her job at Mount Sinai hospital. If the weather was bad, she took the bus, but she tried to walk as often as she could because she said it was good for her heart.
“It’s only going to be for four months, Mom, and I’ll still pay my share of the bills while I’m gone.”
She waved me off. “You know that’s not what I’m worried about.”
But she was, even though she’d never admit it.
When dad got sick, the bills were coming in fast. They piled up and before we knew it, mom was taking a second mortgage out on the house. It kept on that way and when dad died just after I turned eleven, we were drowning. Mom had taken so much time off her own job to care for him that we were barely able to keep the lights on. I had no idea at the time because I wasn’t old enough to understand the true significance of what was happening; I just knew that mom spent her nights crying in her room, and that we were eating more and more ramen noodles.
By the time I graduated high school I was working an after-school job and a weekend job. I somehow still managed to pull down excellent grades, likely due to my complete lack of social life, and I earned a full ride scholarship to NYU. Mom was elated and told me how proud she was of me, but I could see the relief flood her system when that acceptance letter came in the mail.
Again, I didn’t mind. Mom and I were a team. She would never have left me to fight on my own, so there was no way I was ever going to leave her. That was why I still lived at home. Even if I could afford a place of my own, I knew my mom needed me, and I would never let her down.
“It will be worth it in the end, Mom. I’ll earn the VP position and start making enough money to really make a dent in things.” The amount of medical bills we were still trying to pay off was insane. Fifteen years after his death, and we still hadn’t gotten very far. There were over one hundred million people in this country in the same boat we were, paying bills for a person who had long since passed away, or avoiding seeking medical treatment because they simply couldn’t afford it. It was criminal, really.
That was why I couldn’t let Toddrick and Constance mess this up for me. We needed the money to get out from under the black cloud that had been following us for the last fifteen years. I wanted to be able to help my mom retire, or at least reduce her hours. She deserved a break and I wanted to give one to her, Toddrick be damned.
“When do you have to leave?” she asked, already moving from worry mode to planning mode. She would work with me to get packed, ensuring I had everything I would need to make a good impression and do my job well.
“The contracts were presented and signed today,” I said. “My flight is Monday morning.” I had waited to tell her what was going on until I could be certain that it was really happening. Harold had again called me up to his private penthouse boardroom this afternoon, along with Toddrick and his ever-present shadow, Constance. We had gone over the terms and conditions of the challenge, reviewing budget constraints and staffing. Both hotels were currently under construction, their designs were each different, but top secret and awaiting the new marketing campaigns for the big reveals. We wouldn’t even know what we were working with until we arrived on site.
After the contracts had all been signed and everything was official, Harold pulled me aside and informed me that he would like me to stay at his personal home in a community on the far west side of Las Vegas called Summerlin South.
