His Secretary's Surprise Fiancé

Toward the Reynauds’ private compound in Metairie. She didn’t need to ask where they were headed, any more than Evan needed to ask. The world simply moved according to Dempsey’s wishes.

“I realize you think I did this just for me. For the team. But I did it for you, too.” His golden-brown eyes remained on her even when the viewing screens built into the overhead console flipped to life with game updates from around the league.

Being the focus of his undivided attention had the power to rattle any woman.

“We’ve been friends for too long for you to trot out that kind of BS with me.” She folded her arms tight across her chest, her body reacting all kinds of erratically around him today. “Can we at least be honest with each other?”

“I am being honest.” He shifted in his seat, turning toward her. Moving closer. “Adelaide, I don’t want to see you fail at anything. Ever. And I promise you, if you stick this out with me—just this one more season—I will ensure that your company gets off the ground with all the benefits of my connections.”

It was a lot to promise her. Worth a heck of a lot more than those diamond bracelets he passed out like consolation prizes.

“I don’t want a company that is a glorified Reynaud hand-off. I want the satisfaction of developing it myself.” There had been a time when he would have understood that. “Don’t you remember what it feels like to want to build something that is all your own? Without the benefit of—” she waved her arm to encompass his custom-detailed world in a vehicle that cost more than most people’s homes “—all this?”

His phone rang before he could answer her. And worse?

He held up a hand to indicate that he needed to take it.

“Reynaud,” he growled into the device.

Tuning him out, she fumed beside him. This was precisely why she needed to leave. She understood that he worked eighteen-hour days every day and that he took his business concerns as seriously as his team. But it had been too many years since he’d even pretended to make time for her or the friendship they’d once shared. He spoke to her as his assistant, not like the girl who had once been privy to all his secrets.

He had no idea about the strides she’d made in her business over the past few weeks—the way she’d pulled off funding for a short run of her first clothing item. He hadn’t been there to applaud her unique efforts or otherwise acknowledge anything she did, and she was sick of it. Sick of his whole world that could never pause for one moment. Even for the conversation they’d been having.

By the time Dempsey disconnected his call, she could barely hold on to her temper.

Enough was enough.

* * *

Setting aside his phone after clearing up some problems in Singapore, where it was already Monday morning, Dempsey hoped the time-out from the confrontation with Adelaide had helped her to cool off and see his side. She sure had backed him into a corner by quitting out of the blue.

What else was he supposed to have done when she’d forced his hand like that? The engagement was simply a countermove.

“Adelaide,” he began again, only to have her swing around in the seat to glower at him.

“How kind of you to remember we were in the middle of a conversation.” Her clipped words suggested her temper wasn’t anywhere close to cooling down. “Do you need a refresher on what we were discussing? One, our ridiculous engagement.” She ticked off items on her fingers. “Two, your sneak attack of having Evan lying in wait for me in the garage so I couldn’t make a clean break from the stadium today. Three, your inability to understand why I want to build my own company from the ground up, without the almighty Reynaud name behind me—”

“How can you, of all people, suggest I don’t understand what it’s like to want to develop your own company? To build your own team?” His voice hit a rough note even as his volume went softer. “You know why I went into coaching. Why it means everything to me to win a championship for this town.”

He remembered shared rides home that weren’t in the back of a Land Rover. Shared rides in a cramped bus full of bigger, stronger kids who amped up their street cred by converting new gang members or beating the living crap out of nonconverts. Of course he knew. He was giving back with his foundation. Constructing a positive environment with the Hurricanes for a community that needed an identity. Creating a team to root for that wore football jerseys instead of gang colors.

Adelaide didn’t answer, though. She stared at him with a stony expression. He didn’t have a clue what she was thinking. When had he lost the ability to read her? His gaze dipped to her mouth, set in a stubborn line. He read that well enough. Although, after that brush up against her before the press conference, he suddenly found himself wondering what she’d taste like. He hadn’t let himself think along those lines in years, always protecting their long-standing friendship. Something had gone haywire inside him after he’d touched her today. He couldn’t write it off as passing awareness of her as a woman, the way he had a few times as a teen. This attraction had been fierce, making him question if he’d ever be able to see her as just a friend again. It rattled him. He’d grown to rely on her too much to have an affair go wrong.

And it would. Adelaide was not the kind of woman to have affairs, for one thing. For another? Dempsey only conducted relationships that came with an expiration date.

With an effort, he steered himself back to his point.

“I’ve got controlling shares in businesses around the globe,” he reminded her as they got off I-10 and headed north toward Lake Pontchartrain. “But being CEO of this or vice president of that doesn’t mean as much when it’s handed to you. With coaching, it’s different. I earned a spot in this league. I am putting my stamp on this team, and through it—this town. I’m creating that right now, with my own two hands.”

He pulled his eyes away from her, needing a moment that wasn’t filled with the distracting new view of her as more than just his friend. He did not want to think about Adelaide Thibodeaux’s lips.

“You’re right.” She reached across the seat and touched his forearm. Squeezed lightly. “I’m upset about...a lot of things. But you deserve to be proud of your efforts with the team and with Brighter NOLA.” Her hand fell away, briefly grazing his thigh.

Then she pulled back fast.

He wished he could will away his reaction just as quickly.

“I understand you’re angry.” Maybe that was the source of all this tension pinging back and forth. Passions were running high today between the team’s loss, the start of the regular season and her trying to quit. “But let’s hammer out a plan to get through it. You want to build your own business, fine. Just wait until after the season is over and I’ll at least help you finance it. I can offer much better terms than the bank.”

The moon hung low over the lake as the SUV wound around the side streets leading to the family’s waterfront acreage. The lake was shallow here, requiring boat owners to install long docks to moor their watercraft. Dempsey couldn’t recall the last time he’d taken a boat out, since all his time was devoted to football and business.

“That’s very generous of you. But I can’t stay a whole season.” Briefly, she squeezed her temples between her thumb and forefingers. “I posted a design of my first shirt and won crowd funding for the production. I need to honor that commitment after my followers made it happen for me.”

And he had missed that milestone, even if it was just enough capital for a small run of shirts and not the launch of an entire business. He admired that—how she’d started off things so conservatively that her potential buyers had bought the clothes before she’d even made them. She was smart. Savvy. All the more reason he needed her. He could help her with her business after she helped him solidify his.

“Congratulations, Addy. I didn’t know about that. So give me four weeks.” He did not want to compromise on this. But four weeks bought him more time to convince her to stay longer. To show her that she had a place with the team. “The deal still stands. I’ll help you with the startup costs. You retain full control. But you will stay with me for another month to get the season underway.”

“What about the engagement? What happens to that ridiculous fiction next month?”

“You can break it off for whatever reason you choose.” He trusted her to be fair. He might not have been paying much attention to her for the past few years in his intense drive to lead his team, but he knew that much about her.

When the time came to “break up,” she wouldn’t drag him through a scandal the way Valentina had threatened. Especially since he and Adelaide would still be working together, because no way in hell was he losing her. Four weeks was a long time to win her over now that he understood how high the stakes were. A season like this might only come around once in a lifetime. If he didn’t make the most of it and secure the championship now, he might never get another shot.

“And until then? What will your family think of this sudden news? Will you at least tell them the truth so we don’t have to pretend around them?” She bit her lip as they drove through the gates leading to the Reynaud family acreage along the lake.

She’d never seemed at ease here, not from the first time she’d set foot on the property for his high school graduation party and spent most of the time searching for shells on the shore.

The SUV rolled past the mammoth old Greek Revival house where Dempsey had spent his teen years, now occupied by his older brother, Gervais. Henri and Jean-Pierre split an eleven-thousand-square-foot Italianate the family acquired when they’d bought out a former neighbor. Neither of them stayed with the family for long, since Henri and his wife had a house in the Garden District and Jean-Pierre spent the football season in New York with his team.

Dempsey’s place was slightly smaller. He’d specially commissioned the design to repeat the Greek Revival style of the main house, with four white columns in the front, and a double gallery overlooking the lake in back.

Evan parked the vehicle in front, but Dempsey didn’t open the door. “My family doesn’t need to know the truth about our relationship.” He reached for her hand to reassure her, guessing she would be bothered by the lie. “It will be simpler if we keep the details private.”

Her hand closed around his for a moment, as though it was a reflex. As though they were still friends. But damned if he didn’t feel that spark of awareness again. Whatever had happened between them back at the stadium was not going away.

“Your family won’t believe it.” She shook her head. “We’ve kept things strictly platonic for too long to feel...that way.”

She withdrew her hand from his. Either he was really losing his touch with women, or they’d both been feeling “that way” today. Was it the first time it had happened for her, or had she thought about him romantically in the past?

It bothered him how much he wanted to know.

“It’s none of their business.” He didn’t care what anyone thought. His brothers were too caught up in their own lives to pay much attention to Dempsey outside of his work with the Hurricanes. He’d been the black-sheep brother ever since their father had shown up with him in tow as a scrawny thirteen-year-old. “The engagement is important, since Valentina threatened to cause trouble for the Brighter NOLA fund-raiser by going to the media with some story about my nondisclosure agreements. The announcement of my marriage to you trumps her ploy ten times over. No one will care about her story, let alone believe it.”

“Ah. How convenient.” Adelaide wrenched her purse onto her lap and started digging through it. Finding a tube of lip balm, she uncapped it, twisted the clear shiny wand upward and slicked it over her mouth until her lips glistened.

His own mouth watered. Then he recalled her words.

“It is useful.” He watched her smooth her dark hair behind her ears, the primping a sure sign of nerves. “The engagement helps me to keep you close and prevents Valentina from sabotaging something you and I worked hard to develop. That foundation is too important for her to derail our efforts.”