Kitabı oxu: «His Secretary's Surprise Fiancé»

To Catherine Mann, my longtime critique partner, for inviting me to dream up a Mills & Boon Desire series with her. We’ve brainstormed many books together over the years, but this was a special treat since we both got to write them! Thank you, Cathy, for being a creative inspiration and a wonderful friend.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Extract

Copyright

One

Dempsey Reynaud would have his revenge.

Leaving the football team’s locker room behind after losing the final preseason game, the New Orleans Hurricanes’ head coach charged toward the media reception room to give the mandatory press conference. Today’s score sheet was immaterial since he’d rested his most valuable players. Not that he’d say as much in his remarks to the media. But he would make damn sure the Hurricanes took their vengeance for today’s loss.

They would win the conference title at worst. A Super Bowl championship at best.

As a second-year head coach on a team owned by his half brother, Dempsey had a lot to prove. Being a Reynaud in this town came with a weight all its own. Being an illegitimate Reynaud meant he’d been on a mission to deserve the name long before he became obsessed with bringing home a Super Bowl title to the Big Easy. A championship season would effectively answer his detractors, especially the sports journalists who’d declared that hiring him was an obvious case of favoritism. The press didn’t understand his relatives at all if they didn’t know that his older brother, Gervais, would be the first one calling for his head if he didn’t deliver results. The Reynauds hadn’t gotten where they were by being soft on each other.

More important, his hometown deserved a championship. Not for the billionaire family who’d claimed him as their own when he was thirteen. He wanted it for people who hungered for any kind of victory in life. For people who struggled every day in places like the Eighth Ward, where he’d been born.

Just like his assistant, Adelaide Thibodeaux.

She stood outside the media room about five yards ahead of him, smiling politely at a local sportswriter. When she spotted Dempsey, she excused herself and walked toward him, heels clicking on the tile floor like a time clock on overdrive. She wore a black pencil skirt with gold pinstripes and a sleeveless gold blouse that echoed the Hurricanes’ colors and showed off the tawny skin of her Creole heritage. Poised and efficient, she didn’t look like the half-starved ragamuffin who’d been raised in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. The one who used to stuff half her lunch in her book bag to share with him on the bus home since he wouldn’t eat again until the free breakfast at school the next morning. A lot had changed for both of them since those days.

From her waist-length dark hair that she wore in a smooth ponytail to her wide hazel eyes, framed by dark brows and lashes, she was a pretty and incredibly competent woman. The only woman he considered a friend. She’d been his assistant through his rise in the coaching ranks, her salary paid by him personally. As a Reynaud, he wrote his own rules and brought all his resources to the table to make a success of coaching. He’d been only too glad to create the position for her as he’d moved from Atlanta to Tampa Bay and then—two years ago—back to their hometown after his older brother, Gervais, had purchased the New Orleans Hurricanes.

There was a long, proud tradition of nepotism in football from the Harbaughs to the Grudens, and the Reynaud family was no different. They’d made billions in the global shipping industry, but their real passion was football. An obsession with the game ran in the blood, no matter how much some local pundits liked to say they were dilettantes.

“Coach Reynaud?” Adelaide called to him down the narrow hallway draped in team banners. Her use of his title alerted him that she was annoyed, making him wonder if that sportswriter had been hassling her. “Do you have a moment to meet privately before you take the podium?”

She handed him note cards, an old-fashioned preference at media events so he could leave his phone free for updates. He planned to brief the journalists on his regular-season roster, one of the few topics that would distract sports hounds from grilling him about today’s loss in a preseason contest that didn’t reflect his full team weaponry.

“Any last-minute emergencies?” He frowned. Adelaide had been with him long enough to know he didn’t stick around longer than necessary after a loss.

He needed to start preparing for their first regular-season game. A game that counted. But he recognized a certain stiffness in her shoulders, a tension that wouldn’t come from a defeat on the field even though she hated losing, too. She’d mastered hiding her emotions better than he had.

“There is one thing.” She wore an earbud in one ear, the black cord disappearing in her dark hair; she was probably listening for messages from the public relations coordinator already in the media room. “It will just take a moment.”

Adelaide rarely requested his time, understanding her job and his needs so intuitively that she could prepare weeks of his work based on little more than his daily texts or CCing her on important emails. If she needed to speak with him privately—now—it had to be important.

“Sure.” He waved her to walk alongside him. “What do you need?”

“Privately, please,” she answered tightly, setting off alarms in his head.

Commandeering one of the smaller offices along the hallway, Dempsey flicked on a light in the barren, generic space. The facilities in the building were nothing like the team headquarters and training compound in Metairie, where the Reynauds had invested millions for a state-of-the-art home. They played here because it was downtown and easier for their fans. The tiny box where they stood now was a fraction the size of his regular work space.

“What is it?” He closed the door behind him, sealing them inside the glorified cubicle with a cheap metal desk, a corded phone from another decade and walls so thin he could hear the lockers slamming and guys shouting in the team room next door.

“Dempsey, I apologize for the timing on this, but I can’t put it off any longer.” She tugged the earbud free, as if she didn’t want to hear whatever was going on at the other end of her connection. “I’ve tried to explain before that I couldn’t be a part of this season but it’s clear I’m not getting through to you.”

He frowned. What the hell was she talking about? When had she asked for a break? If she wanted vacation time, all she had to do was put it on his calendar.

“You’re going to do this now?” He prided himself on control on the field and off. But after today’s loss, this topic was going to test his patience. “Text me the dates you want off, take as long as you need to recharge and we’ll regroup later. You’re invaluable to me. I need you at full speed. Take care of yourself, Adelaide.”

He turned to leave, ready to get back to work and relieved to have that resolved. He had a press conference to attend.

She darted around him, blocking the door with her five-foot-four frame. “You aren’t listening to me now. And you haven’t been listening to me for months.”

The team owned tackling dummies for practice that stood taller than Adelaide, but she didn’t seem to notice that Dempsey was twice her size.

He sighed. “What did I not hear?”

“I want to start my own business.”

“Yes. I remember that. We agreed you would draw up a business plan for me to review.” He knew she wanted to start her own company. She’d mentioned it last winter. She’d said something about specializing in clothes and accessories for female fans. She hoped to grow it over time, eventually securing merchandising rights from the team with his support.

He worried about her losing the financial stability she’d fought so hard to attain and figured she would realize the folly of the venture after thinking it over. He thought he’d convinced her to reevaluate those plans when he’d persuaded her to return for the preseason. Besides, she excelled at helping him. She was an invaluable member of the administrative staff he’d spent years building, so that when he finally had the right football personnel on the field, he could ride that talent to a winning year.

That year had arrived.

“I’ve emailed my business plan to you multiple times.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts, an unwelcome reminder that Adelaide was an attractive woman.

She was his friend. Friendships were rare, important. Sex was...sex. She was more than sex to him.

“Right.” He swallowed hard and hauled his gaze upward to her hazel eyes. “I’ll get right on reading that after the press conference.”

“Liar,” she retorted. “You’re putting me off again. I can’t force you to read it, any more than I can make you read the messages and emails from your former female companions.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, her rigid spine still plastered to the door, blocking his exit. It had never pleased her that he’d asked her to handle things like that from his inbox. But he needed her help deflecting unhappy ex-girlfriends, preventing them from talking to the press and diverting public attention from the team to his personal life. Adelaide was good at that. At so many things. His life frayed at the edges when she wasn’t around.

Plus, he was devoting every second possible to the task of building a winning team to secure his place in the Reynaud family. It wasn’t enough that he bore his father’s last name. As an illegitimate son, he’d always needed to work twice as hard to prove himself.

And Adelaide’s efforts supported that goal. He was good at football and finances. Adelaide excelled at everything else. He’d been friends with her since he’d chased off some bullies who’d cornered her in a neighborhood cemetery when she was in second grade and he was in third. She’d been so grateful she’d insinuated herself into his world, becoming his closest friend and a fierce little protector in her own right. Even after the time when Dempsey’s rich, absentee father had shown up in his life to remove him from his hardscrabble life in the Eighth Ward—and his mother—for good. His mom had given him up for a price. Adelaide hadn’t.

“Then, I’ll resume management of the personal emails.” He knew he needed to deal with Valentina Rushnaya, a particularly persistent model he’d dated briefly. The more famous a woman, apparently, the less she appreciated being shuffled aside for football.

“You will have no choice until you hire a new assistant,” Adelaide replied. Then, perhaps realizing that she’d pushed him, she gave him a placating smile. “Thank you for understanding.”

Hire a new assistant? What the hell? Was she grandstanding for something, like a raise? Or was she actually serious about launching her business right now at the start of the regular season?

“I don’t understand,” he corrected her, trying to talk reason into her. “You need start-up cash for your new company. Even without reading your plan, I know you’ll be depleting the savings you’ve worked so hard for on a very long shot at success. Everyone likes an underdog but, Addy, the risk is high. You have to know that.”

“That’s for me to decide.” Fierceness threaded through her voice.

He strove to hang on to his patience. “Half of all small businesses fail, and the ones that don’t require considerable investment. Work for one more year. You can suggest a raise that you feel is equitable and I’ll approve it. You’ll have a financial cushion to increase your odds of growing the company large enough to secure those merchandising rights.”

And he would have more time to persuade her to give up the idea. Life was good for them now. Really good. She was an integral part of his success, freeing him up to do what he did best. Manage the team.

The voices and laughter in the hallway outside grew louder as members of the media moved from the locker-room interviews to the scheduled press conference. He needed to get going, to do everything possible to keep their future locked in.

“Damn it, I don’t want a raise—”

“Then, you’re not thinking like a business owner,” he interrupted. Yes, he admired her independence. Her stubbornness, even. But he couldn’t let her start a company that would fail.

Especially when she could do a whole hell of a lot of good for her current career and for his team. For him. He didn’t have time to replace her. For that matter, as his longtime friend who probably understood him better than anyone, Adelaide Thibodeaux was too good at her job to be replaced.

He reached around her for the doorknob. She slid over to block him, which put her ass right over his hand. A curvy little butt in a tight pencil skirt. Her chest rose with a deep inhale, brushing her breasts against his chest.

He. Couldn’t. Breathe.

Her eyes held his for a moment and he could have sworn he saw her pupils widen with awareness. He stepped back. Fast. She blinked and the look was gone from her gaze.

“I’m grateful that working with you gave me the time to think about what I want to do with my life. I got to travel all over and make important contacts that inspired my new business.” She gestured with her hands, and he made himself focus on anything other than her face, her body, the memory of how she’d felt pressed up against him.

He watched her silver bracelet glinting in the fluorescent lights. It was an old spoon from a pawnshop that he’d reshaped as a piece of jewelry and given to her as a birthday present back when he couldn’t afford anything else. Why the hell did she still wear that? He tried to hear her words over the thundering pulse in his ears.

“But, Dempsey, let’s be honest here. I did not attend art school to be your assistant forever, and I’ve been doing this far too long to feel good about it as a ‘fill-in job’ anymore.”

He didn’t miss the reference. He’d convinced her to work with him in the first place by telling her the position would just be temporary until she decided what to do with her art degree. That was before she’d made herself indispensable. Before he’d started a season that could net a championship ring and cement his place in the family as more than the half brother.

He’d worked too hard to get here, to land this chance to prove himself under the harsh media spotlight to a league that would love nothing more than to see him fail. This was his moment, and he and Adelaide had a great partnership going, one he couldn’t jeopardize with wayward impulses. Winning wasn’t just about securing his spot as a Reynaud. It was about proving the worth of every kid living hand-to-mouth back in the Eighth Ward, the kids who didn’t have mystery fathers riding in to save the day and pluck them out of a hellish nightmare. If Dempsey couldn’t use football to make a difference, what the hell had he worked so hard for all these years?

“You can’t leave now.” He didn’t have time to hash this out. And he would damn well have his way.

“I’m going after the press conference. I told you I would come back for the preseason, and now it’s done.” Frowning, she twisted the bracelet round and round on her wrist. “I shouldn’t have returned this year at all, especially if this ends up causing hard feelings between us. But I can send your next assistant all my files.”

How kind. He clamped his mouth shut against the scathing responses that simmered, close to boiling over. He deserved better from her and she knew it.

But if she was going to see him through the press conference, he still had forty minutes to change her mind. Forty minutes to figure out a way to force her hand. A way to make her stay by his side through the season.

All he needed was the right play call.

“In that case, I appreciate the heads-up,” he said, planting his hands on her waist and shuffling her away from the door. “But I’d better get this press conference started now.”

Her eyes widened as he touched her, but she stepped aside, hectic color rising in her cheeks even though they’d always been just friends. He’d protected that friendship because it was special. She was special. He’d never wanted to sacrifice that relationship to something as fickle as attraction even though there’d definitely been moments over the years when he’d been tempted. But logic and reason—and respect for Adelaide—had always won out in the past. Then again, he’d never touched her the way he had today, and it was messing with his head. Seeing that awareness on her face now, feeling the answering kick of it in his blood, made him wonder if—

“Of course we need to get to the conference.” She grabbed her earpiece and shoved it into place as she bit her lip. “Let’s go.”

He held the door for her, watching as she hurried up the hallway ahead of him, the subtle sway of her hips making his hands itch for a better feel of her. No doubt about it, she was going to be angry with him. In time, she would see he had her best interests at heart.

But he had the perfect plan to keep her close, and the ideal venue—a captive audience full of media members—to execute it. As much as he regretted hurting a friend, he also knew she would understand at a gut level if she knew him half as well as he thought she did.

His game was on the line. And this was for the win.

* * *

That went better than expected.

Back pressed to the wall of the jam-packed media room, Adelaide Thibodeaux congratulated herself on her talk with Dempsey, a man whose name rarely appeared in the papers without the word formidable in front of it. She’d made her point, finally expressing herself in a way that he understood. For weeks now, she’d been procrastinating about having the conversation, really debating her timing, since there never seemed to be a convenient moment to talk to her boss about anything that wasn’t directly related to Hurricane football or Reynaud family business. But the situation was delicate. She couldn’t afford to alienate him, since she’d need his help to secure merchandising rights as her company grew. And while she’d like to think they’d been friends too long for her to question his support...she did.

Somewhere along the line they’d lost that feeling they had back in junior high when they’d sit on a stoop and talk for hours. Now it was all business, all the time. That didn’t seem to bother Dempsey, who lived and breathed work. But she needed more out of life—and her friends—than that. So now she was counting down the minutes of her last day on the job as his assistant. Maybe, somehow, they’d recover their friendship.

She hated to leave the team. She loved the sport and excelled at her job. In fact, she’d grown to enjoy football so much she couldn’t wait to start her own high-end clothing company catering to female fans. The work married her love of art with her sports savvy, and the projected designs were so popular online she’d crowd funded her first official offering last week. She was ready for this next step.

And she was very ready for a clean break from Dempsey.

Her eyes went to him in the bright spotlight on the dais where coaches and a few key players would take turns fielding questions. The sea of journalists hid behind cameras, voice recorders and lights, a wall of devices all currently aimed at Dempsey Reynaud, the hard-nosed coach and her onetime friend who’d unknowingly crushed most of her dreams for the past decade.

He was far too handsome, rich and powerful. Dempsey might not ever see himself as fully accepted into the family, but the rest of the world breathed his name with the same awe as they did the names of the other Reynaud brothers. All four of them had been college football stars, with the youngest two opting for NFL careers while the older two had stepped into front-office roles in addition to their work in the family’s business empire. Each remained built like Pro Bowl players, however. Dempsey’s broad shoulders tested the seams of his Hurricanes jersey, his strong biceps apparent as he leaned forward at the podium to provide his perspective on the game and give an injury report.

With his dark brown hair and eyes a bit more golden than brown, there was no mistaking Dempsey’s relation to his half brothers. But the cleft in his chin and the square jaw were all his own, his features sharp, his mouth an unforgiving slash. He spoke faster, too, with his stronger Cajun accent.

Not that she’d spent an inordinate amount of time cataloging every last detail about the man she’d swooned over as a teen. There was a time she would have done backflips to make him notice her as more than just his scrawny, flat-chested pal. But the only time she’d succeeded? He’d ended up noticing her as a tool for increasing his business productivity. He had honestly once referred to her in those exact terms. He hadn’t even noticed when she’d ceased being much of a friend to him—forgoing personal exchanges in favor of taking care of business.

That hurt even more than not being noticed as a woman.

“Adelaide?” The voice of the PR coordinator sounded in her earpiece, a woman who had quickly seen the benefits of a coach with a personal assistant, unlike some of the front-office personnel in other cities where she’d worked. “I’m receiving calls and messages for Dempsey from Valentina Rushnaya. She’s threatened to give some unflattering interviews if she can’t arrange for a private meeting with him.”

Adelaide’s skin chilled. Dempsey’s latest supermodel. The woman had been rude to Adelaide, unwilling to accept that her affair with Dempsey was over despite the extravagant diamond bracelet he’d sent as a breakup gift. Occasionally, Adelaide felt bad for the women he dated. She understood how it hurt to be kept at a distance after experiencing what it felt like to be the center of his attention—if only briefly. But she had no such empathy for Valentina.

Stepping to the back of the room, Adelaide spoke softly into her microphone, momentarily tuning out of the press conference as Dempsey wound up his opening remarks.

“I talked to Dempsey about this and he’s agreed to handle it.” She didn’t see any need to share her plans to vacate her position. “Anything she says would either be old news, or blatant lies.”

“Should we schedule a meeting to come up with a response plan, just in case?” Carole pressed. The woman stood on the far end of the room, her arms crossed in her navy power suit that was her daily uniform, her blond bob as durable as any helmet in the league. “Dempsey’s new charity has their first major fund-raiser slated for next week. I think he’ll be disappointed if this woman succeeds in deflecting any attention from that.”

Adelaide would be equally disappointed.

The Brighter NOLA foundation had been her idea as much as his, a youth violence prevention initiative where Dempsey could leverage his success and influence to help some of the more gang-ridden communities in New Orleans. Like where they’d grown up. Or, more accurately, where he’d lived briefly and where she’d been stuck after he got out.

She’d had her own run-ins with youth violence.

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” She would honor those words, even if it meant communicating with Dempsey after she walked away from the Silver Dome today. “She signed a strict nondisclosure agreement before she started dating Dempsey, so going to the press will be a costly move for her.”

Dempsey had communicated as much to Adelaide in a one-line email when she’d mentioned it to him two weeks ago. He’d typed, She has no legal recourse, and attached a copy of the confidentiality agreement the woman had signed as part of his megaromantic dating procedure. In Adelaide’s softer-hearted moments, she recognized that the single life could be difficult for an extraordinarily wealthy and powerful man in the public eye. He had to be practical. Careful. But the nondisclosure agreement, complete with enforcement clause and confidentiality protection, seemed over-the-top.

Given the number of women who still lobbied to be in his life, however, it must not deter many.

“Valentina is wealthier than some of the ladies he’s dated,” Carole pointed out. “But I hope she’s just stirring trouble with us and not—” She stopped speaking suddenly and leaned forward. “Wait. Did he just say he has a personal announcement? What is he doing?”

From across the room, Adelaide noticed all of the PR coordinator’s focus was on the lectern where Dempsey was facing down the media.

The audience sat in stillness, making her wonder what she’d missed. In the hushed moment, Dempsey held the room captive as always, but more anticipation than usual pinged through the crowd. She could see it in their body language, as the journalists sat straighter in their seats, all dialed in to whatever it was the Hurricanes’ head coach was about to say.

“I got engaged today.” He announced it as matter-of-factly as if he’d just read the latest update on a linebacker’s injury report.

Murmurs of surprise rippled through the crowd of sportswriters while Adelaide reeled with shock. Engaged?

The floor seemed to shift beneath her feet. She reached behind her, searching for something to steady herself. He’d never mentioned an engagement. Her chest hurt with the weight of how little he trusted her. How little he cared about their old friendship. How much this new betrayal hurt, not to even know the most basic detail of his personal life—

“To my personal assistant,” he continued, his gaze landing on her. “Adelaide Thibodeaux.”