Dempsey was across the floor and knocking Henri’s feet off the desk before the sentence was done.
“Not. The. Same.” Fury heated the words.
“Seriously?” Henri put his drink down. “Are we going there? Because I’m not getting bounced off the team for some bullshit argument in the den, but if I have to pound you, I will.”
Dempsey had more to say to that, since any pounding that needed doing would be meted out by him. But Gervais clapped him on the shoulder.
“Henri just doesn’t want to face the fact that Leon isn’t indestructible. Maybe give him a pass today.” Gervais spoke calmly. Rationally.
And, probably, correctly.
No one wanted to think about their grandfather going downhill. They all loved the old man.
“I would never cut you for an argument in the den.” Dempsey extended the olive branch. “But just so we’re clear, I could still kick your ass.”
“Not responding.” Henri returned his feet to the desk. “So no one else thinks it could have been a momentary lapse for Leon? One mistake and he’s an Alzheimer’s patient?”
“It’s not just one. There were signs this summer, too,” Gervais reminded them. “He was going to see his doctor about it and he said it was a thyroid condition. If that’s the case, he needs to get his meds checked. But at this point, we might need to consider the idea that he’s not really taking care of himself.”
Dempsey drained his water, trying to focus on the conversation and let go of the dig about his overlapping affairs. Not that Henri had worded it that way, but damn. He’d worked so hard to distance himself from his father’s philandering ways. Did his brothers still see him as some kind of playboy type?
Clearly they had no idea how far gone he was over Adelaide. He couldn’t even imagine letting her go at the end of their engagement. By now he wasn’t even as concerned about replacing her as his assistant.
He couldn’t replace her in his bed. Or if he was honest with himself, his heart. She made him laugh. She understood his lifestyle and the huge demands of his job. She even made it easier for him to be around his family. That dinner with Gervais and Erika had been one of the most stress-free times he’d ever had with one of his brothers as an adult, perhaps because he wasn’t reading slights into the conversation the way he did today with Henri.
“Dempsey?” Jean-Pierre’s voice knifed through his thoughts. “What do you think we should do?”
“Spend as much time with him as we can.” It was all he knew how to do with people who weren’t staying in his life forever. He knew it was a crap plan even as he proposed it, but he hadn’t figured out anything better for keeping Addy around either.
Throughout the meal he shared with his brothers, he kept coming back to that point. He had no plan for convincing Adelaide to stay. He respected her for wanting to build her own business and he couldn’t in good conscience prevent it from happening for his own selfish ends. He had to find a way to help her that would be an offer she couldn’t refuse. A way to help her that wouldn’t make her feel as if he was taking the power out of her hands.
He understood that much about her.
But their time shared as a newly engaged couple had shown him how good they could be together, and he refused to walk away from that without giving the relationship more time. Every day he couldn’t wait to be with her. Even sitting around with his brothers in a rare meal where they were all in the same place, Dempsey was still picturing that moment when he would head home and see Addy.
She made sense in his life and she always had.
He would make a case for extending their engagement. No, damn it. He would propose to her for real. They had been friends. They’d worked together. He counted on her.
Now? Their chemistry was off the charts and they brought each other a level of fulfillment that he’d never experienced before. Adelaide was a smart woman. She would understand why they worked together.
She had to.
Eleven
“I think it’s a great space, Adelaide.” Her mother walked through the riverside manufacturing facility that Adelaide could use for mass-producing knitwear. Della’s purple flip-flops slapped along the concrete floor.
“The square footage for offices is nice, too.” She headed toward the back of the building to show her mother. Her Realtor had opened the door for them as long as Adelaide would lock up behind them.