His Secretary's Surprise Fiance

She knew his habits well. Understood how he spent most nights after a day on the field, watching the action on the big screen where he could replay mistakes over and over again, making notes for the next day’s meetings so the team could begin implementing adjustments.

“Come upstairs first.” He turned off the light and headed back toward the front of the house, where she remembered seeing the main staircase. “I want you to see my favorite part of this place.”

Something in his voice—his eyes—made her curious. Maybe it was a hint of mischief, the same kind that had once led them into a haunted house, which turned out to be the coolest spot in their neighborhood after she got over being scared of the so-called voodoo curse on the place. Besides, she needed to see hints of her old friend—or even her boss—inside the very hot, very sexy male she kept seeing instead. So she focused on that “I dare you” light he’d had in his eyes as she padded up the dark mahogany stairs behind him, the two-story foyer a deep crimson all around them.

He’d come a long way from the apartment on St. Roch Avenue where he’d battled river rats as often as his mother’s stream of live-in boyfriends, each one more of a substance abuser than the last. His mom had been a local beauty when she’d had an anonymous one-night stand with Dempsey’s father after meeting at the restaurant where she’d waitressed. She hadn’t read the papers enough to recognize Theo Reynaud, but when she’d seen him on television over a decade later, she’d remembered that one night and contacted him.

Adelaide hadn’t been at all surprised when Dempsey’s real father had shown up to claim him. She’d known as soon as she’d met Dempsey—way back when he’d saved her from a beat down in a cemetery where she’d gone to play—that he was destined for more than the Eighth Ward. In her fanciful moments, she’d imagined him as a prince and the pauper character like the fairy tale. He had the kind of noble spirit that his poor birth couldn’t hide.

And even though she wanted to think she was destined for more than her tiny studio still a stone’s throw from St. Roch Avenue, she was determined to make it happen because of her hard work and talents. Not because of all the wealth and might of Dempsey Reynaud.

“Through here.” He waved her past the open door to another bedroom, the floor plan coming back to her now that she’d walked through the finished house. She recalled the two huge bedrooms upstairs and, down another hall, the in-law suite with a separate entrance accessible from outside above the three-car garage.

She didn’t remember the den where he brought her now. But he didn’t seem to be showing her the den so much as leading her through it to another doorway that opened onto the upstairs gallery. As he pushed open the door, moonlight spilled in, drawing her out onto the deep balcony with a woven mat on the painted wooden floor. A flame burst to life in the outdoor fireplace built into the exterior wall of the house, a feature he must have been controlling with the app on his phone. An outdoor couch and chairs surrounded the fireplace, but he led her past those to the railing, where he stopped. In front of them, Lake Pontchartrain shone like glass in the moonlight, a few trees swaying in a nighttime breeze making a soft swishing sound.

“I haven’t spent much time here, but this is my favorite spot.” He rested his phone and his elbows on the wooden railing, staring out over the water.

“If this was my house, I don’t think I’d ever leave it.”

There was so much to take in. Lights from Metairie and a few casino boats glittered at the water’s edge. Long docks were visible like shadowy fingers reaching out into the lake, while the causeway spanned the water as far as she could see, disappearing to the north.

“I wish I had more free time to spend here, too.” He turned to face her, his expression inscrutable in the moonlight. “But someone might as well make use of it. Move in for the next few weeks, Adelaide. Stay here.”

Normally, Dempsey wouldn’t have appreciated an interruption of a crucial conversation. But Evan’s announcement of dinner had probably prevented another refusal from Adelaide, so he counted the disruption as a fortuitous break in the action.

Now they ate dinner in high-backed leather chairs in the den, watching highlights from around the league. They attempted to name the flavors in the naturalistic Nordic cuisine with ingredients specially flown in to appease Gervais’s fiancée’s pregnancy cravings. The white asparagus flavored with pine had been interesting, but Dempsey found himself reaching for the cayenne pepper to bring the flavor of Cajun country to the salmon. You could take the man out of the bayou, but apparently his palate stayed there. Dempsey’s birth mother may have been hell on wheels, but before she’d spiraled downward from her addictions, she’d cooked like nobody’s business.