His Secretary's Surprise Fiancé(26)

"You'll be a hundred and five and wishing you'd had more fun in your  life," Jean-Pierre joked, going straight for the scotch decanted into  cut crystal. "I've got transportation home tonight, so I don't mind if I  crack open the stash Gervais likes to hide at the back of the cabinet."

"You have no idea where I hide my real stash." Gervais stalked out of  the media room, where game film seemed to run on a continuous loop  during the regular season. "I leave the swill out when I know the hard  drinkers are coming."

Gervais hugged their brother.

"Did someone say swill?" Henri ambled out of the media room, where he  must have been already watching film with Gervais. "Sounds like my kind  of night-as long as I don't have to drink with any holier-than-thou New  York players."

Even as he said it, he one-arm hugged Jean-Pierre. The two of them were  more competitive with the rest of the world than each other. It had  always made Dempsey a little sick inside to see them go up against one  another on the field, since he genuinely wanted both of them to win.  They were incredibly gifted athletes who, in a league full of gifted  athletes, walked on a whole different plane.

"Sit," Gervais ordered them. "You are busy and it's rare we're all  together. I'd like to deal with the issue at hand first so we can relax  over dinner."

"Relax?" Jean-Pierre lounged sideways in one of the big leather club  chairs arranged around the fireplace in the den. "Who can relax while  Gramps is struggling to remember his own grandsons?"

The mood shifted as they each gravitated toward the spots they'd always  taken in the room from the time they were kids and Theo would call them  in for talks. Or, more often, when they had run of the house because  their father was on an extended "business trip" that was code for a  vacation with his latest woman.                       
       
           



       

When the house had still belonged to Theo and Alessandra, most of the  rooms had been fussy and full of interior-decorator additions-elaborate  crystal light fixtures that hung so low the brothers broke something  every time they threw a ball in the house. Or three-dimensional wall art  that spanned whole walls and would scrape the skin off an arm if they  tackled and pushed each other into it.

The den had always been male terrain.

Now Dempsey got them up to speed on his exchange with Leon at the Brighter NOLA fund-raiser.

Silence followed, each one of them ruminating on the possibility that Leon was in the early stages of dementia.

"You do take after Dad the most," Henri offered from his seat behind  the desk, Italian leather shoes planted on the old blotter. He lifted a  finger from his glass to point at Dempsey.

His shoulders tensed. Every muscle group in his arms and back contracted.

"Henri," Gervais warned.

"Seriously, he looks more like Dad. He has his walk, too. Grand-père might have been-"

"I am nothing like our father." He had to loosen his hold on the cut-crystal glass before he shattered it.

He'd done everything to distance himself from Theo from the moment he'd  arrived in this house as a teen. He could count the number of drinks he  took in a year on one hand. As for women? He'd had contractual  arrangements with every single one but Adelaide, and the time frames had  never overlapped. There would never be a surprise child of his who  would be raised alone. Separated from family.

"I know, man. But you've got the whole drama with the model going on  the same week you get engaged. Maybe Leon just got a little muddled  and-"

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.

She was already subcontracting out a short run of shirts after her  success with crowd funding, but the time had come to think bigger. And  this space would be ideal, already containing a few machines she would  refit for the kind of textile production she needed. She'd been approved  for a small-business loan that would cover the cost of the building and  her biggest start-up expenses, but it was still a big step and she  wanted her mother's opinion.

Lately, it felt as though her life was on fast-forward, and while it  was exciting to have so many new options open to her, a part of her  wished she could just stop for a minute and be sure she was making the  best decisions. Dempsey jumbled all her thoughts lately, the passion  they shared so much different from her old crush. She wasn't sure if she  trusted herself to move forward in any direction.