He needed to get to know her better-a damn sorry thing to admit when he ought to know her as well as anyone. But he'd been too caught up in his own career the past few years to pay attention to Addy. If he wanted to persuade her to let her guard down and give him a chance, he needed to understand what made her happy. What pleased her.
Spotting the storefront of the warehouse, Dempsey steered his BMW sedan into a spot on the street. Evan had driven Adelaide to this location, so Dempsey had it on good authority she was still inside.
The least he could do was show an interest in the business she wanted to start. He'd looked over her business plan briefly before driving out here and he'd been both impressed and worried. Her goals were sound, but fulfilling them would mean a lot of hands-on involvement to get it up and running. Maybe if he discussed the clothing company with her in detail, he'd see a way for her to hand off some of the less important tasks. There had to be a way to free her up enough to keep working with him.
He needed Adelaide.
In the ten steps it took to hit the front door he was already sweating, the heat still wet as a dishcloth even though it was six o'clock. The man seated at the desk out front pointed Dempsey in the right direction, and he went into the warehouse to look for Adelaide.
He found her in front of a display of laces, draping an intricate gray pattern over her calf as if to see what the material looked like up against bare skin. Making him wonder what kinds of garments she had in mind for her next design project.
A vision of her high, full breasts covered in nothing but lace and his hands blasted to the forefront of his brain, making him hotter than the late-afternoon sun had. She wore different clothes from the ones she'd had on at the training facility, trading dark pants and a Hurricanes T-shirt for the yellow-and-blue floral sundress she now wore. Wide-set straps and a square neckline framed her feminine curves. Her hair was rolled into some kind of updo that exposed her neck and made him want to lick it. So much for keeping his thoughts friendly.
"Dempsey?" She straightened, a smile lighting up her face for a moment before a wary look chased after it. "What a surprise to see you here." She gestured to the soaring shelves of fabric samples on miniature hangers, sorted by color and material. "Are you here to redesign the Hurricanes jerseys?"
He scanned a section of striped and polka-dotted cotton.
"I think the guys will stick with what we have." He peered around the warehouse to gauge their level of privacy. He'd seen one other shopper on his way in, but other than that, the space appeared empty. "I'm here for you."
The lace dropped from her fingers. "Is there a problem with our opening day? I checked my phone-"
He caught her hand before she could dig in her purse for the device.
"No problems. Things are running just as they should for the regular-season opener."
He couldn't even touch her anymore without images of that tentative kiss of hers heating him from the inside out. He didn't know how he'd found the willpower to let her retreat to her own room last night when the need for a better taste of her rode his back like a tackle he couldn't break.
"Then, what did you need?" She slid her hand away from his, making him wonder what she felt when they touched.
"What do I need? To see you." He huffed out a breath and braced an elbow on one of the nearby shelves. "I came here to insist on that dinner I offered since it seemed as though you're being elusive today, and it's bugging me that I don't know why."
She busied herself with returning the lace to its small hanger and finding the proper place to reshelve it. When she didn't respond, he continued, "But now that I'm here, it occurs to me that the bigger reason I needed to see you is that I can't seem to think about anything else."
He watched as her busy movements slowed. Stopped. Color washed her cheeks, confirming his suspicion that she suffered from the same madness as he did. And yes, it gave him tremendous amounts of male satisfaction to think he wasn't the only one feeling it.
She clutched a handful of indigo-colored silk and squeezed.
"You made it clear that I've become a distraction," she reminded him, a hint of bitterness creeping into the words.
"Is that why you're avoiding me? Because I didn't make a more romantic gesture?" His hands were on her before he'd thought through the wisdom of touching her again.
Spinning her away from the fabric display, he turned her to face him, his palms settling into the indent of her waist. Hidden from view, he wrestled with the urge to feel more of her, to mold her to him and put an end to the damnable simmering distraction.
If she'd been anyone else, the next move would have already been made. But this was Addy.
"No. Thinking about romance will not help get us through the next few weeks," she told him evenly. "I'm not one of your girlfriends with a legal agreement you can keep renegotiating, okay? You laid out the terms when you put me on the spot with this engagement. I'm not sure why you think you can keep rewriting those terms to give you more benefits."
The bitterness in her voice had vanished. Taking its place was a trace of hurt.
An emotional one-two punch that he'd never intended.
His hands tightened on her waist. His throat dried up.
"You're right." Closing his eyes, he dragged in a deep breath and only succeeded in inhaling a hint of night-blooming roses. "I haven't thought about how this is affecting you. That day you told me you were quitting, I was completely focused on making sure that didn't happen. I came up with the only short-term solution I could."
Dempsey became aware of the sound of a woman's high heels clicking on the concrete floor behind him. She was heading their way.
"Ms. Thibodeaux, do you have any questions-" A tall blonde woman in a dark suit rounded the corner and came into view. "Oh. Hello there." She blushed at the sight of them together, making Dempsey realize how close he'd gotten to Adelaide during this discussion.
How much closer he still wanted to be.
"I put the last sample back," Adelaide told her, edging around Dempsey and straightening. "I'll give you a call once I have a better idea of what I might need."
The woman was already backing away. "Of course! No problem. And congratulations on your engagement."
As soon as the sales clerk disappeared from view, Adelaide swung around to face him.
"So now that you've acknowledged this engagement was a mistake, are you ready to call it off and maybe life can go back to normal?" Her hazel eyes seemed greener in this light. Or maybe it was the combination of anger and challenge firing through them.
"Not until I have a better short-term solution." He understood they needed to have this discussion since this attraction was proving far too distracting at a time when he needed absolute focus. "But you can help me brainstorm alternatives. Over dinner."
* * *
Two hours later, Adelaide sat cross-legged on a wooden Adirondack chair behind Dempsey's house overlooking Lake Pontchartrain. A blaze burned in the round fire pit in front of them as they finished a meal of Cajun specialties obtained by Evan from a local restaurant. Adelaide hadn't wanted to risk a public outing, unwilling to smile and lie politely about her engagement to Dempsey when the man was hell-bent on taking their relationship into intimate terrain.
And that's a problem...why? some snide voice in her head kept asking.
Sure, she wanted him. Desperately. But since a corner of her heart had always belonged to him, she feared this new development could have devastating consequences when the time came to return to their regular lives. And the time would come. She'd witnessed Dempsey's parting gifts to his exes enough times to know that relationships came with an expiration date for him. Still, she simmered with thwarted desire. While she finished her meal, she tormented herself with fantasies about touching him. Agreeing to his offer of sensual benefits. Bringing this heat to the boiling point. Even now she wanted to cross over to his chair and take a seat on his lap just to see what would happen.
From her vantage point, his thighs appeared plenty strong enough to bear her weight. Those workouts of his seemed to keep him in optimal shape.
Was she really ready for him to relegate her to friendship for life when she had this opportunity of living with him for the next few weeks? When he'd admitted he couldn't stop thinking about her? She'd nearly melted in her shoes when he'd confessed it at the fabric warehouse.
"Remember when you stole a crawfish for me and I was too afraid to eat it?" she asked, deliberately putting off the more serious conversation he'd promised over dinner.