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“Will you promise me something?” His eyes searched hers, as if he could see straight through to her heart. “Will you think about how rewarding it could be to get caught up in another moment? Not tonight, maybe. But we’ve got a lot of days to spend together and I think there’s something worth exploring in that kiss.”
Her heart did a little flip that made her feel woozy and breathless at the same time. She settled for a nod, unable to articulate an answer just now.
He pressed a button for the elevator and stepped into the cabin behind her when it arrived. His grandfather, family patriarch Leon Reynaud, stood against one wall inside the elevator. Adelaide didn’t know him well, but he attended all of the Hurricanes home games and she’d seen him in the owner’s suite on the fifty-yard line a few times.
He’d been a big man in another era, playing football and becoming a successful team owner of a Texas franchise until he’d sold it to be closer to his grandsons in Louisiana. But the years had bowed his back and he’d grown much thinner. Dempsey had told her once that Leon had never considered himself a good parent to his own sons and because of that, he tried harder to be a presence for his grandsons. Adelaide knew for a fact the older man held far more of Dempsey’s respect than his philandering father, Theo.
“Hello, Mr. Reynaud,” she greeted him while Dempsey clapped him on the shoulder.
“We’re heading home, Grand-père. Do you need a ride?” Dempsey asked.
“No need. I want to try my hand at blackjack and see if the Reynaud luck holds.” He gave Adelaide a rakish grin and straightened his already perfect tie. “My dear, did you know my own grandfather won his first boat in a game of cards? From there, he grew the Zephyr Shipping empire.”
It was a much-loved bit of Reynaud lore.
“Adelaide probably knows the family history as well as I do.” Dempsey met her gaze for a moment and she drank in the compliment.
He rarely handed out praise, especially publicly. The elevator bell chimed, and the door opened to the first floor. She stepped out into the crowd while Dempsey held the door for his grandfather.
“Adelaide, you say?” Leon frowned as he moved slowly toward the bar, his expression blank for a moment before his gray brows furrowed. “Be careful with the ladies, son. You wouldn’t want your wife to find out.”
“But, Grand-père—” Dempsey called after him as the older man disappeared into the crowd. Turning toward her, Dempsey pulled out his phone. “He’s been getting more confused lately.”
“Should we stay with him?” Adelaide hadn’t heard about Leon having any moments of confusion, but then, Dempsey didn’t share much about his family outside of business concerns.
Some of the magic of their kiss evaporated with the reminder of how removed she was from his private life. Even as his so-called fiancée.
“I’m texting Evan. He has a friend here tonight providing extra security. I’ll have him keep an eye on Leon and make sure he gets home safely.”
“One of your brothers might still be here.” She peered back into the party. “I saw Henri with some of the other players—”
“It’s handled.” He tucked his phone in his pocket and pressed a hand to her lower back.
A perfunctory touch. A social nicety. She could feel that his attention had drifted from her. From them.
Ha. Who was she kidding? There was no them. Dempsey maneuvered her now the same way he orchestrated the rest of his world. He wasn’t the kind of man to be carried away by a kiss, and right now he clearly had other things on his mind.
Forcing her thoughts from the chemistry that had simmered between them, Adelaide promised herself not to act on any more impulsive longings. She’d wanted to shake things up a bit between them and she had. But his silence on the ride home told her all she needed to know about the gamble she’d taken with the kiss.
It hadn’t paid off.
From now on, she would take her cues from Dempsey. If he wanted their relationship to be focused on business, she only had three and a half more weeks to pretend that old crush of hers hadn’t fired to life all over again.
* * *
The next day, she balanced two coffees in a tray and a box of pastries from Dempsey’s favorite bakery as she strode through the training facility toward his office. She reminded herself she’d done the same thing for him plenty of other times in her years as his assistant. When they’d been in Atlanta together and Dempsey had still been an assistant coach, they’d shared a secret addiction to apple fritters and she’d grown skilled at sneaking them into the training complex so the health-minded nutritionists wouldn’t discover them.
