by Joanne Rock
Her boss wants her in his office—and as his bride!
Adelaide Thibodeaux grew up with Dempsey Reynaud, and she’s worked for him for years. But when the billionaire football coach springs a surprise engagement to keep her from resigning, it’s a low blow. Just as she’s ready to strike out on her own, she’s stuck in a fake relationship with her boss, biding her time...
But soon Adelaide faces a second blow: she’s actually falling for the man! Can a relationship founded on a lie become the real deal? Or will they fumble before the end zone—and stay in the friend zone?
“I am not an actress.
“I can’t make this engagement believable. I won’t be the only one who finds our decision to marry a total farce.”
She reached for the door as if to end the conversation on that note.
He reached for her, bracketing her with his arms. Stopping her from exiting the vehicle.
“No one is going to doubt that you have my attention.” The space around them seemed to shrink. He noticed she remained very, very still. “That much is going to be highly believable.”
She swallowed hard.
“Do you believe me, Adelaide?” He wanted to hear her say it. Maybe because it had been a long time since someone questioned his word. “Or shall I prove it?”
Her eyes searched his. Her lips parted. In disbelief? Or was she already thinking about the kiss that would put an end to all doubts?
“I believe you,” she said softly, her lashes lowering as her gaze slid away from his.
* * *
His Secretary’s Surprise Fiancé is part of the Bayou Billionaires series—Secrets and scandal are a Cajun family legacy for the Reynaud brothers!
Dear Reader,
I’ve been a football fan since high school. To my classmates, I might have looked like a standoffish sort of girl (a clue to my future as an author, since writers are well-known for watching the action from the sidelines). Yet I was secretly enamored with football and the boys who played it.
There’s something transformative about playing football together, apparently. I could see it in the friendships that football created. Football crosses socioeconomic boundaries and torches the usual cliques that form in high school. On the field and off, the players are family and brothers in arms. They back each other up. They pick each other up. They boost one another’s spirits on the sidelines. There’s an all-for-one and one-for-all dynamic on a football team that is truly inspirational.
Since high school, I’ve gone on to cheer for many other teams from the pros to Pop Warner. I’ve loved seeing my sons play and benefit from the way the game creates lifelong friendships. On autumn Sundays, our family spends quality time together watching the pros play on television or occasionally in person. In the Bayou Billionaires, it was important to me that we delivered this unsung side of the football world—the family created by the team. In the case of the Reynaud brothers, they are bound by blood, too. But what connects them most is their love of the game, a legacy they’ve each chosen for themselves.
I hope you enjoy meeting the Reynauds and seeing the other side of football, too!
Happy reading,
Joanne Rock
HIS SECRETARY’S SURPRISE FIANCÉ
Joanne Rock
While working on her master’s degree in English literature, Joanne Rock took a break to write a romance novel and quickly realized a good book requires as much time as a master’s program itself. Today, Joanne is a frequent workshop speaker and writing instructor at regional and national writer conferences. She credits much of her success to the generosity of her fellow writers, who are always willing to share insights on the process. More important, she credits her readers with their kind notes and warm encouragement over the years for her joy in the writing journey.
Books by Joanne Rock
Harlequin Desire
Bayou Billionaires
His Secretary’s Surprise Fiancé
Harlequin Blaze
Double Play
Under Wraps
Highly Charged!
Making a Splash
Riding the Storm
One Man Rush
Her Man Advantage
Full Surrender
My Double Life
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or joannerock.com, for more titles!
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To Catherine Mann, my longtime critique partner, for inviting me to dream up a Harlequin Desire series with her. We’ve brainstormed many books together over the years, but this was a special treat since we both got to write them! Thank you, Cathy, for being a creative inspiration and a wonderful friend.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Excerpt from The Rancher's Marriage Pact by Kristi Gold
One
Dempsey Reynaud would have his revenge.
Leaving the football team’s locker room behind after losing the final preseason game, the New Orleans Hurricanes’ head coach charged toward the media reception room to give the mandatory press conference. Today’s score sheet was immaterial since he’d rested his most valuable players. Not that he’d say as much in his remarks to the media. But he would make damn sure the Hurricanes took their vengeance for today’s loss.
They would win the conference title at worst. A Super Bowl championship at best.
As a second-year head coach on a team owned by his half brother, Dempsey had a lot to prove. Being a Reynaud in this town came with a weight all its own. Being an illegitimate Reynaud meant he’d been on a mission to deserve the name long before he became obsessed with bringing home a Super Bowl title to the Big Easy. A championship season would effectively answer his detractors, especially the sports journalists who’d declared that hiring him was an obvious case of favoritism. The press didn’t understand his relatives at all if they didn’t know that his older brother, Gervais, would be the first one calling for his head if he didn’t deliver results. The Reynauds hadn’t gotten where they were by being soft on each other.
More important, his hometown deserved a championship. Not for the billionaire family who’d claimed him as their own when he was thirteen. He wanted it for people who hungered for any kind of victory in life. For people who struggled every day in places like the Eighth Ward, where he’d been born.
Just like his assistant, Adelaide Thibodeaux.
She stood outside the media room about five yards ahead of him, smiling politely at a local sportswriter. When she spotted Dempsey, she excused herself and walked toward him, heels clicking on the tile floor like a time clock on overdrive. She wore a black pencil skirt with gold pinstripes and a sleeveless gold blouse that echoed the Hurricanes’ colors and showed off the tawny skin of her Creole heritage. Poised and efficient, she didn’t look like the half-starved ragamuffin who’d been raised in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. The one who used to stuff half her lunch in her book bag to share with him on the bus home since he wouldn’t eat again until the free bre
akfast at school the next morning. A lot had changed for both of them since those days.
From her waist-length dark hair that she wore in a smooth ponytail to her wide hazel eyes, framed by dark brows and lashes, she was a pretty and incredibly competent woman. The only woman he considered a friend. She’d been his assistant through his rise in the coaching ranks, her salary paid by him personally. As a Reynaud, he wrote his own rules and brought all his resources to the table to make a success of coaching. He’d been only too glad to create the position for her as he’d moved from Atlanta to Tampa Bay and then—two years ago—back to their hometown after his older brother, Gervais, had purchased the New Orleans Hurricanes.
There was a long, proud tradition of nepotism in football from the Harbaughs to the Grudens, and the Reynaud family was no different. They’d made billions in the global shipping industry, but their real passion was football. An obsession with the game ran in the blood, no matter how much some local pundits liked to say they were dilettantes.
“Coach Reynaud?” Adelaide called to him down the narrow hallway draped in team banners. Her use of his title alerted him that she was annoyed, making him wonder if that sportswriter had been hassling her. “Do you have a moment to meet privately before you take the podium?”
She handed him note cards, an old-fashioned preference at media events so he could leave his phone free for updates. He planned to brief the journalists on his regular-season roster, one of the few topics that would distract sports hounds from grilling him about today’s loss in a preseason contest that didn’t reflect his full team weaponry.
“Any last-minute emergencies?” He frowned. Adelaide had been with him long enough to know he didn’t stick around longer than necessary after a loss.
He needed to start preparing for their first regular-season game. A game that counted. But he recognized a certain stiffness in her shoulders, a tension that wouldn’t come from a defeat on the field even though she hated losing, too. She’d mastered hiding her emotions better than he had.
“There is one thing.” She wore an earbud in one ear, the black cord disappearing in her dark hair; she was probably listening for messages from the public relations coordinator already in the media room. “It will just take a moment.”
Adelaide rarely requested his time, understanding her job and his needs so intuitively that she could prepare weeks of his work based on little more than his daily texts or CCing her on important emails. If she needed to speak with him privately—now—it had to be important.
“Sure.” He waved her to walk alongside him. “What do you need?”
“Privately, please,” she answered tightly, setting off alarms in his head.
Commandeering one of the smaller offices along the hallway, Dempsey flicked on a light in the barren, generic space. The facilities in the building were nothing like the team headquarters and training compound in Metairie, where the Reynauds had invested millions for a state-of-the-art home. They played here because it was downtown and easier for their fans. The tiny box where they stood now was a fraction the size of his regular work space.
“What is it?” He closed the door behind him, sealing them inside the glorified cubicle with a cheap metal desk, a corded phone from another decade and walls so thin he could hear the lockers slamming and guys shouting in the team room next door.
“Dempsey, I apologize for the timing on this, but I can’t put it off any longer.” She tugged the earbud free, as if she didn’t want to hear whatever was going on at the other end of her connection. “I’ve tried to explain before that I couldn’t be a part of this season but it’s clear I’m not getting through to you.”
He frowned. What the hell was she talking about? When had she asked for a break? If she wanted vacation time, all she had to do was put it on his calendar.
“You’re going to do this now?” He prided himself on control on the field and off. But after today’s loss, this topic was going to test his patience. “Text me the dates you want off, take as long as you need to recharge and we’ll regroup later. You’re invaluable to me. I need you at full speed. Take care of yourself, Adelaide.”
He turned to leave, ready to get back to work and relieved to have that resolved. He had a press conference to attend.
She darted around him, blocking the door with her five-foot-four frame. “You aren’t listening to me now. And you haven’t been listening to me for months.”
The team owned tackling dummies for practice that stood taller than Adelaide, but she didn’t seem to notice that Dempsey was twice her size.
He sighed. “What did I not hear?”
“I want to start my own business.”
“Yes. I remember that. We agreed you would draw up a business plan for me to review.” He knew she wanted to start her own company. She’d mentioned it last winter. She’d said something about specializing in clothes and accessories for female fans. She hoped to grow it over time, eventually securing merchandising rights from the team with his support.
He worried about her losing the financial stability she’d fought so hard to attain and figured she would realize the folly of the venture after thinking it over. He thought he’d convinced her to reevaluate those plans when he’d persuaded her to return for the preseason. Besides, she excelled at helping him. She was an invaluable member of the administrative staff he’d spent years building, so that when he finally had the right football personnel on the field, he could ride that talent to a winning year.
That year had arrived.
“I’ve emailed my business plan to you multiple times.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts, an unwelcome reminder that Adelaide was an attractive woman.
She was his friend. Friendships were rare, important. Sex was...sex. She was more than sex to him.
“Right.” He swallowed hard and hauled his gaze upward to her hazel eyes. “I’ll get right on reading that after the press conference.”
“Liar,” she retorted. “You’re putting me off again. I can’t force you to read it, any more than I can make you read the messages and emails from your former female companions.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, her rigid spine still plastered to the door, blocking his exit. It had never pleased her that he’d asked her to handle things like that from his inbox. But he needed her help deflecting unhappy ex-girlfriends, preventing them from talking to the press and diverting public attention from the team to his personal life. Adelaide was good at that. At so many things. His life frayed at the edges when she wasn’t around.
Plus, he was devoting every second possible to the task of building a winning team to secure his place in the Reynaud family. It wasn’t enough that he bore his father’s last name. As an illegitimate son, he’d always needed to work twice as hard to prove himself.
And Adelaide’s efforts supported that goal. He was good at football and finances. Adelaide excelled at everything else. He’d been friends with her since he’d chased off some bullies who’d cornered her in a neighborhood cemetery when she was in second grade and he was in third. She’d been so grateful she’d insinuated herself into his world, becoming his closest friend and a fierce little protector in her own right. Even after the time when Dempsey’s rich, absentee father had shown up in his life to remove him from his hardscrabble life in the Eighth Ward—and his mother—for good. His mom had given him up for a price. Adelaide hadn’t.
“Then, I’ll resume management of the personal emails.” He knew he needed to deal with Valentina Rushnaya, a particularly persistent model he’d dated briefly. The more famous a woman, apparently, the less she appreciated being shuffled aside for football.
“You will have no choice until you hire a new assistant,” Adelaide replied. Then, perhaps realizing that she’d pushed him, she gave him a placating smile. “Thank you for understanding.”
Hire a new assistant? What the hell? W
as she grandstanding for something, like a raise? Or was she actually serious about launching her business right now at the start of the regular season?
“I don’t understand,” he corrected her, trying to talk reason into her. “You need start-up cash for your new company. Even without reading your plan, I know you’ll be depleting the savings you’ve worked so hard for on a very long shot at success. Everyone likes an underdog but, Addy, the risk is high. You have to know that.”
“That’s for me to decide.” Fierceness threaded through her voice.
He strove to hang on to his patience. “Half of all small businesses fail, and the ones that don’t require considerable investment. Work for one more year. You can suggest a raise that you feel is equitable and I’ll approve it. You’ll have a financial cushion to increase your odds of growing the company large enough to secure those merchandising rights.”
And he would have more time to persuade her to give up the idea. Life was good for them now. Really good. She was an integral part of his success, freeing him up to do what he did best. Manage the team.
The voices and laughter in the hallway outside grew louder as members of the media moved from the locker-room interviews to the scheduled press conference. He needed to get going, to do everything possible to keep their future locked in.
“Damn it, I don’t want a raise—”
“Then, you’re not thinking like a business owner,” he interrupted. Yes, he admired her independence. Her stubbornness, even. But he couldn’t let her start a company that would fail.
Especially when she could do a whole hell of a lot of good for her current career and for his team. For him. He didn’t have time to replace her. For that matter, as his longtime friend who probably understood him better than anyone, Adelaide Thibodeaux was too good at her job to be replaced.
He reached around her for the doorknob. She slid over to block him, which put her ass right over his hand. A curvy little butt in a tight pencil skirt. Her chest rose with a deep inhale, brushing her breasts against his chest.
