Читать книгу: «Cinderella And The Ceo»

Chapter One

Deke Bertrim stopped his rental car in front of a simple Cape Cod house in Greenburg, a small blue-collar town in Maryland. On this sunny Sunday afternoon in May, bicycles and assorted toys littered the front yard, but the grass was trimmed and the flower beds were free of weeds. Though all the residences on this block appeared to be well maintained, the neat fieldstone-and-brick home was the best kept on the quiet street.

Deke breathed a silent sight of relief. The house belonged to L. Hillman, supervisor of the Shipping and Receiving Department at Graham Metals, and was to be Deke’s residence for the next three months. Ostensibly he was here to go through executive training at the plant, but the truth was he would be investigating why the last audit of Graham Metals’ books was off by more than three hundred thousand dollars. Though he hadn’t said anything to his stepfather, he had been apprehensive about staying in the home of an employee, even if all the other executive trainees before him had done so because the rural Maryland plant was more than thirty miles from the nearest hotel. But seeing this well-kept house and the quiet neighborhood, Deke knew he had worried for nothing.

He got out of his car and grabbed his duffel bag and one suitcase. Considering the persona of an executive trainee, Deke had done what he supposed others before him had done. He’d packed light. He’d dressed down, wearing simple dark slacks and a comfortable polo shirt, and he would try to appear confident without being arrogant so Mr. Hillman and his family wouldn’t be suspicious of him. As he scoured every nook and cranny of the factory, subtly interrogating the employees and even stealthily prying details from Mr. Hillman himself, he had to look like an executive trainee.

Striding up the sidewalk, Deke figured he had made a good start. In fact, he was so proud of himself for assuming a role completely foreign to him that he had to contain a grin when he rang the doorbell.

The stained-glass front door opened slowly. For ten seconds Deke only stared at the absolutely stunning woman who answered his ring. With the bikes in the yard, he was smart enough to guess L. Hillman was married. So that news flash wasn’t what stole his breath or his power to think. This woman was gorgeous. Simply gorgeous.

“Hello. You must be Derrick Bertrim. I’m Laurel Hillman. Since you’ll be staying here at my house for the next few months, I guess I’m something like your tour guide while you’re in Maryland.”

“Hi. Y-yes, I’m Derrick, but I go by Deke.” He shook the hand Laurel extended as he mentally chastised himself for stuttering. He had met beautiful women before. Hell, he dated beautiful women. Seeing one out of context shouldn’t short-circuit his brain like this. “It’s nice to meet you, but you don’t have to worry about showing me around. Once your husband directs me to the factory, I’ll be fine on my own.”

Laurel grimaced. “I’m sorry. I guess no one told you, but I don’t have a husband. I’m L. Hillman. I’m the Shipping and Receiving supervisor at Graham Metals. I’m also the person who takes in the executive trainees.”

Deke froze. When he’d agreed to this assignment, he thought he would be living with a grizzled old man and his family. Somebody with enough years at the plant that he had earned the position, and somebody with enough professional savvy that he did the favor of allowing executive trainees to room with him so they would remember him when they got to the top. He didn’t have a clue he would be spending the next three months with a tall, thin woman with luscious auburn hair that curved at her shoulders and eyes so green Deke could see their color even though she stood in the shadow of her front door. Because the top two buttons of her white blouse were open, her long slender neck was exposed for his perusal. Well-worn jeans hugged her trim hips.

“Come in,” she said, still smiling pleasantly as she opened the door of her home a little wider so he could enter.

“Thank you.” Deke stepped into the foyer, carrying his duffel bag and suitcase, stifling the urge to loosen the collar of his shirt because he was incredibly uncomfortable and warm. Very very warm.

“Follow me,” she said, and Deke nodded.

Okay, Deke thought, as Laurel led him down a corridor decorated with plants, wall hangings and knick-knacks. So he had to regroup. No big deal. Lots of executives and plant supervisors were women. He didn’t even have to think about that to know it wasn’t an issue. The issue was that he was about to be living with this particular supervisor who was a woman, and hadn’t she said she wasn’t married?

Since every other executive trainee stayed here, Deke reminded himself that if there was a problem, it was his, not hers. She had already proved herself to be trustworthy, but more than that, no matter what curve this situation threw him, he had to handle it.

When they stepped into her spotless yellow-and-white kitchen, he said, “You have a beautiful home.”

“Thank you. I like it,” Laurel said, leading him past a round table surrounded by low-backed captain’s chairs, then built-in maple cabinets with white countertops to a hidden stairway. “Let’s take your things upstairs and I’ll show you your room.”

At the top of the steps, Laurel told him that he would use the bedroom on the right. She explained that the second-floor bathroom would be his and that the room across the hall with its lounge chair, television and desk, would also be at his disposal for the duration of his stay.

“You’re giving me the entire second floor?”

“The company pays me a lot of money.”

“I know, but this is your home,” Deke protested.

Laurel only laughed. “This home belongs to the bank. The money I get for your stay here will pay down some of the principal on my mortgage, and I’ll get the deed a lot sooner. I’m more than happy to let you use the entire second floor.”

Studying her lovely, innocent face, guilt flooded Deke. Though it was necessary to covertly infiltrate the plant to discover the reason for the discrepancies detected during the last audit, he suddenly felt incredibly wrong about deceiving this woman. In fact, he felt like a criminal. It was the first time since his stepfather’s assistant, Tom Baxter, created the plan to have Deke pretend to be an executive trainee that he realized he wouldn’t simply be lying to an entire plant, he would also be taking advantage of someone in an extremely personal way. A woman, no less.

He wondered if that wasn’t the real reason he became so flustered when he met her, and decided he wasn’t so much attracted to her as guilt-ridden. His family didn’t use, abuse or take advantage of anyone. If Deke was uncomfortable, overly warm and stuttering, it was because spying went against his beliefs.

Unfortunately neither he nor Tom could think of another way to ferret out the problem without alerting the person creating it and giving him or her time to cover his or her tracks.

“I don’t need the entire second floor.”

“Trust me. I have two young daughters. You will be happy for the sanctuary.”

“I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

“Well, don’t,” she said simply, and led him downstairs again. “I’m fine.”

Deke heard a slight quiver in her voice, and intuition he didn’t want to possess about this woman kicked in. She wasn’t fine. Something was wrong in her life. Part of him considered that if he could ascertain her problem and fix it, he could return the favor she was unwittingly paying him and his family. The sense of guilt he felt would leave him. He could get on with his mission, and all would be right with the world again.

But he dismissed that because he didn’t know for sure she had a problem. He was only guessing. And if she did, he didn’t know that he could fix it. Besides, it wasn’t his intention to get too involved with her, the town or the plant. He simply wanted to figure out why the audit was off by so much money and get back to the corporate office where he belonged because he didn’t have time for this. His stepfather, Roger Smith, planned to retire in two years, and in twenty-four short months, Deke would become responsible for the jobs of three thousand people and his family’s fortune. Having spent the past ten years traveling the country, playing minor-league baseball, only working for Graham Industries in the off-season, he wasn’t current with all the company’s projects. And he wanted to be current. Actually he wanted to be brilliant.

No, the truth was his family expected him to be brilliant. And he always did what his family expected. If he had been older than thirteen when his father died, he would have taken over his mother’s family’s company right then and there. But he had only been thirteen, his grandfather hired the man his mother eventually married, and Deke got a two-decade reprieve. He worked summers for his stepfather, got the right schooling and even worked in the off-seasons while he amused himself with his passion for baseball. Still, everybody knew he would drop that when the time came, and everybody knew he would do what was expected. Because he always did.

Which was exactly why he was here in Maryland.

“Mother, is dinner ready?” Laurel called, leading Deke into the kitchen.

“Ready to be put on the table when you’re ready to eat,” the woman who was obviously Laurel’s mother said. As tall as Laurel, with gray hair and the same fabulous green eyes, she stepped forward, wiping her hands in her apron as Deke and Laurel entered the kitchen.

“This is my mother, Judy Russell,” Laurel said, introducing him. “And this is Deke Bertrim. Like the other trainees, Deke’s agreed to stay with us while he’s at Graham Metals.”

“That’s nice,” Laurel’s mother said. “You two want to set the table?”

“Yes,” Deke agreed, jumping at the chance to help her because that was an easy way to pull his weight and maybe temper some of his uneasiness.

“That’s okay. You take a seat,” Laurel insisted when he followed her to a cupboard for dishes.

“But I want to help.”

“I’m fine,” Laurel said, pulling dishes from the shelf above her head.

He heard that damned quiver again, and felt the burden of guilt about not being honest with her when she seemed to have enough on her mind without his deception. Determined to silence the voice with good behavior and small favors, Deke reached for the stack of plates she held. Their hands inadvertently brushed, and an unexpected jolt of electricity sprinted up his arm. Confused, he stepped back. Seemingly unaffected, Laurel took the dishes through a swinging door that probably led to a dining room.

Deke leaned against the cabinet. Though he had relegated all his unusual feelings to guilt, there was no mistaking that jolt. It was sexual. Since he didn’t really know her, he recognized that little zap of electricity probably didn’t mean anything more than the fact that he was physically attracted to her. Which was fine. She was gorgeous. He’d already acknowledged that. He would probably worry more if he wasn’t attracted to her. But he was also a disciplined, intelligent man who didn’t do foolish things that would ruin his plans. A physical attraction could easily be ignored.

“If you’ll tell me where the glasses are, I’ll be glad to get them,” Deke said, addressing Laurel’s mother.

“Second door on the right,” Judy said as Laurel returned to the kitchen.

Though Deke was already at the cabinet, Laurel beat him to the handle on the cupboard door. Again when their fingers brushed, Deke felt a spiral of electricity curl up his arm, and again he stepped back.

It was odd that his attempt to rationalize this attraction hadn’t worked. Even his reminder that he wouldn’t let the attraction ruin his plan hadn’t stopped it or diminished it. Which wasn’t merely confusing, it was weird. Usually he had no trouble controlling these things.

He watched her move back and forth, to and from the dining room as she set the table. He noted the swing of her voluminous hair, then the swing of her hips as she walked. He recognized and acknowledged he found this woman very attractive, but he also told himself he could handle it.

He had to. He had to work with her and live with her for the next three months.

He narrowed his eyes and gave the problem his full attention until the answer came to him. Having an entire floor to himself, he could simply keep his distance, and that would work to a degree. But what he really needed was a diversion, something to entertain him in the downtime.

Now all he had to do was think of one.

As plates of food were being passed, Laurel surreptitiously studied the stranger she’d allowed into her home. She’d had her suspicions about him from the moment she’d read his thin personnel file and discovered he was older than the typical trainee the corporate office sent to Graham Metals. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Because Deke’s records didn’t give her a clue about his personality or his lifestyle, except that he had attended Harvard and he got his late start in business because of playing professional baseball, Laurel wasn’t going to offer him the opportunity to stay in her home. But Tom Baxter had insisted, assuring her that Deke Bertrim could be trusted. She’d reminded Tom that when she brought one of his trainees into her home, she literally was trusting him with her life and the lives of her daughters, but Tom stood fast. Deke Bertrim was not to be treated differently from the other trainees. Just because he was a little older—thirty-three—and a little better educated, that didn’t make him better than the other executive candidates or change Tom’s orders for putting him through his paces. Deke Bertrim needed this training the same as everybody else.

And he most definitely would not hurt her and her daughters, Tom assured her. Since Tom was a personal friend of Deke’s family, he could state with unequivocal certainty that Deke Bertrim was harmless.

Peeking across the dinner table at her boarder’s thick black hair, big blue eyes, broad shoulders, well-structured chest and beautiful biceps clearly outlined by his polo shirt, Laurel sincerely doubted the man was harmless. At least not to any red-blooded American female over the age of sixteen. But her daughters were four and eight, and she and her mother were clearly out of the market for romance, so she supposed the whole group of women was safe. Besides, she trusted Tom’s judgment. In the three years and six management trainees since she and Tom had started this procedure for indoctrinating his junior executives into the real world of manufacturing, he’d never steered her wrong. She and her family were thriving because of it.

“More soup, Mr. Bertrim?” Laurel’s mother asked, bringing Laurel back to the present and into the conversation around their dinner table.

“Thank you, Mrs. Russell, but I’m stuffed. That was wonderful.”

As usual, her mother beamed with pride. “My beef-barley soup and homemade bread always win raves at church functions.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Deke agreed, smiling.

The guy hadn’t wasted any time winning over her mother, Laurel thought, then glanced at her two little girls, Audra and Sophie. Staring at the new boarder with sparkles in her blue eyes, four-year-old Sophie was definitely enamored, which was okay since she was well below the age of trouble.

But eight-year-old Audra was not even slightly smitten. She appeared to be too caught up in anger to have any feelings at all about the man at their table. Laurel’s beautiful brunette with the saucy smile and expressive brown eyes looked about ready to kill someone. Laurel supposed it was lucky Deke didn’t have anything to do with that.

“Audra, why don’t you help me get dessert?” Laurel said, hoping to get some private time with her daughter.

But Deke Bertrim almost jumped out of his seat.

“I’ll help.”

“We’re fine,” Laurel said politely, but firmly.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I still want to help.”

“Actually I’d like a minute alone with Audra,” Laurel explained, knowing that if they were all going to live together for the next few months, they might as well start being honest now.

“Okay,” Judy said, rising from her seat. “Then Sophie, Deke and I will get the carrot cake. And you can have the dining room to yourselves while we’re gone.”

Sophie immediately hopped off her chair, not about to miss this golden opportunity to be nearly alone with Deke, as Deke snapped to Judy’s aid, assisting her from her seat. Again, Laurel was struck by the fact that he was too nice, too helpful. But with angry Audra at her right, she didn’t have time to puzzle it out.

“You okay?” Laurel asked the second the swinging door closed behind the merry band on its way to get cake.

“Mr. Marshall can’t coach softball this year,” Audra announced glumly.

Laurel bit her lower lip. “Honey, I know you really liked him,” she said, smoothing the silky sable hair at Audra’s temple. “But Mr. Marshall is getting old. If he retired it’s because it’s time,” she said, trying to subtly convey the message to her little girl that he hadn’t left because of something she had done.

“I know,” Audra said with a sigh, then folded her arms on the table and laid her head atop them. “But he was the best coach.”

“And I’ll bet he thought you were the best player,”

Laurel agreed. “But I’m also sure somebody every bit as nice will take his place.”

“That’s just it,” Audra said as the three amigos pushed through the swinging door carrying plates of carrot cake. “There’s nobody who wants to take his place. Without a coach, we don’t have a team.”

“I see,” Laurel said, hiding her concern. After Audra’s father left, Audra had been quiet and reclusive until she discovered softball. Suddenly, with the introduction of team sports into her life, she’d become chipper and happy again. Laurel knew it was because Artie Marshall had taken a liking to Audra and treated her very well, filling her need for a father figure. But Laurel also recognized that Audra got her exercise, her connection to the community and her relief from summer boredom from that one little game. If Audra couldn’t keep playing, there would be a big hole in her life.

“A coach for what?” Deke asked as he handed a piece of cake to Laurel at the same time that smiling Sophie handed a piece to Audra.

“Softball,” Audra mumbled, obviously not as impressed with their new boarder as Sophie was, because she didn’t even raise her head to look at him.

At Audra’s lackluster response, Deke peered at Laurel.

Laurel shrugged. “This is a small town. Everybody works. Some people have two jobs. The former coach retired, but he’s getting on in years. It must have become too much for him.”

“Oh, Artie Marshall’s just an old fuddy-duddy,” Laurel’s mother said, then slid a bite of cake into her mouth. “He’s angry because he didn’t win the championship last year and he’s taking it out on the new kids this year.”

“That’s not true!” Audra immediately protested.

“I’m sure it’s not true,” Laurel quickly agreed, not wanting this to turn into any kind of negative commentary about Audra’s hero. “And I’m also sure somebody else will come along.”

“Like who?” Audra demanded.

“I don’t know, honey,” Laurel began, but Deke interrupted her.

“I could do it.”

Judy’s face bloomed with surprise, Sophie grinned cheerily, and even Audra lifted her head from her arms. But Laurel said, “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Deke said. “What else am I going to do? As a trainee, I only work eight hours a day. And I’m stuck in a town where I don’t know anybody. I have plenty of time to do this.”

Audra’s big brown eyes grew even bigger. “You do?”

Deke smiled warmly. “Of course, I do.” Even as Laurel’s suspicions about this very friendly, helpful man compounded, she couldn’t deny that only a truly good person would volunteer to coach a bunch of eight-year-old girls. But more than that, his coaching the team would be a big favor to Laurel. Audra would always have a ride to and from her games and practices, which to a single mother was like manna from heaven.

Maybe she was wrong to be so suspicious of this guy? Maybe instead of questioning her good fortune with her handsome boarder, she should just thank her lucky stars?

Her brain immediately issued a firm warning that letting down her guard would be foolish, but Laurel ignored it. For once in her life it felt good to trust someone so easily. It felt good to get some help with her kids.

She couldn’t think of a reason or a way in the world that his coaching a softball team could backfire. Still, she knew something would go wrong. That was just the way her life was.