Playing Mr. Right

When hell froze over. “We’ll both interview her. Adelaide, show her in.”

Val didn’t even bother to move to another chair like a normal person would. You positioned yourself behind the desk as a show of authority. Val probably didn’t even know how to spell authority. That’s why his staff loved him, because he treated them all like equals. Except everyone was not equal. Someone had to be in charge, make the hard decisions.

And that person was Xavier, for better or worse. Val could step aside. This was still Xavier’s office for three more months.

Laurel Dixon walked into the room and Xavier forgot about Val, LBC...his own name. Everything else in the world went dim. Except for her.

The woman following Adelaide looked nothing like Marjorie, that was for sure. She looked nothing like any woman Xavier had ever met. Long, lush sable-colored hair hung down her back, but that only held his attention for a split second. Her face was arresting, with piercing silvery-gray eyes that locked onto his and wouldn’t let go.

Something otherworldly passed between them and it was so fanciful a feeling that Xavier shook it off instantly. He didn’t do otherworldly, whatever the hell that even meant. Never had he used such a term in his life to describe anything. But nothing else fit, and that made the whole encounter suspect. Besides, it was ridiculous to have any sort of reaction to a woman outside of desire, and even that was rarely strong enough for Xavier to note. Most, if not all, of his encounters with females could be described as mildly pleasurable, at best.

This woman had trouble written all over her if she could elicit such a response by merely walking into a room.

Coupled with the fact that she’d shown up without an appointment—Laurel Dixon raised his hackles about ten degrees past uncomfortable.

“Ms. Dixon.” Val stood and offered his hand. “I’m Valentino LeBlanc, the director of LBC.”

“Mr. LeBlanc. Very nice to meet you,” she said, her clean voice vibrating across Xavier’s skin with a force he couldn’t shake.

He’d have said he preferred sultry voices. Sexy ones that purred when aroused. Laurel Dixon’s voice could never be described as carnal, but that didn’t seem to matter. He instantly wanted to hear it again. It was the kind of voice he could listen to for an hour and never get bored.

This was supposed to be an interview. Not a seduction. Actually, he’d never been seduced before, at least, not that he could recall. Usually he was the one making all the moves and he wasn’t all that keen to be on the receiving end with a woman who wasn’t even supposed to be here.

“Xavier LeBlanc,” he announced and cleared his inexplicably ragged throat. “Current director of LBC. Val is just passing through.”

She flicked her attention from Val to Xavier. This was the part where he had to stand and stick his hand out. Laurel Dixon clasped it, and when no lightning bolts forked between them, he relaxed an iota. That’s when he made the mistake of letting his gaze rest on her lips. They curved up into a smile and that kicked him in the gut so hard, he felt it in his toes. Yanking his hand free, he sank back into his chair, wondering when, exactly, he’d lost his marbles.

“Two for the price of one,” she said with a laugh that was just as arresting as her face. “I applaud the fact that you have such different hairstyles. Makes it easier to tell you apart.”

Automatically he ran a hand over his closely cropped hair. He wore it that way because it looked professional. The style suited him and the fact that Val’s too-long hair marked him as the rebel twin only worked in Xavier’s favor. “Val gets lost on the way to the barber.”

Despite the fact that he hadn’t meant it as a joke, that made her laugh again, which pretty much solidified his resolve to stop talking. The less she laughed like that, the better.

“We weren’t expecting you,” Val said conversationally and indicated the seat next to him, then waited until Laurel slid into it before taking his own. “Though we’re impressed with your enthusiasm. Right, Xavier?”

Figured that the second after he’d vowed to shut his mouth, Val dragged him right back into the conversation.

“That’s one way to put it,” he muttered. “I would have liked to schedule an interview.”

“Oh, well, of course that would have been the appropriate thing to do,” she admitted with an eye roll that shouldn’t have been as appealing as it was. “But I’m so very interested in the job that I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. So I thought, why wait?”

Why, indeed? “What about directing a food pantry excites you so much?”

“Oh, all of it,” she answered quickly. “I love to help people in need and what better way than through one of the most basic fundamentals? Food is a necessity. I want to feed people.”

“Well said,” Val murmured.

Since his brother could have written that speech word for word, Xavier wasn’t surprised he’d been moved by her passion. It sounded a little too memorized to Xavier’s ear, and his gut had been screaming at him from the moment he’d first handed Val Laurel Dixon’s résumé.

Something about her was off. He didn’t like her. Nor did he like the way she unsettled him. If he had to constantly brace himself to be in her presence, how could they work together?

“Your experience is on the sparse side,” Xavier said and tapped the résumé between them. “What did you do at the women’s shelter that will segue into a services manager at a food pantry?”

Laurel launched into a well-rehearsed spiel about her role, highlighting her project management skills, and wrapped it up by getting into a spirited back-and-forth with Val about some of her ideas for new outreach.

His brother was sold on Laurel Dixon. Xavier could tell. Val had smiled through the entire exchange. Sure enough, after the candidate left, Val crossed his arms and said, “She’s the one.”

“She is so not the one.”

“What? Why not?” Val dismissed that with a wave without waiting for an answer. “She’s perfect.”

“Then you hire her. In three months. I’m still in charge here and I say I want a different candidate.”

“You’re being stubborn for no reason,” Val shot back, and some of the goodwill that had sprung up between them as they navigated the Great Inheritance Switch—as Xavier had been calling it in his head—began to slide away.

His caution had nothing to do with stubbornness and he had plenty of reasons. “She’s got no experience.”

“Are you kidding? Everything she did at the women’s shelter translates. Maybe not as elegantly as you might like, but you only have to deal with her for three months. After that, I’ll be the one stuck with her if she’s the wrong candidate. Humor me.”

Xavier crossed his arms. “There’s something not quite right about Laurel Dixon. I can’t put my finger on it. You didn’t sense that, too?”

“No. She’s articulate and enthusiastic.” The look Val shot him was part sarcasm and part pity. “Are you sure you’re not picking up on the fact that she’s not an emotionless robot like you?”

Ha. As if he hadn’t heard that one before. But obviously Val had no clue about what really went on beneath Xavier’s skin. Xavier just had a lot of practice at hiding what was going on inside. Edward LeBlanc had frowned on weakness, and in his mind, emotions and weakness went hand in hand.

“Yeah, that must be it.”

Val rolled his eyes at Xavier’s refusal to engage. “This is not the corporate world. We don’t hire people based on how well they rip apart their prey here in nonprofit land. You need someone to replace Marjorie, like, yesterday. Unless you have a line of other options hidden away in the potato closet, you’ve got your new hire.”

The damage was done. Now Xavier couldn’t readily discount Laurel Dixon as a candidate, though the barb had hit its mark in a wholly different way than Val probably even realized. No, this wasn’t the corporate world and his raging uncertainty might well be rearing its ugly head here.

His father had done a serious number on him with this switcheroo. Xavier was only just coming to realize how many chunks of his confidence were missing as a result. How much of his inability to take an applicant at face value had to do with that?

Everything was suspect as a result.

“I’ll deal with Laurel Dixon if that pleases your majesty,” he told Val. “But I’m telling you up front. I don’t trust her. She’s hiding something and if it comes back to bite you, I’m going to remind you of this conversation.”

Odds were good it was going to come back to bite Xavier long before it affected Val, who would leave to go back to the world of sane, logical, corporate politics in a few minutes. Xavier, on the other hand, would be working side by side for the next three months with a new services manager who made his skin hum when he looked at her.

He had a feeling he’d be spending a lot of time avoiding Laurel Dixon in order to protect himself, because that was what he did. No one was allowed to get under his skin and no one got an automatic place on Xavier’s list of people he trusted.

Hopefully she liked hard work and thrived on opportunities to prove herself. Xavier was going to give her both.

Two (#uba28fb67-c64b-56f4-a92d-253c8cdc896e)

When Laurel Dixon had decided to go undercover at the LeBlanc Charities food pantry to investigate claims of fraud, she maybe should have picked a different position than services manager. Who would have thought they’d actually hire her, though?

They were supposed to admire her enthusiasm and give her a lesser position. One that gave her plenty of access to the people she needed to interview on the down low and plenty of time to do it. Instead, she’d been handed the keys to the kingdom—which should have put her in a great place to dig into LBC’s books. Donors needed to know that LBC wasn’t on the up-and-up, that they were only pretending to help people in need while the thieves lined their own pockets.