Playing Mr. Right. Kat Cantrell
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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.
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.
Except thus far she’d had zero time to even think about how to expose the charity’s fraudulent practices.
Of course, a lot of that had to do with one infuriating man named Xavier LeBlanc.
Just because he arrived at LBC at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m. and worked through lunch didn’t mean the rest of the world had to do the same. But they’d all done it, Laurel included, though she didn’t suffer from the same sense of anxiety the other staffers seemed to feel around their interim boss.
But what was she supposed to do, stroll in at nine and draw attention to herself? She’d taken this job under false pretenses. And she couldn’t back out now.
Ugh. This was what she got for trying a whole different approach to investigative reporting. This was supposed to be her big breakthrough story. The one that would fix her reputation in the industry while appealing to her sense of fair play and her drive to help people at the same time. If she went undercover, surely she could get the facts for the exposé, and this time, there would be no embarrassing counter-story exposing the lack of foundation for her accusations.
Embarrassing and nearly career killing. Thanks to social media shares and the eternal stores of video, her blunder would never be forgotten. But she could give her audience something else to play with. As long as she didn’t make a single mistake with this investigation. When she blew the whistle on LBC, it would be career making. A triumph that would erase the mistakes of her last investigation.
Or so she’d laid out in a foolproof mental plan that ended up having a remarkable number of holes.
Instead, she’d spent her first few hours on the job following Adelaide around as the admin explained how Xavier envisioned things working around LBC—and how fast he expected Laurel to get it that way. Apparently, the old manager, Marjorie, had left operations in a bit of disarray when she’d left, but Mr. LeBlanc couldn’t be bothered to tell her his expectations himself.
At one o’clock, she’d had enough.
Feigning hunger and fatigue, she begged off from Adelaide’s cheerful tour of the facility and bearded the lion in his den. She didn’t mind hard work, but only if there was a distinct payoff, and so far, she hadn’t seen one. It was time to shake things up.
Xavier LeBlanc glanced up at her sharp knock, his deep blue eyes registering not one iota of surprise or curiosity—nothing. It was a great trick, one she wished she knew how to replicate. It would come in handy as she pretended she knew what the hell she was doing at this new gig.
In lieu of that, she’d settle for a mentor who could give her the insight she needed.
“Got a minute?” she asked and didn’t wait for the answer. He would see her whether he liked it or not. How was she supposed to figure out who was responsible for the fraud inside these walls if she didn’t keep the man in charge very, very close?
His gaze tracked her as she waltzed right into his office with confidence. He seemed like the type who wouldn’t appreciate a mousey approach.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, his sinfully sexy voice rumbling in his chest.
She missed a step. His sexiness quotient really shouldn’t be something she noticed. At all. Xavier LeBlanc wasn’t allowed to be sexy. He was her boss and she’d been hired based on a lie. One she’d told with good reason, and all of the experience on her résumé was real. But still.
None of that equaled free rein to be attracted to the man behind the desk. And none of that stopped her insides from quivering as his gaze slid down her face to her mouth. He’d done that in the interview more than once and she’d blown it off then. She thought she’d