Cinderella And The Ceo. SUSAN MEIER

      “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.

      Chapter Two

      Since Deke was unfamiliar with the town, he accepted a ride to the plant with Laurel the next morning, but they hardly spoke. He spent most of the drive trying to get accustomed to seeing her in tight jeans, a loose ragged T-shirt and steel-toed boots. It didn’t seem fair that a woman could look that good dressed that badly, and Deke convinced himself that was why he couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away from her.

      Forcing his eyes in the direction of the passenger-door window of her Toyota, he reminded himself that he was at this plant to find out how an audit could be off by over three hundred thousand dollars. At this point, he didn’t know if someone had made an honest mistake, if someone had embezzled money or if someone was stealing inventory. He only knew regular procedures kept confirming the mistake without giving any clue as to a reason for it. Because he could very well be dealing with a thief, he couldn’t be too cavalier about this problem or preoccupied with a pretty woman.

      But he try as he might, he couldn’t stop sneaking peeks at Laurel, and he knew he had been blessed that her daughter’s softball team needed a coach. Since the season started in less than two weeks, he had been forced to call an emergency practice. Tonight he would be busy with a gaggle of eight-year-old girls, not six feet away from Laurel watching TV, smelling that wonderful scent she wore.

      When they arrived at the factory, Laurel immediately showed him to the Human Resources Department. She introduced him to the director who would monitor his progress during his training, and Deke forgot all about his gorgeous landlady. He had passed the first hurdle in his charade, when Laurel accepted him as a trainee, but upper management might not be so easy to fool. As far as he was concerned, this was his real moment of truth.

      Because Bertrim was the name of his mother’s first husband and Deke’s deceased father, and not the name of the stepfather who actually ran the corporation for his mother’s family, Deke didn’t give a second thought to anyone recognizing his name. And since he had played minor-league baseball for more than a decade, the Human Resources director didn’t question his late start in business.

      It almost seemed his unusual life was tailor-made to allow him to slip into a subsidiary unnoticed, and when he came to that conclusion, he got his first inkling that all this was awfully darned lucky—and coincidental.

      Suddenly, it dawned on him that he had been set up. The realization hit him like a runaway fast ball. He wasn’t sure if he had been sent here to actually get the training he was supposed to be pretending to get, or if he was being tested to see if he was smart enough to take over when his stepfather retired, but he did know he had been set up.

      Insulted, furious, Deke didn’t know what to do. He had worked for this corporation in one form or another since he was sixteen. True, he had never been at the top, but he knew the ins and outs…sort of. He didn’t know everything. Even he admitted he should be at his stepfather’s side every minute of the next two years.

      All right, maybe he did need some training. But he didn’t need this entry-level stuff. Besides, it was embarrassing. And time-consuming. Surely he could learn a hundred times more at his stepfather’s side than he could learn from the supervisors at one little subsidiary.

      Reining in his temper and his frustration, Deke became his usual controlled, disciplined self, not about to say or do anything out of line until he ascertained what was really going on. The HR director walked him to a section of the plant floor that was cordoned off by wire fence and looked like a cage. He led him through the mesh gate, called Laurel from a workstation at the back of the area and told Deke that this was his first stop in his working tour of the plant. She was the person who would provide his first four weeks of training.

      Given the number of coincidences, Deke wasn’t taking anything for granted anymore. Not even Laurel’s easy acceptance. For all he knew she could be in on this scheme, too.

      The thought that she might have conspired with his family brought him up short. He suddenly recognized that for the past twenty-four hours, while he had been blinded by her beauty and eagerly trying to think of ways to do right by her, she could very well have been taking notes on his abilities. Worse, through the course of the afternoon that followed, he suspected his performance was not worth writing home to mother about. He knew it for sure when he punched a hole in a bag of foam peanuts and sent them raining down on the entire department.

      By the time four o’clock rolled around, Deke was so angry he could have spit nails. He didn’t mind that Laurel had him doing menial labor, so he would understand the intricacies of her department, or even that he wasn’t gifted as a shipper. It was the fact that no one talked with him about needing to be trained or needing to prove himself that bugged the hell out of him.

      “So, ready to call it a day?” Laurel asked about ten minutes before quitting time.

      Not sure how to deal with her, Deke rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

      Through no fault of Deke’s they were within a foot of each other. Though he was preoccupied with not being told the truth why he was at this plant, he nonetheless had to steel himself against reacting to Laurel’s alluring scent. He knew it would be total insanity to look into her sexy green eyes. But in shifting his gaze, he only