Millionaires' Destinies: Isn't It Rich? / Priceless / Treasured

He glanced at Melanie, noting the expectant look on her face as she awaited a reply to her challenge. “Maybe I am trying to annoy you,” he agreed. “Then again, perhaps I’m just trying to prepare you for the moment when I make my first totally irresistible move.”

She blinked at that, but then a smile broke across her face. “I don’t think so,” she said with complete confidence.

Vaguely disgruntled by her conviction, he asked, “Why not?”

“Because you don’t play games. You take life far too seriously to be bothered with them.”

His gaze narrowed. “Destiny’s theory again?”

“No, my own personal observation,” Melanie assured him. “I’m a good judge of people. That makes me an excellent public relations person, because I know how to make the public see what I see.”

Richard was more curious than he’d expected to be about her perceptions. “What would you make them see about me? Not that I’m stuffy, I hope.”

“No, I’d emphasize that you do take responsibility seriously, that you’ve worked hard at Carlton Industries and would work just as hard for your constituents. Those are good, solid recommendations for a candidate.”

“I thought you didn’t think I’d be a viable candidate because I hadn’t walked in the shoes of those who’ve struggled,” he reminded her.

She shrugged. “Maybe you convinced me otherwise.”

“Or maybe you want this contract so badly, you’re willing to say whatever it takes to get it,” he said with an edge of cynicism.

She stopped in her tracks and scowled at him. “If you believe that, then you don’t know me very well,” she said, sounding genuinely miffed. “I don’t work for anyone I don’t believe in.”

“You don’t know me well enough to believe in me,” he countered.

“Actually, I think I do. After your aunt suggested we meet, I did a lot of research before I agreed. I talked to people. I read everything in print. I wanted to be sure that Destiny wasn’t being totally biased about your capabilities or your honesty and integrity. She wasn’t. You’re a good man, Richard. The consensus on that is unanimous.” She gave him a considering look. “Whether you have what it takes to win an election is something else entirely.”

Richard bristled at the suggestion that he wasn’t up to the challenge of running for office or winning. “What is it you think I might be lacking?”

“An open mind,” she said at once.

He started to argue, then saw exactly the trap she’d laid for him. “Because I made up my mind about hiring you before we’d even met,” he guessed.

“That’s one reason,” she agreed. “And because now that we have met, you can’t divorce my professional capabilities from the fact that I’m a woman who rattles you.”

“You don’t rattle me,” he claimed, doubting whether he sounded the least bit convincing.

She regarded him with amusement. “There’s the first real lie I’ve heard cross your lips.”

“That you know of,” he said, not denying that he’d lied in that instance. She did rattle him, no question about it. He’d just hoped to convince her otherwise. The woman saw too darn much. He didn’t like it that she could get into his head. He prided himself on keeping most people off guard and at a distance. That kind of safety suited his comfort level.

“The first lie,” she insisted.

Richard sighed. “Okay, say you’re right about that. Say I’m addicted to telling the truth and that you rattle me, so what?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” she said more cheerfully.

He stared at her in confusion. “Where?”

“You’re very close to admitting that you’ve been mule-headed and stubborn and that you will read my business proposal when we get back to the cottage.”

He regarded her incredulously. “You got that out of my admission?”

She grinned. “Brilliant, aren’t I?”

He laughed despite himself. “Not necessarily brilliant, but sneaky. You’re a lot like my aunt, in fact.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He sighed. “To be honest, I’m not sure you should.”

Melanie was feeling confident and in control when they sat down to lunch at a small café in the center of town. She was finally making progress. Maybe coming all the way down here hadn’t been such a harebrained idea, after all. If she’d done this well before the man had even eaten, just think what she could accomplish once a crab-cake sandwich, some coleslaw and homemade apple cobbler with ice cream had improved his mood.

He gave her an odd look as she ordered the hearty lunch, then chuckled. “Trying to ply me with food, so I’ll be in a more receptive frame of mind?”

“It did occur to me,” she said. “Of course, you don’t have to have what I’m having. And lunch is on me, by the way. I’m wooing a prospective client.”

“I’m buying,” he contradicted for the waitress’s benefit. “As for the meal, I have to have what you’re having if I expect to have the energy to keep up with you.” He gave the amused waitress a conspiratorial wink. “Same thing for me, along with the strongest coffee you have.”

The older woman grinned. “Honey, we don’t serve it any other way.”

“Too bad you’re not running for office here,” Melanie said when the woman had gone to place their order. “You’d have her vote locked up.”

Richard sighed. “It’s not supposed to be about charisma.”

“It’s not supposed to be, but it is, at least in part,” she argued. “A dull man with a good message can get elected—it’s just harder. You have both. Why not capitalize on it, instead of pretending that one thing doesn’t matter?”

“In other words, I’m not going to get out of kissing babies and shaking hands,” he said.

“Few politicians get elected without doing both,” she said. “People want to see that the man they’re electing is real, that he’s human. They like to look him in the eye and gauge for themselves whether he’s honest. They like to know that his handshake’s firm.”

Funny thing about that, Richard thought, falling silent. More than once he’d been accused of not being human—by competitors faced with his hard, cold stare during negotiations, by women who’d hoped for more from their relationship. He’d come to accept that there was something missing inside him, some connection he’d lost when his parents had died. Once, he’d despaired of ever getting that piece of himself back, but now, looking at Melanie, feeling her vitality and warmth touching him, he had a feeling he might be able to get it if only he reached out.

Then he immediately shook off the fanciful notion. Melanie was here for one reason and one reason only, to strike a deal with him. Not to heal him. Like so many others, she simply wanted something from him. He didn’t dare lose sight of that, despite the fact that he’d managed to veer her away from her mission on more than one occasion since her arrival.

Her fingers skimmed lightly across the back of his hand, startling him.

“Hey,” she said softly, her expression puzzled, “where’d you go?”

“Back to reality,” he said grimly.

Before she could ask the question that was so obviously on the tip of her tongue, their lunches came. Richard had never been so relieved by the sight of food in his life. He bit into his crab-cake sandwich with enthusiasm, but noted that it was some time before Melanie finally picked hers up, as if she couldn’t quite get past his sudden shift of mood and all the questions it raised.

Once she’d tasted the crab-cake, though, her attention was totally focused on the sandwich. “Terrific crab, don’t you think?”

He nodded. “Even out of season and frozen, it’s delicious. Better than any I’ve had at some of the finest seafood places in Washington.”

“Wonder what that spice is?” she mused, taking another taste. “It gives it a little kick.”

“Given your avowed inability to cook, what difference does it make?”

“For something this good, I could learn,” she insisted. “I’m not totally hopeless.”

“Why bother, when you can just come here?”

“It’s not like I get down this way all the time,” she said. “In fact, I’ve never been to this part of Virginia before.”

“Now that you know about the crab cakes, I’ll bet you’ll be back,” he said. “Who knows, maybe I’ll even invite you.”

“I could probably starve before that happens,” she said. “Maybe they’d ship them up to me. Even I could be trusted to cook them, if they’re already prepared.” Her expression turned wistful. “It would be so nice not to eat every meal out, at least if I want anything edible. Nuking a frozen dinner doesn’t do it for me, except in an emergency.”

Richard could relate to that. He ate far too many of his own meals at his desk or in restaurants, except on those occasions when Destiny commanded his presence at her table. She was an excellent cook, when she took the time to do it, and it had spoiled him for anything less than the best. The conversation around her table was also lively and challenging, even when it was a simple family meal with his two brothers. They didn’t get together for those meals nearly often enough anymore. He needed to change that.

Funny how he recalled the laughter more than the actual food on the table. It had been good, but it was being with the three of them that he missed the most. He hadn’t realized how lonely his life had become until just this moment. Not that he didn’t see Destiny or talk to her almost daily and his brothers almost that often, but it wasn’t the same as it had been when they’d all lived under one roof.

Sighing heavily, he gazed at Melanie. “Tell me about your family,” he coaxed.

She stared at him as if he’d asked her to reveal her deepest secrets. “My family?”

“Yes. Big? Small? Where are they?”

“I have two older sisters, both married, both totally unambitious and disgustingly content with their husbands and kids. They still live in Ohio, within a few miles of our folks. They all pester me about my solitary lifestyle. They don’t get it.”

“Were you close?”

She smiled. “As close as three girls can be when they’re fighting over the same dress to wear to a dance.”

“Do you envy them? What they have now?”

“At times,” she admitted, her expression thoughtful. “I love what I do and I am ambitious, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I had someone to share it with.”

Her thoughts so closely mirrored what Richard had been thinking only moments before, it made him sigh again. “I know what you mean,” he admitted with rare candor.

Melanie regarded him with surprise. “You do?”

“Sure. What’s the thrill of conquering the world, if there’s no one to tell, no one who’ll get excited about it?”

“Exactly,” she said at once. “It doesn’t mean we’re dissatisfied with what we have or that we’re ungrateful, just that we recognize that there can be more. That’s a good thing, don’t you think?”

“Self-awareness is always good, or so they say.”

“So, if you know there’s something lacking in your life, why haven’t you married any of those women with whom you’ve been involved?” she asked.

Richard shuddered. “Because I couldn’t imagine bringing a single one of them into a place like this for a crab cake and homemade apple cobbler.”

Melanie’s expression softened. “Really?”

“Yes,” he said. “But don’t let it go to your head.”

“Of course not,” she said at once.

“And it doesn’t mean I’ll think about hiring you,” he added for good measure.

“I know that,” she agreed, but she looked a little smug.

“It just means that you remind me a lot of Destiny,” he explained, trying to sort through his feelings even as he attempted to explain them to her. “You’re outspoken and unpredictable and…” He faltered.

“Open to new ideas?” she suggested.

Richard laughed. “Don’t push it.”

“But people who are open to new ideas aren’t—”

“Stuffy,” he supplied before she could say it. “I know. I get it.”

She studied him intently. “Do you really?”

“Yes,” he assured her.

“Then maybe we should go back to the cottage,” she suggested.

“So I can read your proposal?”

“That, too, but I was also thinking of getting totally wild and letting you kiss me again.”

Richard stared at her, bemused by the outrageous suggestion. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I have an open mind.”

“Which means seduction could be back on the table?” he asked, wanting to be sure he got it exactly right before he made a damn fool out of himself. He hadn’t wanted a woman as badly as he wanted Melanie Hart in so long, he wasn’t sure he could trust his own instincts.

“You never know,” she said with a shrug.

“I think you need to be clearer than that,” he said, as he tossed a handful of bills on the table to pay for lunch, then grabbed his coat.

“What fun is life, if everything has to be spelled out ahead of time?”

He frowned at her. “It may be more fun, but my way averts disaster.”

She accepted his help with her coat, then faced him, her expression totally serious. “Okay, then, here it is. Not that I’m crazy about it, but right now, this minute, I want you to kiss me again. I am still opposed to anything more happening between us, because it could get messy, especially if I wind up working for you.”

“I see,” he said.

“However,” she added, then grinned, “I might be open to persuasion.”

His pulse kicked up at the tiny opening.

“Maybe not today,” she added pointedly. “Maybe not tomorrow. But the future could hold all sorts of surprises.”

Despite the fact that she’d pretty much told him he was going to go to bed frustrated tonight and possibly for many nights to come, Richard couldn’t seem to help whistling as they walked outside into the cold air.

Melanie frowned at him. “You seem awfully chipper for a man who’s just been told he’s not going to have sex.”

He laughed. “Is that what you said?”

“I certainly thought it was.”

“Not what I heard,” he said. “I heard that there would be no sex tonight, but that tomorrow—as a very famous fictional Southern belle once said—most definitely is another day.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I’m a very patient man. Was that in that research of yours?”

She regarded him with a vaguely shaken expression. “I thought I was very thorough, but I must have missed that.”

“Keep it in mind. It could be important,” he told her, then scooped up some snow and pelted her with it. Best to cool them both down for the moment, he thought.

Eyes wide, she stared at him in shock for fully a minute before her eyes filled with that fire he’d come to crave.

“You are so dead,” she said, bending down to make a soft snowball of her own.

“I doubt that,” Richard said, not even bothering to run.

“You don’t think I’ll throw this at you?”

“Oh, I think you’ll throw it,” he said, then grinned. “I just think you’ll miss.”

Even as he started moving, she hauled off and managed to hit him lightly on one cheek.

“Bad move, darlin’,” he said, coming back for her, even as she frantically scooped up more and more snow and threw it with dead-on accuracy. He had her off her feet and on her backside in a deep drift of snow before she realized what he intended.

Sputtering with indignation, she stared up at him and then started laughing. Only when he was laughing right along with her did she snag his ankle, give him a jerk and land him on his butt right beside her.

Richard didn’t waste time protesting her sneakiness. The snow was cold as the dickens. Only one way he could think of to counteract that. He rolled over and caught her, then captured her mouth under his. He’d hoped for a little heat, but he got a full-fledged blaze. Apparently she didn’t hold a grudge.

Of course, if she also stuck to her resolve about keeping sex out of the equation, at least for tonight, it was going to be a very long time till morning.

Chapter Five

Okay, maybe it was freezing cold out, but that was no reason for her to be playing with fire, Melanie thought, as she gazed into Richard’s turbulent eyes. They were filled with the kind of stormy emotions she hadn’t expected at all, not from a man reputed to have no heart.

She’d been counting on that reputation for being distant when she’d agreed to see him the very first time. She’d known from looking at his pictures that he’d appeal to her physically. She’d known from listening to Destiny that his tragic early years would pluck at her heartstrings. But she was not normally drawn to arrogance or to men who were emotionally shut down. She’d figured those two traits would keep her safe.

After their first meeting, when those traits had been evident in spades, she’d been comforted. Now this…

Forget his heart, she commanded. Where was her head? Had her brain cells frozen on the walk back to the cottage? Is that why she’d been tossing out taunting comments about kisses and sex and then rolling around in the snow with Richard? Those were definitely not in her business plan.

Before she made a mistake they would both regret, she leaped up and brushed herself off, then faced him as if nothing the least bit provocative had been going on, not in the restaurant, not now. “You surprise me,” she said lightly. “I would never have imagined you loosening up enough to play around in the snow like some kid.”

He rose, looking too blasted dignified, his expression completely sober. “Yes, well, I imagine despite all that research of yours, I still have a few surprises left.”

Melanie sighed at the return of his straitlaced demeanor. She was beginning to think it was nothing more than self-protective armor, and that made her weak-kneed all over again. “Richard, I’m sorry, but what just went on here?”

He shrugged. “I suppose, for a couple of minutes, both of us lost track of why we’re together.”

“In other words, we were behaving like a male and female who are attracted to each other, rather than prospective business associates,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. I’m the one who’s sorry for crossing a line.”

“But I invited you to cross it.”

He scowled at her. “Quit being so damned reasonable,” he muttered. “There’s no way this weekend could have anything other than a bad ending.”

Melanie felt worse than ever. For a few minutes Richard had forgotten himself, pushed aside his responsibilities and found his long-lost inner child. He’d revealed his human side. Then she’d gone and ruined that by getting too uptight and serious. Of course, if she apologized one more time, he was liable to blow sky-high. He seemed to be operating on a very short fuse. It would have been a good time to get out of town, but unfortunately the local roads had yet to be cleared.

She held out her hand, determined to get them back on a safer footing. “Truce?”

He gave her a mocking look. “I hadn’t realized we were at war.”

“But we’re heading in that direction,” she said. “And it is my fault. I sent out all sorts of mixed messages.”

He gazed into her eyes, his expression forbidding. “Maybe it would be smarter to stay at odds,” he suggested. “We don’t seem to be able to handle anything else without getting offtrack.”

It was true, though Melanie couldn’t imagine why that was. Forget all the issues about working with him, he was far too intense—okay, far too stuffy—to be attractive to her, beyond his obvious physical appeal. And yet he was attractive, no question about that. Otherwise she wouldn’t have come so darn close to throwing herself at him without one second’s consideration of her deeply held principles about mixing business and pleasure.

She imagined that he found the whole attraction thing to be just as confusing. She was nothing at all like the rich, sophisticated, edgy women with whom he was normally seen around town. She’d seen him in black tie often enough on the society pages to recognize the glamorous type of woman he preferred.

Given that, there was only one thing to do. If they both accepted the notion of anything personal between them being insane, then perhaps the next few hours wouldn’t be too awful. In fact, perhaps by morning they’d be able to laugh about everything, shake hands and say goodbye with no lingering regrets. She’d write off any chance of landing this PR consulting contract and cut her losses. Anything else would be complete lunacy.

Even as she was coming to that conclusion, Richard reached into his jacket and pulled out a key. “Why don’t you go on back to the house?” he suggested, offering it to her.

“Where are you going?” she asked as she accepted the key and tucked it into her own jacket pocket.

“For a walk,” he said. “I’ll pick up one of those cameras for you.”

Melanie opened her mouth to offer to come with him, but he’d already turned on his heel and taken off. Clearly he was eager to escape her company. This was what she’d wanted not five seconds ago, but now she was having second thoughts.

She heaved a sigh as she watched him go, shoulders hunched against the wind that had kicked up off the river. He looked so alone. How was it possible that a man as rich, brilliant and sexy as Richard Carlton could be so completely alone?

She had answers to all sorts of questions about him stored away in her research files, but not to that one. Naturally that meant it was the one she found most intriguing, the one that opened a tiny little place in her heart to him.

And that, she concluded with complete candor, was the one that could prove to be her undoing.

Richard knew it was ridiculous to feel cranky and completely out of sorts because a woman had changed her mind—and the rules—on him. It happened all the time, and he’d never given two figs about it before. Women were unpredictable creatures, that was all. It wasn’t personal. He’d watched Destiny dispatch so many perfectly respectable suitors over the years, he’d come to accept the behavior as normal.

But he’d taken Melanie’s sudden change of heart damn personally, which meant that on some totally unexpected level she’d gotten to him. How the devil had that happened?

He wrestled with that unanswerable question all the way to the fast-mart, where he picked up a disposable camera, then had a sudden inspiration to buy a just-released video and some popcorn for that evening. If they were going to be stuck here together for another night, entertainment that didn’t require conversation seemed like a fine idea.

As he trudged back toward the cottage through the deep snow, he tried to recapture some of his earlier delight in the quiet, snow-shrouded landscape, but it wouldn’t come. Without Melanie, it was a bit as if that cardinal had flown away, taking all of the color with it.

He groaned at the thought. He did not want Melanie Hart adding color to his life. He didn’t want to start waxing poetic about her influence on him or his surroundings. He wanted to go back to that serene time earlier in the week before he’d ever met the annoying woman. Then the prospect of several uninterrupted hours in front of his computer or with his mountain of paperwork would have been the bright spot on his weekend agenda.

Unfortunately, recapturing that serenity was all but impossible when Melanie was going to be underfoot the second he crossed the threshold at the cottage. And she would be underfoot. She seemed to be the kind who liked to talk things out, make perfect sense of them, instead of accepting that they’d nearly made a dreadful mistake and moving on. He’d seen that let’s-talk-about-this look in her eyes right before he’d turned on his heel and left her a few blocks from the cottage. He hoped to hell she was over it by now.

He was half-frozen by the time he reached the cottage. He was grateful for the blazing fire she’d started, but as he waited for Melanie to appear, to start pestering him with comments or analysis or, God forbid, yet another apology, he grew increasingly perplexed by her absence. Had she taken off, even though the local roads were still all but impassable? Come to think of it, had he paid any attention to whether her car was still in the driveway? He couldn’t remember noticing.