“I’m sure you can,” Destiny said with an encouraging smile. “You’re very clever at such things. I knew that the moment we met.”
“We met when I dented your rear fender,” Melanie reminded her.
“But it only took a few minutes for you to convince me it was time for a new car, anyway. You had me on the dealer’s lot and behind the wheel of my snappy little red convertible within the hour, and I’m no pushover,” Destiny asserted.
Melanie laughed. “Who are you kidding? You were dying to buy a new car. I just gave you a reason and steered you to a client I knew would give you a great deal.”
“But don’t you see? That’s exactly what marketing is all about—convincing people to go ahead and get something they’ve wanted but haven’t thought they needed. Now you merely have to convince my nephew that he—or, rather, Carlton Industries—can’t live without you.”
An alarm suddenly went off in Melanie’s head at Destiny’s slip of the tongue. She studied the older woman warily, but there was nothing in her friend’s eyes to suggest duplicity. Still, she had to ask. “Destiny, you’re not matchmaking, are you?”
“Me? Matchmaking for Richard? Heavens no. I wouldn’t waste the energy. He would never take my advice when it comes to matters of the heart.”
She made the protest sound very convincing, but Melanie didn’t quite buy it. Destiny Carlton was a kind, smart, fascinating woman, but she clearly had a sneaky streak. She also adored her nephews. Melanie had picked up on that the first time they’d met. Destiny had gone on and on about their attributes and how she despaired of ever seeing them settle down. Who knew what she might do to get them married off?
“I’m not in the market for a husband,” Melanie told her firmly. “You know that, don’t you?”
“But you are in the market for a challenging job, right? That hasn’t changed?”
“No, that hasn’t changed.”
“Well, then,” Destiny said cheerily. “Let’s put our heads together and come up with a plan. Nobody knows Richard’s weak spots better than I do.”
“He has weaknesses?” Melanie asked skeptically. He’d struck her as tough, competent and more than a little arrogant. If there was a chink in his armor, she hadn’t spotted it, and she was well trained to spot flaws that the media might exploit and see that they were corrected or hidden from view.
Destiny beamed at her. “He’s a man, isn’t he? All men can be won over if the tactics are right. Have I told you about the duke?”
“The one who chased you all over Europe?”
“No, dear, that was a prince. This man—the duke—was the love of my life,” she confided, her expression nostalgic. Then she shook her head. “Well, that’s in the past. Best not to go there. Let’s concentrate on Richard. There’s a little cottage on the river about eighty miles from here. It’s very peaceful. I think I can get him down there this weekend.”
Melanie eyed her friend warily. She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of this. The last time she’d trusted Destiny’s instincts over her own, look what had happened.
“And?” she asked cautiously.
“Then you show up with some of his favorite gourmet food—I’ll help you plan the menu—and your marketing plan. He won’t be able to resist.”
There were so many things wrong with that scheme, Melanie didn’t know where to begin. If doing a presentation in a restaurant was awkward and unprofessional, then chasing the man to some out-of-the-way cottage was downright ludicrous and rife with the potential for disaster.
“If he goes there to relax, won’t he be furious if I intrude?” she asked, trying to curb Destiny’s enthusiasm for the idea.
Destiny waved off her concern. “He doesn’t go there to relax. He goes there to get more work done. He says it’s less noisy than his place here.”
“Then I’ll still be an unwelcome interruption,” Melanie protested.
“Not if we get the menu exactly right,” Destiny said. “The way to a man’s heart, et cetera. I have a few bottles of his favorite wine right here. You can take those along, too.”
Melanie wasn’t convinced. “It seems a little risky. No, it seems a lot risky. I am not one of his favorite people right now.”
Her comment fell on deaf ears. “Anything worth having is worth a little risk,” Destiny said blithely. “What can he do? Slam the door in your face? I’ve raised him better than that.”
That didn’t sound so awful. Melanie weighed the prospect of facing Richard’s annoyance once again against the possibility of getting a dream contract for her new company. Landing Carlton Industries would be a coup. Helping to shape Richard Carlton’s first run for political office would be an even bigger one, especially if he won. In this politics-happy region where candidates from every state in the country abounded, she’d soon be able to name her own price.
Making her decision, she gave Destiny a weak smile. “Okay, then. What am I serving?”
Chapter Two
Three large hampers of food arrived at Melanie’s small home in Alexandria’s Delray neighborhood not far from historic Old Town at two o’clock on Friday, along with a heavy vellum envelope addressed in Destiny’s elaborate script. Melanie regarded it all with grim resignation. This was really going to happen. She was really going to invade Richard Carlton’s privacy and try to convince him that he needed her—professionally, at any rate.
As soon as the uniformed chauffeur bowed and left, Melanie’s assistant and best friend slipped out of the office that had been created from what was meant to be the master bedroom in the 1940s-era house, peeked into the wicker baskets crowding the foyer, then turned to her.
“Wow, Mel, is someone trying to seduce you?” Becky asked, clearly intrigued by the excess.
“Hardly,” Melanie said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure the hope is that I’ll seduce Richard Carlton.”
Becky gave her a hard, disbelieving look. “I thought that meeting went really, really badly.”
“It did. But his aunt seems to think I can salvage it, if I just ply him with food and alcohol in a secluded little cottage by the sea.”
Becky, who had solid business instincts under her romantic facade, didn’t seem impressed by the theory. “And how exactly are you supposed to coax him into going there with you?”
“Destiny is taking care of that.” Melanie slit open the envelope, read the message, glanced at the two sheets of typed instructions included, then sighed.
“What’s that?” Becky asked, eyeing the papers with suspicion.
“My marching orders,” Melanie said wryly. “She even thought to include cooking instructions. She must know about my tendency to burn water.”
Becky chuckled, caught Melanie’s sour look and immediately sobered. “Since you’ve apparently bought into this idiotic scheme, then I think it was very thoughtful of her.”
“I’m sure she was just thinking of her nephew’s health.”
“Tell me again why she’s so determined to help you land this contract,” Becky prompted.
“I wish I could say that I’d impressed the hell out of her with my professional credentials, but that’s not it. She thinks Richard is stuffy and I’m a breath of fresh air,” Melanie explained. At least that had been the reason Destiny had expressed for going to all this trouble.
“In other words, she has an ulterior motive,” Becky concluded, leaping to her own conclusion. “The whole seduction thing.”
“Don’t say that,” Melanie pleaded, not liking that Becky had almost instantly confirmed her own suspicions. “Don’t even think it. This is business, not personal.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It is, at least for me. If I get this contract, I will no longer have to lie awake nights worrying about whether I can pay your salary.”
“Then by all means, get down to this cottage and start cooking,” Becky said, snapping the lids on the hampers closed. “By the way, if that pie doesn’t win him over, then the man’s not human. It smells heavenly. I had a
candle once that smelled exactly like that, like warm cherry pie just out of the oven. Every time I lit it, I ate. I gained ten pounds before the darn thing finally burned out.”
Melanie chuckled. From the day they’d met in college, Becky had claimed that everything up to and including high humidity caused her to gain weight. She was constantly bemoaning the ten pounds she supposedly needed to lose. The extra weight hadn’t hurt her social life. She had the kind of lush curves that caused men to fall all over themselves whenever she walked into a room.
“Come on, Mel, have a heart and get this stuff out of here,” she begged now. “I’ll hold down the fort for the rest of the day.”
Melanie knew she couldn’t very well back out now. She’d agreed to this crazy scheme. She had to follow through with it, and she might as well get on the road and get it over with. Reluctantly she gathered up her coat, her purse and her business plan for Carlton Industries.
“You’re going to have to help me haul this food out to the car,” she said. “I think Destiny went a little overboard and packed enough for the weekend, not just dinner.”
“Maybe she has high hopes for just how well dinner is going to go,” Becky suggested, struggling to balance two heavy wicker baskets as she followed Melanie to her car.
“Or maybe she’s counting on a blizzard,” Melanie replied grimly. It would be just her luck to get herself snowed in with a man who’d all but said he never wanted to lay eyes on her again. “Have you seen a weather report?”
“Haven’t needed to,” Becky said, gesturing toward the western sky, which was a dull gray, the usual precursor to snow.
Melanie groaned. “Okay, then, if it does snow and I’m not back on Monday, promise me you’ll come and dig me out. Buy a damn snowplow if you have to.”
“Maybe I’ll just wait to hear you confirm that on Monday,” Becky said with a sly grin. “Could be you won’t want to be rescued.”
“Promise me,” Melanie said, gritting her teeth. “Or I swear I will fire you, even if I get this contract and we’re rolling in money.”
“Fine. Fine,” Becky soothed, still fighting a grin. “I’ll come rescue you if you’re not back by Monday.” The smile broke free. “Or at least I’ll tell the cops where to start looking for the body.”
Melanie winced. “Don’t joke about that. It could go that badly.”
Becky’s expression sobered at once. “Mel, you’re really worried about this, are you?”
“Not that he’ll kill me, no,” Melanie said honestly. “But it’s entirely likely that he’ll toss me right back out into the snow and I’ll die of humiliation.”
“Nobody dies of humiliation, at least not in the public relations business. We’re the masters of spin. Remember that. It’s what we do best.”
“I’m sure knowing that will warm me right up when I’m sitting in a snowbank freezing my butt off,” Melanie said.
Becky laughed. “Just keep your cell phone handy so you can call nine-one-one. I hear the paramedics really get off on trying to save people from frostbite in that particular region.”
So much for sympathy and support from the woman who was not only her assistant but her closest friend. Melanie started her car and skidded down her icy driveway till she hit the cleared pavement of the road. She did not look back, because she was pretty certain that traitorous Becky was probably laughing her head off.
Richard wasn’t at all sure how he’d let his aunt convince him to spend the weekend at the cottage, especially since he’d been down here for a couple of hours and there was still no sign of Destiny. Nor had she phoned. He was beginning to worry. Not that a woman who’d traipsed all over the globe on her own couldn’t handle anything that came up, but she was his aunt. Ever since his parents had died, he’d worried obsessively about everyone who was left in his life. He’d barely been able to watch Mack play professional football because a part of him had been terrified that his younger brother would have his neck snapped by some overly aggressive defensive player. As it turned out, it had been a far less deadly knee injury that had ended Mack’s career on the field. Richard had been the only one in the family relieved to have Mack safely ensconced in the team’s administrative office as a part owner these days.
When Richard finally heard footsteps on the front porch, he threw open the door. “It’s about time,” he groused to cover his irrational concern. Then he got a good look at the bundled-up woman outside. “You!”
“Hello again,” Melanie said cheerfully. “Surprise!”
Richard felt his stomach ricochet wildly, and not in a good way. “What was Destiny thinking?” he murmured, half to himself. She was behind this. She had to be.
As for Melanie, she was obviously a lot tougher than he’d realized. The blasted woman didn’t seem to be the least bit put off by his lack of welcome. She beamed and brushed right past him into the small foyer, peering around at the living room with undisguised curiosity.
“I’m fairly sure Destiny’s only thought was that you’d probably be starving by now,” she said, giving a totally unnecessary reply to his rhetorical question. “She asked me to tell you she was sorry about the change in plans. Something came up.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he muttered. Then the scent of warm cherry pie wafted toward him. “What’s in the basket?”
“Give me a few minutes to unpack it all and I’ll show you. By the way, there are two more baskets in the car. If you’ll get those, I’ll deal with this one.”
“You could just make your delivery and head back to Alexandria,” Richard said, still holding out hope that he could cut this encounter short.
“On an empty stomach? I don’t think so. I’ve spent the last two hours smelling this cherry pie—I’m not leaving till I’ve had some. There are a couple of steaks in one of the baskets and potatoes for baking, butter and sour cream—which is a little excessive, if you ask me—plus a huge Caesar salad. There are also a couple of excellent bottles of French wine. I’m told it’s your favorite, though personally I think the California cabernets are just as good and far less expensive.”
Destiny at her sneakiest, Richard concluded with a sigh. She’d sent all of his favorite foods, despite her alleged concern about his cholesterol. He picked up the basket and closed the door, then stepped aside to permit Melanie to come all the way into the cottage. “Come on in.”
“Said the spider to the fly,” Melanie said, injecting an ominous note into her voice as she brushed right past him and headed with unerring accuracy right toward the kitchen. Destiny had probably given her a complete floor plan. He couldn’t help wondering if his aunt had also provided a key, in case he tried to lock her protégé out.
He gave Melanie a wry look. “Where we’re concerned, I think you’ve got that backward. I’m the intended victim here.”
“Whatever,” she said, clearly unconcerned. She met his gaze, her eyes a dark, liquid brown. “Those other baskets,” she prodded.
“What?” Richard blinked, then grasped her meaning. “Oh, sure. I’ll get ’em now.” He fled the kitchen and the disconcerting woman who seemed to be taking it over. Maybe a blast of frigid air would clear his head and help him to come up with some way to get her out of there.
Unfortunately, by the time he started back inside, nothing short of hauling Melanie bodily back to her car and turning on the engine had come to him. Since that was pretty much out of the question, he was doomed. A big fat snowflake splatted on his forehead as if to confirm his decision. He looked up, and several more snowflakes hit him in the face.
“Great, just great,” he muttered. The minute—no, the second—he spotted Destiny again, he was going to wring her neck.
Inside he plunked the baskets down on the round oak table where he, Destiny and his brothers had shared many a meal and played many a game of Monopoly or gin rummy. He grabbed the slim local phone book from the counter and began almost desperately leafing through the pages. There was an inn nearby. If Melanie left now, right this instant, she coul
d be snuggled up in front of its fire in minutes.
“Who are you calling?” she asked as she unpacked the food.
“The inn.”
“Why?”
“It’s snowing. You’re going to need a place to stay.”
Her determinedly cheerful expression finally faded. “It’s snowing,” she echoed.
“Hard,” he added grimly.
She sighed and sank down at the table. “Do you think it’s possible that your aunt controls the weather, too?”
She asked it so plaintively that Richard couldn’t help the chuckle that sneaked up the back of his throat. “I’ve wondered that myself at times,” he admitted. “She has a lot of powers, but I’m fairly certain that’s not one of them.”
He gave his guest an encouraging look. “It’ll be okay. The inn is lovely. It’s not a bad place to be stranded.”
As he spoke, he dialed the number. It rang and rang, before an answering machine finally came on and announced that the inn was closed until after the first of the year. He heard the message with a sinking heart. There was a small motel nearby, but it was no place he’d send his worst enemy, much less Melanie Hart, not if he ever expected to look his aunt in the face again. Of course, he planned to strangle her, so her opinion was likely to be short-lived.
“What?” Melanie asked as he slowly hung up.
“The inn’s closed till after January first.”
She stood up at once and reached for her coat. “Then I’ll leave now. I’m sure I can get back up to town before the roads get too bad.”
“And have me worrying for hours about whether you’ve skidded into a ditch? I don’t think so,” he said, reaching the only decision he could live with. “You’ll stay here. There are lots of rooms.”
“I don’t want to be an inconvenience,” she told him. “There are bound to be some other places I can get a room, if the roads get too bad once I start back.”
“No,” he said flatly, carefully avoiding her gaze so she wouldn’t see just how disturbed he was by the prospect of being stranded here with her for an hour, much less a day or two.
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