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,