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