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

“Then why do you always look so miserable in the pictures they take for the papers?”

“Miserable?” he repeated, astonished. “I’m always smiling.”

Melanie shook her head. “Not with your eyes,” she told him. “That’s where the truth is, you know, in the eyes.”

Richard’s gaze automatically sought out her eyes and saw compassion and warmth and even a hint of yearning. She was right. The truth was in the eyes. He wondered if she had any idea what message was shining in hers.

All he knew for certain was that the message scared him to death, because it so closely mirrored what he was trying so damn hard to hide.

“How did your weekend go?” Destiny inquired innocently on Monday morning when she put in one of her rare appearances in Richard’s office.

He’d been expecting her today, though. He was ready for her, or at least he thought he was. “The house is still standing, if that’s what you’re asking. I came away without any broken bones.”

“And Melanie?”

“I didn’t strangle her.” He gave his aunt a hard look. “What are you up to, Destiny? I know what you told Melanie, but I’m not buying the innocent act. I want the truth.”

“I’m trying to find you a good marketing person,” his aunt claimed. “Did you even look at her proposal?”

He had. He’d studied it in the wee hours of Sunday morning when he’d been unable to sleep for thinking about the movie…and about Melanie’s presence in the guest room. She was an annoying little chatterbox, but she’d been growing on him. The entire weekend he’d been able to think of only one way to shut her up. Since she’d ruled that out, she’d wisely scampered off to bed alone and he’d stayed up nursing the last of the wine while he watched that ridiculous comedy with its feel-good happy ending. When was real life ever like that?

Suddenly aware that Destiny was regarding him with an amused expression, he tried to focus on their conversation. “She has some interesting ideas,” he conceded.

“Then hire her.”

“She’s ditzy,” he said, falling back on his original impression because recent impressions were far too complicated. “She’d drive me crazy in a week. Maybe less.” He knew that for a fact, because she’d driven him crazy in just two days. She’d upended his need for logic and made him crave all sorts of things he’d never expected to need. She’d tapped into emotions he’d spent a lifetime avoiding.

“What’s wrong with that?” Destiny asked, her eyes filled with knowing laughter.

Richard cringed. It was almost as if Destiny had been an eyewitness to the way Melanie had rattled him and thoroughly approved of it. Maybe she was merely psychic. Whatever, if she got it into her head that her scheme was working, she’d never let up.

Before he could list all the things wrong with any kind of relationship with Melanie—business or otherwise—she said, “You need someone around to drive you crazy. Everyone else in your life bows to your every whim.”

“You don’t,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but I’m your aunt. I might get on your nerves, but you cut me a lot of slack.”

“I’ll cut you a lot less now that you’ve sent Melanie into my life,” he vowed.

She laughed, clearly unintimidated. “If you don’t hire her, you’ll regret it.”

In Richard’s opinion, if he didn’t sleep with her, he’d regret that more, but he wasn’t about to share that insight with his aunt. Especially since it was probably exactly what she’d had in mind in the first place when she arranged all of this.

He really needed to get on the phone with Mack and Ben and warn his brothers that their aunt was dedicating herself to playing matchmaker these days. If she tired of her lack of success with him, they were definitely next in line. He owed them the heads-up. Then, again, it might be more fun to let her take them by surprise, the way she’d sneaked up on him.

“Why don’t you meddle in Mack’s life?” he suggested hopefully. “Or Ben’s?”

Destiny’s eyes sparkled with merriment. “What makes you think I haven’t?” she inquired blithely, then turned and sailed out of his office, leaving him speechless and not one bit closer to being off the hook.

Melanie stared glumly at the Carlton Industries folder on her desk. It had been such a wonderful opportunity for her, but the odds of Richard ever changing his mind and hiring her were so astronomical, she might as well run the folder through the shredder.

She was genuinely considering doing just that when Becky came in with two cups of latte and cranberry scones from the café down the street. She held them just out of Melanie’s reach.

“If I give you these, will you tell me everything that went on between you and Richard Carlton this weekend?” she asked.

“No,” Melanie said, snatching the coffee out of her friend’s hand. She could live without the scone if she had to. Caffeine was another story.

“Testy, aren’t you? It must not have gone very well.”

“That depends on your definition of success,” Melanie replied, taking her first sip of the heavenly latte. “He didn’t toss me out in the snow.”

“Interesting,” Becky said with a thoughtful expression. “Then you were stranded there all weekend?”

“Yes.”

“And with all that time on your hands, you couldn’t convince him to hire you?”

“I never even convinced him to read the proposal,” she admitted grimly. “I was just about to shred my copy and write the whole thing off as a loss.”

Becky stared at her in shock. “What kind of defeatist attitude is that? You never give up.”

“I do when the odds of winning are impossible.”

Becky’s gaze narrowed. “Did he seduce you?”

Melanie scowled at her. “No.”

“Did he at least try?”

Melanie thought back over the weekend and the dance they’d played. Richard had tossed out a proposition, she’d dodged it, he’d parried, then she’d taken a turn muddying the waters. “It was a bit confusing,” she said finally.

“Then he did try,” Becky concluded. “And you what?”

“I said no, of course.”

“And then?”

“What makes you think that wasn’t the end of it?”

Becky gave her a knowing look. “It was a long weekend.”

“Okay, then I threw myself at him.”

“Interesting.”

“No, stupid. I corrected the mistake almost immediately.”

“Almost?”