Melanie forced an insincere smile. “Something tells me I’m going to have plenty of inside information.”
Destiny made no attempt to hide her disappointment. “Well, if you think that’s best, dear. After all you are the expert. I’ll certainly help all I can. Mack?”
Mack nodded, fighting a grin. “Believe me, I’ll be Johnny-on-the-spot, whenever Melanie needs anything.”
Richard didn’t like the gleam in his brother’s eye when he spoke. He gave him a warning scowl. “I think maybe it’ll be best if Melanie and I work out my marketing strategy on our own with no outside interference. Too many cooks have a way of muddying the waters.”
“I think they spoil the broth,” Mack corrected, laughing. “But it’s your call, big brother. If you want to keep Melanie all to yourself, I’m sure Destiny and I will respect your wishes, won’t we, Destiny?”
Destiny could not be put off so easily. “If I have suggestions from time to time, I’m sure Richard and Melanie will welcome them.”
“As if we could stop them,” Richard muttered.
“Of course we’ll welcome them,” Melanie said, sounding more cheerful than she had at any time since their arrival. “I think this is going to turn out to be a match made in heaven.”
Richard winced as his aunt beamed.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Destiny said.
Mack choked back a laugh, then focused on his salmon. Richard looked around the table at the people who were apparently determined to drive him insane and sighed. This evening had not gone according to his roughly conceived plan. Not even close.
“I thought it went really well,” Melanie said as they were driving home.
Richard’s grim demeanor suggested he didn’t agree.
“Okay, you may as well say it,” she said. “You hate this, don’t you?”
“Hate it?” he echoed. “I went in there with the upper hand. I came out like a man on the ropes.”
“At least we’re not engaged,” Melanie said, determined to see the positives. “We’re not even faking an engagement.”
“Not yet,” Richard said. “If you think that issue’s off the table, you really are naive.”
“Not off the table,” she said defensively. “But we bought ourselves some time. Once Destiny gets all caught up in your campaign—”
“I do not want my aunt in the middle of my campaign,” he said fiercely.
“Why on earth not? She’s savvy. She knows people.”
“She’s sneaky, and I don’t like the people she knows.”
Melanie stared at him. “Don’t you know the same people?”
“Yes, which is why I want no part of them,” he said flatly. “Weren’t you the one who kept stressing that I need to broaden my constituency?”
“Yes, but you also need money to run an effective campaign.”
“I have money.”
She stared at him incredulously. “You’re going to spend your own money?”
“I have it,” he repeated. “And that way I won’t be beholden to a single special interest. That ought to make you happy.”
“It makes me delirious,” she said. “But are you sure it’s wise? This is the time to start putting together the kind of powerful backing you’ll need down the road.”
“For?”
“A run for governor, for the Senate, whatever. I imagine this is just the start of your political aspirations. You can’t finance all those campaigns out of your own pocket.”
“Who knows, maybe after this I’ll hate being a politician so much, I’ll never run for anything again. We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said. “In the meantime, I don’t want money from a bunch of people who’ll think it’s going to buy them access or favors.”
Melanie was stunned, but it gave her an incredible angle to pursue once Richard had officially announced his intention to run. The public would eat it up.
“Let’s get back to Destiny,” he said. “Watch her, Melanie.”
“Please, she’s just trying to be helpful.”
“There’s helpful and then there’s Destiny’s version of help. I’ve seen her decline to chair a dozen different fund-raisers, but guess who makes all the critical decisions?”
“Your aunt,” Melanie surmised, easily able to conceive of Destiny not staying behind the scenes.
“It won’t be any different with my campaign.”
“Let her make all the suggestions she wants to. We don’t have to use a single one. We just have to listen,” Melanie reminded him.
“No one will break our kneecaps if we don’t,” he agreed. “But there are other forms of coercion.” He glanced over at her. “Want me to tell you what her first suggestion is going to be?”
Melanie was willing to play along. “Sure.”
“She’s going to ask you if you don’t think I’d be a much stronger candidate if I were married,” he said. “It’s known as planting the seed. Destiny does love to dabble in her garden. She views me as one more plant she has to successfully nurture.”
“But I don’t think you have to be married to be successful, not that being a family man couldn’t add another element to your image,” Melanie said.
Richard gave her a triumphant look. “There you go. You just gave her the precise opening she’d need.”
Melanie stared at him blankly. “I did?”
“Sure. I’m a good candidate now, but put a wife by my side and I’d be even better. Guess who the wife’s supposed to be? You’re here. You’re handy. And we obviously get along well, don’t you agree?” he asked mockingly.
Melanie hated the fact that he was actually making sense. She could see Destiny happily traipsing down this path. Her high spirits were sinking fast. “Like it or not, we’re going to wind up engaged, aren’t we?”
Richard nodded, his expression grim. “It’s only a matter of time.”
Melanie sank back against the rich leather of the seat and swallowed a sigh. She’d just landed the job of a lifetime, and it came with so many strings she was going to wind up hog-tied.
Chapter Nine
Richard tried to concentrate on the fax from his European division chairman explaining why profits were down and an intended acquisition had fallen through. Nothing in the report made a bit of sense, but maybe that was because Melanie’s image kept swimming in front of him, making the words hard to read. The woman was driving him crazy, and she hadn’t even been on his payroll for twenty-four hours yet.
Not that the fault was entirely hers. He was the one who’d been manipulated into making her a part of his everyday world. He’d been expecting her to turn up at the crack of dawn, but so far there had been no sign of her. Maybe—if the gods who protected fools were feeling very kindly—she’d decided against accepting the job coordinating his campaign PR. Maybe she possessed more sense than he did.
“You look a little wiped out, my friend,” Mack said, making a rare appearance in Richard’s office at what was for Mack the ungodly hour of seven in the morning.
Richard stared at his brother. “What brings you by? I thought you preferred not to set foot in here out of fear that I might lock you into an office and