The doorbell rang and Adam made his way over to the fireplace, jabbing at the smoldering logs. He stood before the flames, staring into them as he polished off his small-batch bourbon. He was needled by guilt, knowing Melanie was standing outside, but she could wait to begin the reformation of his public image. She’d been in such a hurry to leave him alone in his bed. She could sit tight for a few minutes before he’d let her in.
* * *
It was just Melanie Costello’s luck that she’d end up regretting the best sex of her life. As recently as a week ago, her one night with Adam Langford was her delicious secret, a tingly memory that made her chest flutter whenever she thought about it, and she thought about it a lot. The phone call from Adam’s father, Roger—the call that required a confidentiality agreement before they could speak a single word—had put an end to that. Now the flutter in her chest had sunk to her stomach and felt more like an elbow to the ribs.
Melanie parked her rental car in the circular driveway of Adam Langford’s sprawling mountain retreat. Tucked away on a huge parcel of land atop a mountain outside Asheville, North Carolina, the rustic manor, complete with tall-peaked roofs and redwood arches, was lit up in spectacular fashion against the darkening night sky. She couldn’t have been any more impressed or intimidated.
Cold smacked her in the face as she wrestled her umbrella, her pumps skating over the flagstone driveway. I’m the only woman boneheaded enough to wear four-inch heels in a monsoon. She bound her black raincoat against her body, shuffling to a grand sweep of stone stairs. Icy raindrops pelted her feet, the wind whipped, her cheeks burned. Lightning crackled across the sky. The storm was far worse now than it’d been when she’d left the airport, but the most daunting assignment of her public relations career, retooling Adam Langford’s public image, required prompt attention.
She scaled the staircase, gripping the rail, juggling her purse and a tote bag weighed down with books on corporate image. She eyed the door expectantly. Surely someone would rush to usher her inside, away from the cold and rain. Someone had opened the gate. Someone had to be waiting.
No welcoming party appeared at the towering wood door, so she rang the bell. Every passing second felt like an eternity as her feet turned to blocks of ice and the cold seeped through her coat. Don’t shiver. Once she caught a chill, it took her forever to warm up. Imagining the man waiting for her, Adam Langford himself, only made her more certain she’d never stop trembling if she started.
Memories flashed, of one glass of champagne, then two, while watching Adam across a crowded suite at The Park Hotel on Madison Avenue. Perfectly unshaven, he wore a slim-cut gray suit that flaunted his trim physique so well that it had made her want to forget every etiquette lesson she’d ever learned. The party had been the hottest invitation in New York, held to celebrate the launch of Adam’s latest venture, AdLab, a software developer. Prodigy, genius, visionary—Adam had been given countless labels since he earned his fortune with the headline-grabbing sale of social media website ChatterBack, all before he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Business School. Melanie had snagged an invitation hoping to network with potential clients. Instead, she did the last thing she’d ever imagined, going home with the man of the hour, who had one more notable label on his résumé: notorious philanderer.
He’d been so smooth with his approach, building heat with eye contact as he wound his way through the bustling room. By the time he’d reached her, the notion of introductions seemed absurd. Everyone in the room knew who he was. Melanie was a virtual nobody in comparison, so he’d asked for her name, and she’d answered that it was Mel. Nobody called her Mel.
He’d held on to her hand when he shook it, commenting that she was the highlight of the party. She blushed and was immediately sucked into the vortex of Adam Langford, a place where sexy glances and clever quips reigned supreme. The next thing she knew, they were in the back of his limo headed to his penthouse apartment while his hand artfully slid beneath the hem of her dress and his lips roamed the landscape of her neck.
Now that she would again be in the presence of the man who’d electrified her from her pedicure to her last hair follicle, a man from a powerful Manhattan family and who had no lack of money or good looks or mental acumen, she couldn’t help but feel queasy. If Adam recognized her, the “absolute discretion” his father had demanded would fly right out the window. There was nothing discreet about having slept with the man whose bad-boy public image she’d been hired to overhaul. Adam’s reputation for one-night stands had certainly contributed to the wildfire nature of the tabloid scandal. She shuddered at the thought. Adam was her only one-night stand, ever.
It seemed rude to ring the bell a second time, but she was freezing her butt off. The sooner she and Adam got the first chunk of work done tonight, the sooner she could be in her pj’s, warm and toasty under the comforter at her hotel. She pressed the button again, just as the latch clicked.
Adam Langford opened the door, wearing a navy and white plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, showing off his muscled forearms. Jeans completed his look, an appealing contrast to the suit she’d last seen him wear. “Ms. Costello, I presume? I’m shocked you made it. Did you pick up a canoe at the airport?” He held the door with one hand while the other raked through his thick chestnut-brown hair.
She laughed nervously. “I upgraded to the fan boat.”
Melanie’s heart was a jackrabbit thumping against her chest. Adam’s steely-blue eyes, edged with absurdly dark lashes, made her feel so exposed, naked. She knew full well that other aspects of his manner could make her feel the same way.
He smirked, welcoming her inside with a nod. “I’m sorry if you had to wait. I had to put my dog in the other room. He’ll charge at you if he doesn’t know you.”
She averted her gaze. There was no way she’d sustain another direct hit from his eyes so soon. She held out her hand to shake his, which was impossibly warm. “Mr. Langford. Nice to see you.” She’d stopped short of saying “meet you,” since that would’ve been a big fat lie. When she’d accepted this job, she’d rationalized that Adam kept company with countless women. How could he possibly remember all of them? Plus, she’d lopped off her hair and gone from dishwater blond to golden since their tryst.
“Please, call me Adam.” He shut the door, mercifully cutting off the cold. “Did you have any problems finding the place in the rain?”
He’d greeted her with the niceties you reserve for a stranger, and for the first time since he’d opened the door, she felt as though it was okay to breathe. He doesn’t remember me. Perhaps it was okay to make eye contact again. “Oh, no. No problem at all.” The complexity in his eyes held her frozen, stuck in the memory of what it had felt like the first time he looked at her, when he seemed to be saying that she was all he wanted. Those eyes were enough to leave her tongue-tied. “Piece of cake.” Apparently they also made her want to lie, as she’d just spent two hours squinting through a foggy windshield and cursing the GPS.
“Please, let me take your coat.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you.” This wasn’t what she’d expected. Adam Langford had enough money to hire an assistant for someone to take her coat. She fumbled with the buttons and turned herself out of it. “No hired help up here in the mountains?”
He hung her coat in a closet and she took that millisecond to smooth her black dress pants and retuck her gray silk blouse. After the long, stressful drive from the airport, she had to be a wreck.
“I have a housekeeper and a cook, but I sent them home hours ago. I wouldn’t want them out on the roads.”
“I know I’m a few hours late, but we really need to stay on schedule. If we can go over the media plan tonight, we can devote the entire day tomorrow to interview preparation.” She reached into her bag and removed the books she’d brought.
He blew out a deep breath and took them, examining the spines. “Crafting Your Image in the Corporate World? You can’t be serious. People read this?”
“It’s a fabulous book.”