Read Online Isn't It Rich? by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online Page A

sky-high. He seemed to be operating on a very short fuse. It would have been a good time to get out of town, but unfortunately the local roads had yet to be cleared.
    She held out her hand, determined to get them back on a safer footing. “Truce?”
    He gave her a mocking look. “I hadn’t realized we were at war.”
    “But we’re heading in that direction,” she said. “And it is my fault. I sent out all sorts of mixed messages.”
    He gazed into her eyes, his expression forbidding. “Maybe it would be smarter to stay at odds,” he suggested. “We don’t seem to be able to handle anything else without getting offtrack.”
    It was true, though Melanie couldn’t imagine why that was. Forget all the issues about working with him, he was far too intense—okay, far too stuffy—to be attractive to her, beyond his obvious physical appeal. And yet he was attractive, no question about that. Otherwise she wouldn’t have come so darn close to throwing herself at him without one second’s consideration of her deeply held principles about mixing business and pleasure.
    She imagined that he found the whole attraction thing to be just as confusing. She was nothing at all like the rich, sophisticated, edgy women with whom he was normally seen around town. She’d seen himin black tie often enough on the society pages to recognize the glamorous type of woman he preferred.
    Given that, there was only one thing to do. If they both accepted the notion of anything personal between them being insane, then perhaps the next few hours wouldn’t be too awful. In fact, perhaps by morning they’d be able to laugh about everything, shake hands and say goodbye with no lingering regrets. She’d write off any chance of landing this PR consulting contract and cut her losses. Anything else would be complete lunacy.
    Even as she was coming to that conclusion, Richard reached into his jacket and pulled out a key. “Why don’t you go on back to the house?” he suggested, offering it to her.
    “Where are you going?” she asked as she accepted the key and tucked it into her own jacket pocket.
    “For a walk,” he said. “I’ll pick up one of those cameras for you.”
    Melanie opened her mouth to offer to come with him, but he’d already turned on his heel and taken off. Clearly he was eager to escape her company. This was what she’d wanted not five seconds ago, but now she was having second thoughts.
    She heaved a sigh as she watched him go, shoulders hunched against the wind that had kicked up off the river. He looked so alone. How was it possible that a man as rich, brilliant and sexy as Richard Carlton could be so completely alone?
    She had answers to all sorts of questions about him stored away in her research files, but not to that one. Naturally that meant it was the one she found most intriguing, the one that opened a tiny little place in her heart to him.
    And that, she concluded with complete candor, was the one that could prove to be her undoing.
     
    Richard knew it was ridiculous to feel cranky and completely out of sorts because a woman had changed her mind—and the rules—on him. It happened all the time, and he’d never given two figs about it before. Women were unpredictable creatures, that was all. It wasn’t personal. He’d watched Destiny dispatch so many perfectly respectable suitors over the years, he’d come to accept the behavior as normal.
    But he’d taken Melanie’s sudden change of heart damn personally, which meant that on some totally unexpected level she’d gotten to him. How the devil had that happened?
    He wrestled with that unanswerable question all the way to the fast-mart, where he picked up a disposable camera, then had a sudden inspiration to buy a just-released video and some popcorn for that evening. If they were going to be stuck here together for another night, entertainment that didn’t require conversation seemed like a fine idea.
    As he trudged back toward the cottage through the