“Then that should tell you that poking and prodding won’t get you what you want to know,” her dad countered. “You ever have any luck with that with me?”
“Now that you mention it, no,” her mother said. “Okay, I’ll give up for now, since it’s Christmas.”
“Probably the best gift you’ve ever given the girl,” Melanie’s father teased.
“Oh, Dad, it is not,” Melanie said, laughing at the familiar bickering. “Be nice, or she’ll cut you off without any pumpkin pie.”
“Never happen,” he said. “She knows I’ve got her present hidden away where she’ll never find it and she’s not getting it till I’ve had my pie.”
“You two are a riot,” Melanie said. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?” her mother asked, sounding puzzled.
“Stay married for all these years and have so much fun with each other,” Melanie elaborated.
“Why, we love each other, of course,” her mother said.
“Indeed we do,” her father agreed. “And she’s never stopped laughing at my jokes. Laughter may be the most important thing there is in a relationship, aside from love.”
“And trust,” her mother said. “Don’t forget that.” She hesitated. “I don’t suppose you’re asking because there’s somebody special in your life?”
Melanie sighed.
“There she goes again,” her father said at once. “Say goodbye, Adele.”
“It was worth a try,” her mother grumbled. “Merry Christmas, darling!”
“Merry Christmas,” Melanie said, slowly hanging up the phone, her eyes suddenly stinging with tears. Now she was deceiving her parents, too, at least by omission.
She was still swiping at the tears when she went to answer the door. Richard took one look at her and pulled her into his arms without comment. She clung to him and let the tears flow.
When she finally stopped crying, she backed away, avoiding his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Homesick?” he guessed.
That was only part of it, but she nodded, surprised by his understanding. “I just got off the phone with my folks.”
He studied her face, then brushed away one last stray tear. “I could have you in Ohio in an hour.”
She stared at him, astonished. “You would do that?”
“If it would put a smile back on your face.”
Once more she was reminded of what it was like to know someone who could make such an offer so casually. “You will never know how much it means to me that you would do that, but I’m okay. I’ll get home soon.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling a hundred-percent better knowing that she could have gone home if it was what she’d truly wanted. It made the waiting easier. “Let me check my makeup and get my presents, then I’ll be ready to go. I’m dying to see what you got your family for Christmas.” She grinned. “I’ll bet you’re dying to see them open their gifts, too.”
“I’ll have you know that I went shopping,” he called after her as she went into the bathroom.
Melanie laughed. “But did you actually buy anything?”
“Yes,” he insisted. “You’ll see. I promise you, you’ll be impressed. I even did my own gift wrapping.”
“I can hardly wait to see it,” she said as she finished touching up the mess her tears had made of her makeup.
On her way back to the living room, she picked up her own token gifts for the Carltons and grabbed her coat.
“Did I mention that you look lovely?” Richard asked as he helped her on with her coat.
“No, but maybe that’s because I was bawling my eyes out when you came in.”
“You looked lovely even then,” he assured her.
Feeling suddenly lighthearted, she patted his cheek. “Just for that, I hope Santa is very good to you.”
His gaze caught hers and lingered until she felt heat rise in her cheeks.
“Something tells me it’s going to be the best Christmas ever,” he said quietly.
Melanie had that exact same feeling.
Brunch was yet another gourmet meal, evidently prepared by Destiny herself. She’d given the cook the holiday off.
“Why should she be working on Christmas, when there’s nothing I enjoy more than cooking for my family?” Destiny explained.
“Well, it’s all wonderful,” Melanie told her honestly. “I’m impressed.”
“It’s nothing, really,” Destiny said, but she looked pleased, probably because she wasn’t used to getting a lot of compliments from the nephews who took her cooking skills for granted.
“Can we stop talking about the food and get to the good stuff?” Mack pleaded, sounding as if he were at least twenty years younger.
Destiny gave him an indulgent smile. “What are you hoping to find under the tree, Mack? They were fresh out of bachelorettes where I shopped.”
“How about the keys to a new Jaguar?” he asked hopefully.
“Dream on, little brother,” Richard said. “You’ll be lucky if you get ashes and switches this year. We all know how badly you’ve misbehaved.”
“I could find you a dozen women who are grateful for that,” Mack retorted.
Destiny laughed. “Oh, I managed to do a little better than ashes and switches.” She smiled at Melanie. “Even at this age, they’re little better than greedy hooligans on Christmas morning. I don’t know how I failed them.”
“You didn’t fail us,” Richard assured her. “You taught us the joy of giving…” He paused, then added with a grin, “And receiving.”
When Melanie spotted the mound of gifts under the tree, she knew he hadn’t been kidding. To her amusement, the three men began tossing the boxes around until there was a little pile beside everyone there, including her. She added her own gifts to their piles, then watched as they tore through paper with an eagerness she would never in a million years have expected from this sophisticated family.
When Richard realized she hadn’t opened the first gift, he nudged her. “Hey, you need to get started.” He plucked a small box from the pile beside her. “How about this one?”
Melanie took note of the inept wrapping job and concluded it was from him. Something about the size of the box made her decidedly nervous. She made a great show of shaking it, then slowly removing the paper as the others watched and waited expectantly.
When she saw the velvet jeweler’s box, her heart skipped, then lurched into a frantic beat. “You didn’t,” she whispered, her gaze on Richard.
“Open it,” he commanded gently. “Please.”
Inside, she found a diamond the size of a small boulder. Melanie stared at it in shock.
Ever since their phone conversation a week earlier and the hints he’d subsequently dropped, she had been expecting Richard to do something to catch her completely off guard, but she’d never anticipated anything like this.
She gulped, then looked into all those happy, expectant faces. She couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t.
Before she could think about it, she dropped the ring, jumped up and ran from the room.
Richard found her outside, taking great gulps of icy air. “Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.
“No, I’m not okay,” she replied, her voice shaky. “What were you thinking?”
“That this would be the perfect time to convince Destiny that we’re serious.”
“You should have warned me.”
He sighed. “In retrospect, I should have.” He studied her intently. “You really weren’t expecting an engagement ring? Not even after all the hints I dropped?”
She shook her head.
“Think you can put this on and go back in there and fake being deliriously happy?” he asked, holding out the ring.
Melanie backed away, hands clasped behind her back. “Even if I were willing to agree to a phony engagement, which I’m not certain I am, I can’t wear that.”
“Of course you can.”
“What if I lose it? W
hat if it gets stolen?” she asked.
Richard shrugged. “It’s insured. Besides, we need a ring like this for the engagement to be convincing.”
Melanie regarded him with dismay. “You never struck me as the type to go for ostentatious jewelry.”
“I don’t. Destiny does.”
“Are you sure about that? She strikes me as a very classy woman.”
“She is, but a ring like this will definitely get her attention.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Richard, I’m not sure how much more of this I can take,” she said honestly.
“I know. Just think of the satisfaction you’ll feel when you get to throw this back in my face. I’ll probably end up with a black eye or a bloody nose.”
Vaguely cheered by that prospect, she nodded slowly. “Okay, then. I’ll wear the ring.” She let him put the monstrosity on, then hefted her hand in the air and studied it. “It’s a good thing this is just a game.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
But even as he said it, Melanie thought there was an odd expression of regret in Richard’s eyes. It made her see something in Richard she’d never expected to see…vulnerability. It reminded her of something Mack had said to her back at the beginning of this farce, that Richard needed someone who could see past his defenses. Now that she had, she realized that was even more dangerous than anything that had happened between them up until now.
Chapter Twelve
Richard stared at Destiny and Melanie huddled together in a corner and concluded that his aunt had bought the phony engagement hook, line and sinker. He was surprised by how guilty that made him feel. He forced himself to examine why that was, but the answer was fairly obvious. He’d never before gone to such elaborate lengths to get even with Destiny for meddling. Usually he just took her interference as a fact of life, something she did out of love—annoying but essentially harmless. He had no idea why he’d felt compelled to go to such an extreme this time. He had a feeling it had a lot to do with his conflicted feelings for Melanie herself.
“Guilty conscience?” Mack inquired, regarding him with amusement.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Richard said, not in the mood to share his soul-searching, even with his brother.
Mack shrugged. “Fine with me, though if you were to ask, I could probably help you sort through all these pesky emotions you’re feeling about now.”
“When did you turn sensitive?”
“Scoff if you like, but I have more experience in this area than you do, big brother. I have shaded the truth on more than one occasion to evade Destiny’s scheming. I’m not especially proud of it, but sometimes I’ve found it to be a necessity.”
“No question about it,” Richard said. “I’m just not sure that’s a plus.”
Mack gave him a knowing look. “You actually believe Destiny is buying all this, don’t you?”
Richard was stunned by the suggestion that Destiny wasn’t being taken in. “Of course. Just look at her. She’s practically gloating at having won so easily.”
“Ha!”
Richard frowned at his brother. “What the hell are you suggesting?”
“That our beloved aunt still has the upper hand, that she knows exactly what you’re up to and that she is playing along till you dig yourself in so deep you’ll never get out. Trust me, this engagement will be real before all is said and done. Destiny will see to it. She’s a pro, my friend, and you are a rank amateur when it comes to this kind of scheming.”
“You can’t be serious,” Richard said, even though it made a convoluted kind of sense. Destiny was sneaky enough to do something like that, to give him and Melanie enough rope to hang themselves or, more precisely, to tie themselves together permanently.
“Have you figured out a way to extricate yourself from this once things get out of hand?” Mack inquired.
Richard nodded, his gaze now riveted on the two women across the room. What the devil were they talking about? For all he knew the two of them were in cahoots, plotting against him. Maybe Melanie had been in on the scheme from the beginning, Destiny’s scheme that is, not his. Good God, he couldn’t even keep the schemes straight anymore. Mack was right. He needed a well-formulated escape plan. Fortunately he’d considered that.
“Of course I have a plan,” he told Mack. “You know I never go into anything unless I have an exit strategy.”
Mack rolled his eyes. “This isn’t a business deal.”
“Yes, it is,” Richard said, then felt ridiculous. “Okay, in a way, it is. Melanie and I have an agreement.”
“In writing?”
“Of course not.”
“So if she changes her mind and decides she likes being engaged to you, that she wants to be married to you, you’re prepared for that? Or do you have lawyers on standby ready to break this verbal contract the two of you have?”
“Yes,” Richard said, then decided that wasn’t an admission he was prepared to deal with. “I mean no. No lawyers. Mack, you’re making my head hurt. This is a straightforward arrangement. Melanie and I give Destiny what she wants, proof that we’re together—”
“It’s an illusion,” Mach reminded him.
Richard scowled and kept talking. “Then we break up. I mope around for a while until Destiny finds some other poor woman to try to foist off on me.” He grinned at Mack. “Or until she decides you’re the better candidate for serious romance.”
Mack shuddered. “Bite your tongue.”
Richard warmed to that scenario. “Yes, indeed. I think that’s the way it’ll go. She’ll be furious that I’ve messed this up, decide I’m totally hopeless, then give up on me. She’ll turn to you, then Ben. Given Ben’s current attitude toward the opposite sex, I’ll be a doddering old man before she gets back to me again.”
“You are so delusional,” Mack said. “Even Ben sees Destiny’s scheming more clearly than you do and he’s oblivious to most of her flaws. He was still laughing his head off when he left here.”
That caught Richard’s attention. “Ben’s gone? When did he leave?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes ago. He slipped out as soon as Destiny’s attention was otherwise engaged.” He laughed uproariously at his own pun.
Richard was not nearly as amused. He was also worried about his brother. “Why didn’t you try to stop him from leaving?”
“Have you ever tried to stop Ben from doing whatever he’s set his mind on?” Mack asked. “He’s the most stubborn of all of us, and that’s saying something. Lighten up. He came today and he actually let down his guard for a while with Melanie.”
Richard wasn’t comforted by the positive spin. “I hate that he’s exiled himself to that isolated farm of his.”
Mack sighed. “He needs time, Richard. What happened with Graciela nearly destroyed him.”
Richard frowned. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“He blames himself anyway.”
“He needs to listen to reason,” Richard said impatiently. “You’ve told him that. I’ve told him that. I’m sure Destiny has repeated it ad nauseam. Maybe I should have another talk with him.”
“No,” Mack said with surprising vehemence. “Destiny’s right about this one. Ben needs to heal at his own pace. He doesn’t have your thick skin or my cavalier attitude toward life. One day he’ll wake up and put the entire tragedy into perspective, but it won’t happen until he’s ready. If we push him, he’ll just dig his heels in deeper. Next thing we know, he’ll put a lock on the front gate out there and refuse to let any of us in.”
Richard knew Mack was right, but his heart still ached for Ben. Graciela Lofton hadn’t been worth all this pain and anguish. No woman was, he thought until he caught a glimpse of Melanie laughing at something Destiny had said. He found himself sighing.
Maybe one woman was worth it, he conceded. Melanie was smarter than he’d initially given her credit for being, sexier than hell and a good sport. It was an admirable combination, one he hadn’t run into often.
So why the hell was he so dead set on pushing her out of his life just to make some elaborate point with Destiny?
For a few hours Melanie allowed herself to get caught up in the fantasy. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from the disgustingly ostentatious ring that Richard had slipped on her finger. A part of her actually felt this awful kind of letdown that it was only there temporarily.
Not that she wanted this particular ring, not that she even wanted to be engaged to Richard for real, she told herself staunchly, but it would be nice to have that kind of permanent connection to somebody. To know that he’d be there for her in a crisis, to fall asleep in his arms, to make love to. When was the last time she’d had that? During her ill-fated affair with yet another boss and the closeness then had been as much of an illusion as her supposed engagement to Richard was. She sighed heavily, drawing Richard’s attention.
“Are you okay?” Richard asked, glancing at her quickly as he drove toward her place.
“Just tired,” she said. “Trying to keep all the threads of our story straight wore me out.”
He nodded, his jaw tight. “I can relate to that.”
“How? You spent most of the afternoon huddled with Mack. He knows we’re lying. I was with Destiny, who had a million and one questions about our plans.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you caught me completely off guard today, that we have no plans.”
“Sounds reasonable. What was so tricky about that?”
She gave him a withering look. “Are you kidding? Ever heard about nature abhorring a vacuum? Well, Destiny has nothing on nature. She now has lists of her lists.”
“Lists?” Richard echoed, his expression dire. “Oh, God.”
She grinned despite her own trepidations. “I see you’re familiar with her list-making skills. Frankly, I was in awe, and I consider myself to be a halfway decent organizer.”
“What sort of lists was she making?” Richard asked warily.
“Guest lists, caterers, florists, photographers, bridal salons, gift registries. I believe there is also a short list of preferable wedding dates to be checked first thing in the morning with your church. I lost track after that one.” She gave him a plaintive look. “She wants to book the church. Isn’t it some kind of sin to book a church for a wedding you know will never take place?”
Isn't It Rich? Page 15
