Millionaires' Destinies(70)

“I thought you should decide,” he said, his voice suddenly flat and emotionless.

Melanie nodded, because she didn’t trust herself to speak.

“You’ll think about it?” he prodded. “You’ll let me know? I’ll go along with whatever you want.”

“Do you want to do this very soon?” she asked when she could keep her voice steady.

“I think that’s best,” he said, his gaze averted.

“So do I,” she said. Then she could get on with the business of mending her broken heart.

Suddenly chilled to the bone, she reached for the chenille throw on the sofa, stood up and wrapped herself in it. “I’m going to bed,” she said in a voice so choked she barely recognized it as her own.

Richard didn’t reach for her, said nothing to stop her. Only when she was at the foot of the stairs did he call out softly.

“Happy new year, Melanie.”

“Happy new year,” she replied automatically, but her heart wasn’t in it. If anything, this new year was off to the worst start ever.

Upstairs, she barely resisted the desire to throw things. Unless something hit Richard in the head and knocked some sense into him, what would be the point?

Couldn’t he see what she saw? They could be happy together. She knew it. She could help him get wherever he wanted to go in life. She’d be the perfect match for a man who needed some balance for all the demands he put on himself. She’d keep him from being stodgy.

But her hope of any future had died the instant he’d brought up the great breakup scene. Despite the emotional and physical connection she’d experienced over the past few days, they were obviously in very different places. To him this had apparently been nothing more than an interlude, something inevitable that had been building between them, something neither of them could have ignored forever. It hadn’t meant anything, at least not to Richard.

Melanie knew better than most that it was impossible to make someone fall in love. It was equally impossible to make them admit to love when they were too afraid to recognize the emotion. When it came to that, she was as cowardly as Richard.

So to protect her stupid pride and her heart, she would go back to Alexandria and throw herself into planning the party at which she would throw that damnable ring back in his face. She would make the scene so believable, so memorable, that it would haunt him forever. Richard might be willing to toss away what they’d had, but he’d never forget her.

Sadly, she wasn’t likely to forget him, either.





Chapter Fifteen


Melanie hated the fact that she was deliberately going to ruin Destiny’s engagement party for them by creating a scene, but Richard’s aunt had virtually given her no choice. With her usual impulsiveness, Destiny had already been well into planning the event when Richard and Melanie returned from their getaway. With invitations already at the printer’s, it had been too late to turn back.

Since Melanie and Richard had concluded it was best to end the charade before it went on too much longer, the party was the most public way of accomplishing that. This way everyone would find out at once that she and Richard were no longer together. She’d even invited Pete Forsythe so he could witness the end of the romance his sleazy reporting—albeit at Destiny’s instigation—had triggered in the first place.

“Are you absolutely certain you don’t want your parents to fly over for the party?” Destiny asked as they were doing one final check of the guest list. “I’m sure Richard would be happy to send the company jet for them.”

And have them here for this debacle? No way, Melanie thought. It was bad enough that they were likely to read about it in some wire service tidbit in their morning paper.

She had, however, insisted on having Becky at the party. She was going to need at least one friendly face in the crowd when things blew up.

“My parents hate flying,” she told Destiny truthfully. It was just about the only honest thing to cross her lips lately. “And Dad can’t get off work in the middle of the week to drive over. I’m sure they’ll want to throw their own party in Ohio sometime down the road.”

Probably when she was forced to move back home because her career here had gone up in flames, she thought despondently.

“Melanie, is everything all right?” Destiny asked, regarding her worriedly. “For a bride-to-be, you don’t seem very happy. You’ve looked sad ever since you and Richard got back from your little romantic getaway.”

“I’m just tired,” she assured Destiny. “We did too much and my desk was piled high when I got back, so I’ve been working a lot of late hours.”