LITMIR.BIZ

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had always been, but grief had been taking its toll. A month past her out-of-character encounter with Roman and she could see how susceptible she’d been that day. Ingrid’s joy in her coming nuptials had created impatience for a life partner in Melodie. She’d seen the possibility of a future in a kiss from a superficially attractive man.

      Relationships, she decided, could wait until both her finances and her heart were back on their feet. The thought allowed her to feel resilient as she reached the ground floor. She was capable of meeting challenges head-on with equanimity. She would take this job and rebuild her life.

      After striding across the lobby, she pushed open the glass door onto the street.

      The bluster of a nor’easter yanked it out of her hands.

      Actually, it was a man. He filled the space, blocked her exit. He wore a suit and an overcoat. His dark hair glistened with rain. He was clean shaven and green eyed like a dragon. Heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

      Roman Killian.

      * * *

      Melodie was still in Virginia, but had moved to Richmond.

      The moment that detail had been reported to Roman, he’d booked a flight. The dry, musty interior of her apartment building, with its ugly red-and-silver wallpaper, closed around him as he stepped into the foyer, forcing her back several steps into the wall of mailboxes. He barely took in his surroundings. He was too busy studying her.

      She looked...thin. A stab of worry hit him as he considered what that could mean for an unborn baby. Her face was wan, too, beneath her makeup. She wore a smart suit beneath an open coat, but her eyes swallowed her face. Her pale lips parted with shock. Whatever she held dropped from her grip with a muffled thump.

      It was just her purse, but he shot forward in instinctive chivalry.

      She snatched it before he could, jerking upright to stare down on him.

      It was the oddest moment of juxtaposition. She was the one living in a low-end ZIP code in a modest suburb of the city. He appeared on list of Fortune 500 CEOs as one of the richest men in the world. His suit was tailored, his handkerchief silk.

      Yet Melodie stood above him like a well-born lady. Which she was.

      He knelt like a peasant. A scab on the complexion of society.

      Which he was.

      He held her gaze as he rose, shedding any traces of inferiority. Refusing to wear such a label. Not anymore. The struggle to get here had been too long and too hard.

      Her eyes grew more blue and deep and shadowed as he straightened to his full height. He found himself resisting the urge to smile as they stood face-to-face. He’d forgotten she was so tall. She met his eyes with only the barest lift of her chin. And she impacted upon him with nothing more than turmoil and silence.

      The same fascination accosted him that he’d suffered in France. He was instantly ensnared. If anything, her pull was stronger. Now he knew what it felt like to kiss her and touch her, to possess her and release all of himself into her. The power she had over him was deeply unsettling. Through air coated in layers of old carpet and must, his nostrils sought and found the hint of roses and oranges.

      “What are you doing here?” she asked.

      That sweetly ambling voice of hers made him want to sit back and relax. “We need to talk.”

      “I’m busy,” she said flatly, thumbing the face of her phone to check the time. “I have an interview.” She started to move around him, but he held out his hand.

      It was enough to stop her. She very pointedly held herself back from accidentally brushing his arm.

      Her aversion stung.

      “I have to catch a bus,” she said stiffly.

      Seeing her in this low-end building, using public transport, gave his conscience another yank. He had another reason for being here besides the possibility of pregnancy. He needed to know for sure. Was she really estranged from her father? Had he really crushed an innocent beneath his heel that day?

      “I have your things in my car,” he said, “I’ll drive you wherever you need to go.”

      “Mom’s pearls?” Her averted gaze flew to his, round and anxious. “Why didn’t you bring them in?”

      “I saw you through the window as I was getting out. I thought—” That she might somehow escape him if he didn’t act fast to catch her here in the foyer. His actions had been pure reflex.

      She figured out what he’d almost revealed. “We have nothing to say to each other, Roman,” she said tonelessly. “Just go out and get them. I’d like them back.”

      “We do have to talk,” he asserted firmly, watching her for signs of evasion. When she only gave a firm shake of her head, refusing to look at him, he reminded her, “I didn’t use anything that day.”

      Her expression blanked before comprehension dawned in a dark flood of color. Her jaw fell open, appalled. “I’m not pregnant!” she cried.

      Someone down the hall opened a door and peeked out.

      Melodie was scarlet with embarrassed anger. Her dismayed blue eyes glared into his as she folded her arms defensively, mouth pouted in humiliation. “I’m not.”

      “Are you sure?” he challenged.

      “Of course I am. But I’m stunned that you’ve tracked me down to ask. I assumed you’d been careless on purpose. When it comes to ruining a woman’s life, leaving her with an unplanned pregnancy is about as effective as it gets.”

      That bludgeoned hard enough to knock him back a step.

      “I wouldn’t do that.” He was deeply offended she would think him capable of such a coldhearted form of revenge. When she only lifted disinterested brows, he insisted, “I wouldn’t. I know too well what it’s like to be an unplanned baby. I’m here to take care of my child if I have one. Do I?”

      * * *

      “No,” Melodie insisted, forcing herself to meet his gaze even though it was very hard. She was telling the truth, but she didn’t want to see his sincerity or have empathy and understand him. She only wanted to put him and her grave error behind her.

      But his being here, asking the question, affected her. She’d been relieved when things had cycled along as normal. Of course she’d been relieved. Yet a small part of her had suffered a wistful moment. A baby would have been a disaster, but it would have been family. Real family. The kind she could love.

      Holding out a hand, she said, “Can you just give me my mother’s necklace?”

      “There’s definitely no baby.”

      “Definitely.”

      He absorbed that with barely a twitch of his stoic expression before he jerked his head and held the door for her.

      Dear Lord, he was handsome with those long, clean-shaven cheeks set off by his turned up collar, his mouth pursed in dismay, his short thick hair tossing in the bluster of wind that grabbed at them.

      The fierce breeze yanked her bound hair and shot up her skirt to bite at her skin. She clenched her teeth and beelined for the limo at the curb.

      He opened the back door himself. “What’s the address of where you’re going?”

      “Don’t do me any favors, Roman. I’ll just take the necklace and go.”

      “You’re refusing my help out of spite?”

      “I’m protecting what’s left of my self-respect.” Her knees knocked as the blustering cold penetrated mercilessly. Teeth chattering, she held out her hand. “Pearls?”

      “They’re right there. Get in. I have more to say.”

      “To quote you, I don’t care.”

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