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One
Women had done some nutty things to get to Adam Langford, but Melanie Costello was going for a world record. Adam watched on the security camera as her car pulled through the gate in the most relentless rain he’d seen in the four years since he’d purchased his mountain estate. “I’ll be damned,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
Thunder boomed.
His dog, Jack, nudged his hand, whimpering.
“I know, buddy. Only a crazy person would drive up here in this weather.”
The hair on his arms stood up, but the electricity in the air wasn’t from thunderstorms. The anticipation of seeing Melanie for the second time in his life left him off-kilter. She’d done a number on him a year ago, giving him the most consuming night of passion he could remember and then slipping out the door before he awoke. There’d been no goodbye whispered into his ear, no nudge to wake him for a parting kiss. All she’d left behind was a memory he couldn’t shake and countless questions, the most pressing of which was whether she’d ever make him feel that alive again.
He hadn’t even known her last name until a week ago, not that he hadn’t tried like hell to figure it out after she disappeared. No, it had taken a personal nightmare of monstrous proportions—a tabloid scandal that refused to die—to bring Melanie Costello to him. Now she was here to save his ass from the gossip rags, even though he doubted anyone could do that. If any other public relations person had been given this job, he would’ve found a way out of it, but this was his chance to capture lightning in a bottle. He had no intention of passing that up, even if he also had no intention of letting the lightning know that he remembered her. He wanted to hear her say it. Then he would get his answers.
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.
