hair that had dried uncombed. His shirt was still a deep, open V down his chest, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows. He was every woman’s walking fantasy.
And he wore the most thunderous expression.
“Really?” he demanded. “I got you fired again. Really.”
“It’s like a gift, isn’t it?” she said, thinking she ought to be more furious, but the relief was too profound. “Trenton phoned you to tell you? God, that’s just like him. He waited until I was down here, you know. So he could do it in front of everyone. He didn’t expect me to call him a hypocrite. Nice and loud, too. They all do it. I guarantee you all the other aides were picking up women in the bar while I was working the ballroom with him last night, but just because I’m a woman, I’m a slut. Men are such pigs.”
As Roman turned his face away, his expression falling into weary lines, she found herself feeling sorry for him.
“Present company excluded, of course,” she said.
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. “I didn’t mean to do this.”
“You didn’t,” she said wearily. She was the one who had stayed in the penthouse with him, putting her physical gratification above her job, but she didn’t get a chance to say so. The waitress arrived with her breakfast special.
“I’ll have one of those,” Roman said.
“Take mine,” Melodie replied, snagging the fruit cup off the plate and nodding for the waitress to put the rest in front of Roman. “But he needs his own coffee.”
He nodded agreement to the waitress, then looked at the plate of eggs and hash browns before him as if he couldn’t face it. “You’re giving me your breakfast? After I got you fired?”
“I had a voucher, but this was all I really wanted.” She gently stirred the fresh berries into the yogurt beneath.
“How are you this forgiving? Because I want to slash the guy’s tires. I want to slash my own,” he added with self-disgust.
She shrugged. “I guess because I’d do it again,” she said, hearing the poignant rasp in her voice as she recalled their night together.
“Would you?” He lowered his cutlery as he pinned her with a green stare as brilliant as the heart of a flame.
“I meant...” Wow. This wasn’t going to be easy. He only had to look at her. Focusing on chasing a blueberry with the tip of her spoon, she said, “I mean that, given the chance, I wouldn’t have made a different decision last night. But the decision I made this morning still stands, Roman.”
“Why?” he challenged immediately. “You don’t have a job to go back to.”
“I’m aware,” she said tersely, glancing at the tablet that had gone black, but had conjured a handful of weak prospects a few seconds ago. “Rent is covered for next month, at least,” she muttered. “But everything else is going to be a challenge.”
Paris was out of the question for the foreseeable future.
“Melodie, you have to let me help you.”
She shook her head. “I’ll manage. I’m just bummed about Paris. I feel as if I’m letting Mom down.” When her mother had refused treatment, had declined in such slow pain, the promise of Paris had been the only thing Melodie had been able to offer as comfort.
He reached across to take her wrist, thumb caressing the back of her hand. “Let me take you.”
“Roman...” She turned her hand so she was gripping his fingers. “I can’t.”
“You can. You just don’t want to.” He pulled his hand away, jaw thrust out belligerently. He took up his fork with an air of impatience.
She acknowledged he was right with a jerk of her shoulder, wondering how he’d managed to make her feel guilty.
They ate in silence, breaking it only to thank the waitress when she cleared their plates.
Melodie took her last swallow of coffee, but struggled to get it down without choking as she realized this really was it. The end.
“Will you do something for me?” he asked, not letting on what was going on behind his aloof expression. “Will you come up and let me show you something in my room?”
“Etchings?” she guessed facetiously. “I really should get to the airport. I’ll be flying standby, so...”
“Please.” He stood and shouldered her travel bag.
“You can’t just tell me what it is?” She followed him to the elevator where she studied his enigmatic expression the whole way to the top floor. “You’re being very mysterious,” she said when he slid his key card into the reader.
“I’m really not,” he said with a disparaging smirk, leaving her bag just inside the door. Moving to the bedroom, he jerked his chin at the bed.
“What?” She stood beside him to look at the rumpled sheets and indented pillows.
“We’re both exhausted.” He turned his head to give her a somnolent look. “Let’s not make any decisions right now. I’m not asking for sex. I just can’t think when I’m this tired. I become very one track, and all I know is that I want you there.” He pointed at the bed.
“You really aren’t mysterious, are you?” she said, struck by a wave of emotion that maybe came from tiredness, but also from what sounded like an oddly revealing statement from him.
She was tired. Stupid Trenton had waited for her to check out before cutting her loose, so she couldn’t go back to her room and her own bed. She’d already been dreading the wait at the airport, trying to stay awake to hear if she’d been given a flight... It all began to look too overwhelming to face when there was a comfortable bed right there and a man peeling his shirt from his powerful chest.
She opened the button on her jacket, glanced at him with a small scold.
He said, “Thank you,” in a quiet voice that was strangely soothing. She removed her jacket, gave it a shake, then folded it and laid it over the back of a chair. The rest of her clothes went neatly folded onto the seat. She kept on her underpants, but shed her bra, never comfortable sleeping in one. Instead, she picked up his shirt from where he’d dropped it on the floor and slid her arms into it.
“Do you mind?”
“Not a bit.”
Closing a couple of buttons, she rounded the bed as he got in the other side. He held up the covers and she slid in beside him, feeling his arms close around her very comfortingly. Their bare legs braided together, and his lips nuzzled her hairline before he stole the clip from her hair and tossed it off the side of the bed.
Feeling secure and warm, Melodie let out a deep sigh. Roman’s arms grew heavier on her, and that was all she remembered.
* * *
She woke to feel his erection straining the front of his shorts and pressing into her stomach. He was still asleep,
