That Night with the CEO
It was a one-night stand—until her next project has them working side by side! Entrepreneur Adam Langford always gets what he wants. And he wants the blonde who shared his bed a year ago—then vanished. Now a tabloid scandal whisks Melanie Costello back into his life—as his new PR guru! But the real headline would be if their red-hot secret got out. Transforming the rebellious image of the soon-to-be CEO will take Melanie’s best makeover skills. But how do they hide their sizzling chemistry? Her PR firm is on the line. Will she risk everything for the one man she can’t resist?
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Adam traced his fingers up and down her spine as Melanie leaned into him.
He was drawn back into the memory of having her in his apartment, the way she felt in his arms. Her words from that night came rushing back. You feel like a dream.
“I shouldn’t have hugged you. It was unprofessional.”
“I thought we were taking a break from professional.”
She reared her shoulders back and looked him in the eye. “Are you going to let me go?”
“As near as I can tell, you’re holding on to me just as tight.”
She rolled her eyes—childish from most women, adorable from Melanie. “I’m trying to keep myself upright.”
He was certain he’d heard every word she’d said, but her lips were so tempting and pouty that it was hard to grasp details. “Then stop being upright.”
Before Melanie knew what was happening, Adam was kissing her. And like a fool, she kissed him right back.
KAREN BOOTH is a Midwestern girl transplanted in the South, raised on ‘80s music, Judy Blume and the films of John Hughes. She loves to write big-city love stories. When she takes a break from the art of romance, she’s teaching her kids about good music, honing her Southern cooking skills or sweet-talking her supersupportive husband into mixing up a cocktail. You can learn more about Karen at www.karenbooth.net.
For Bobbi Ruggiero and Patience Bloom.
We share an unbreakable bond—the sisterhood that comes from loving John Taylor for more than thirty years. Now, let’s arm wrestle for him.
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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.
