She leaned back in his arms, her smile still dazzling. "Well? Say something."
"I'm… in shock?"
Melody lost her smile and stepped from his arms.
"Especially since you tried to screw me."
Logan wanted her back and despised himself for it. "If I had tried, I'd have succeeded."
"Why Mr.
Kilgarven
, I do believe you're hiding a streak of wild behind those predictable pinstripes of yours."
If you only knew
.
"While the soul of a hustler beats beneath your turn-of-the-century prim."
Shane's mother was exactly the same—a sexy shell of coy charm over an empty, hard-as-nails core. Melody was more of a threat, however. Because she had the mesmerizing ability to appear so disarming, one tended to forget her missing heart. "Don't look now," Logan said. "But you just took a job under false pretenses."
"Bull. I conceived the show myself, every detail, and I earned the job with pure showmanship. Hot damn, I'm good."
"What happens when you can't cook?"
"I'll be such a magical
cook,
I'll have you begging to taste what I make."
Logan scoffed. "Save the smoke and mirrors for your audience." But she was right. In front of the cameras, showmanship would get her further than cooking skills any day. Except that, when her first meal went down the
disposal,
and Gardner remembered exactly who recommended her for this interview, Logan's job, and his son's secure future, could end up in the sewer as well.
When Gardner came back with the contract, he named a salary and benefits package that made Melody squeak with joy. And well she should, Logan thought. The package was damned near as good
as his own
.
Maybe she was a sorceress, after all. Melting an Ice Man was no easy task.
"Just one more thing," Melody said, after she read the contract, and before she signed.
Here
comes
the deal-breaker, Logan thought. She got away with the rights, but now she was getting greedy and she'd blow the bankroll.
"I'll need Station Day care for my little guy." Her smile went soft. "His name is Shane, and he's four. I checked out your day care center yesterday, teacher credentials and all, so I know it's a top-notch facility."
Logan's jaw went slack, as did Gardner's.
"And will your… little guy be coming and going with you?" Gardner asked tightly.
"Or with Mr.
Seabright
?"
"There is no Mr.
Seabright
," Melody said.
"Except my father."
Gardner's tension vanished.
"Fine, fine.
Let me show you your office."
Humble pie tasted a lot like crow, thought Logan, reeling, blindsided by Melody the quick-change artist, sexiest witch in Salem, as he followed her and Gardner down the hall.
"This is the office," Gardner said. "Even without windows, I don't think it's too bad. What do you think?" Gardner asked Melody, while Logan remained dazed and astonished over the fact that she had arranged day care for Shane.
"Awesome," Melody said.
Logan focused on the office—butterscotch camel-back sofa, honeyed oak tables… "Wait, this is my office."
Gardner grinned. "Until the one next door is refurbished, you'll share."
FOUR and a half hours later, Logan watched Melody limp into "their" office. "What happened?" he asked, rising from behind his desk.
"I just took a hundred-mile tour of the station in spikes." She moaned and dropped into the overstuffed, comfortable as hell, butter-soft leather chair, to which he silently bid a fond farewell.
"I must have met every single person who works at WHCH," she groaned. "I even met some guy from one of our affiliates. Westmoreland, I think his name was."
Logan got her a Perrier from the fridge beneath the wet bar and twisted off the cap.
"You're a doll," she said, accepting it and taking a parched sip.
"I'm a man whose been cut off at the… office," he responded dryly.
"Your office, I know. Logan, I'm
sor
—"
He held up a hand. "I'm kidding." He sat across from her and leaned forward. "Lose the heels."
She pushed her spikes off, with a groan for each new ache, and rubbed one foot with the other. "Thanks."
"Give '
em
here," Logan said, liking the fact that he'd surprised her. But when he took her feet into his lap to massage them, he was caught off guard, seduced by lavender toenails and a gold toe ring. Damn. Feet were not supposed to be sexy, and his
reaction only got worse as he massaged them, because she moaned, and wiggled, and sighed… in ecstasy, damn
it. She even squeaked a couple of times from somewhere deep in her throat, a sound that sent
sparks
straight to "the big guy." Logan imagined that she might sound something like that if he were deep inside her and—
"Lord, I'm in heaven," she said, closing her eyes, in rapture once more. "I may never move from this spot."
In heaven himself, or maybe it was hell, Logan wouldn't be moving anytime soon either, but for a different reason. If he hadn't been sure before, he knew now that having Melody around twenty-four/seven would make for the kind of stimulation he'd once lived for, sought out at every turn, the kind he should be running from, far and fast.
"I can't wait to tell Shane I got the job," she said, rushing Logan up for air as quick as she'd dragged him under, giving him a good case of the bends with the jolting reminder of his goals and responsibilities. Damned straight, she'd be a distraction, the kind he did not, repeat, did not, need, a sizzling, confusing disturbance with both an enervating and an energizing effect on him. Hell, she was a regular bunny with boundless batteries as far as his libido was concerned.
But just when he thought he had her pegged, when she'd proved that, like Heather, she'd use sex for her own selfish benefit, she'd gone and got Shane into day care.
Did she knowingly use sex? Even now, with her eyes closed and her features serene, she seemed oblivious to everything around her. Yet he was caught, immobilized, captured by the sight of her—body riding low, skirt riding high, bare feet in his happy lap, proving, without question, the existence of stockings and a garter belt… a navy one.
In a bid for sanity, Logan called her name and waited for her to look at him before speaking. When she did, her topaz eyes guileless and wide with innocence, he took a breath to keep from drowning in their seductive depths and tried to remember what he wanted to say.
Oh, yes. "Sharing my office is nothing compared to what you did for me and Shane," he said, rubbing a thumb over her toe ring. "I can't believe you got him into day care, even researched it. I honestly don't know how to thank—"
"Don't thank me until we figure out what to do about him calling me Mel, and you Dad."
Logan grinned and massaged a beautifully sculpted arch. "I thought about that while you were gone. We can drive in together," he said, rescinding his earlier avowal, for his son's sake, never to do so again, "and split up in the garage. You can walk Shane to day care, and I'll come right up. At the end of the day, we can reverse our route. Shane won't expect anything different, because I'll be driving."
"And if somebody hears him call me Mel?"
"Pull them aside and tell them you want him to outgrow that stage at his own pace."
"Clever, and devious."
"Not really," Logan said, thinking the words applied to him in at least one discomforting way. But did they apply to her? "Day care service should be mine by rights," he went on. "We're just picking our battles."
An hour later, Logan chuckled as they drove from the station parking garage, while the boss stood beside his own car watching them. "Man," Logan said, "he's gonna hate himself when his T-level goes down and he realizes he let you walk away with the rights to the show." He gave her a wink. "I
gotta
tell you," he said. "That took
cajones
."
"High praise."
Melody grinned. "What part of the interview do you think got me the job?" she asked.
"The incantation, maybe?"
Logan nearly drove off the road. "So, the spell was real?"
Melody did a double take. "You got a problem with spells,
Kilgarven
?"
He shrugged. "Can you spell your way into a job?"
Melody laughed. "I'm here to tell you that I can spell my way out of one."
So, Logan thought, maybe the incantation had been nothing but a ploy to derail cooking questions, not that she would ever admit as much to him.
"I don't mind admitting,"
she
said, "that I had an easier time coming up with the show's name and format than I did finding something to rhyme with
mine
that made sense. Even then, the charm was lame. But I think it might have done the trick."
"Mine," Logan said.
"Twine.
Entwine." He gave her a dangerously searching look. "Entwine your limbs with mine?"
After a long, hot beat, he looked back at the
road,
sorry he'd opened that mixed bag of magic tricks, glad she didn't have the
cajones
to respond this time, because she looked as if she might be up for it. Oh boy.
"It does rhyme," she said after a pulsing minute, "but it's not what I was going for, interview-wise."
"Sure it was. Bewitchment, seduction—they're exactly what you were going for, just a bit more subtle. Gardner's gonna take you up on that invitation, by the way."
"You son of a—Stop the car!
Stop, I'm getting out."
Caught off guard by her fury, Logan reached out to try and keep her from unhooking her seat belt. "I'm sorry.
Truce.
Truce," he said.
Logan swung into the Hawthorne Hotel parking lot to calm her and clear up the misunderstanding without getting into an accident. "Mel, Mel." He unhooked his own seat belt and took her fumbling hands from the latch on hers,
then
he removed her grasp from the door handle and finally hit the child-proof locks.
At the resounding click, Melody stopped struggling, almost, but not quite, conceding defeat, her breath coming as fast as her fury. "Do you really think I would… that I would
?…
"
"No. I realize the way that must have sounded, but it's not what I meant," Logan said. "It's just that I know the drill." He moved close enough to smell springtime, reminding himself that for women like Melody and Shane's mother, revving up and putting out were two entirely different matters. "You were just using your assets, playing to Gardner, nothing more, and I know that. I even appreciate your talent, but I'm warning you that he might not be as wise to the ploy as I am," because Heather had used him, not Gardner, for "tease" practice. "I wasn't saying you'd follow through," Logan added. "Honest."
Melody stilled and took a breath, as if she might or might not believe him. "I don't know what you mean by 'the ploy,'" she said, "but I don't think you have a very good opinion of me.
Fine.
That's your choice, and I've been warned. But you know what,
Kilgarven
? Just because I look like… I do… doesn't mean I'm missing a brain. You have
talent,
you use it to get a job. That's the way it goes. I got a job on a TV show by using some damn fine showmanship. So sue me, but stop looking down your nose at me for using what I've been given."
That bit of wisdom worked like a stun gun, probably because she made sense, which made Logan feel like a jerk, which he deserved. The fact remained that she couldn't cook, but this was not the time to bring it up. "You're right," he said. "Again, I'm sorry."
"Listen," she said, poking him in the chest, still carrying a furious head of steam. "One: Assets can sometimes double as liabilities. Remember that. Two: The drill, if that's what you want to call it, was me demonstrating how I would use sex-appeal on the show, and if Gardner got confused, then I'll straighten him out."
Oh, she'd straighten him out all right
, Logan thought. That was the problem.
"Three: I'm going to have to be able to work with that man, a lot of men, without you getting all bent out of shape."
"I know." Logan shook his head. "I'll be cool from now on.
Scout's honor."
"Were you a scout?"
"Sure."
Until they threw me out
.
WHEN they pulled into the driveway, Shane came running over to the car from Jessie's. "Hey, Mel,
wanna
come to my pirate cave picnic next Saturday to watch the tall ships come in? You don't have to cook or anything, but if you want to, I can help."
Melody ruffled Shane's hair. "
Thanks,
buddy." She turned to Logan. "You're going to watch the ships from a cave?"
Logan supposed he should be sorry that Shane had taken it upon himself to invite Melody, but an imprudent, adventurous part of him wanted to spend time with her, too. Working side by side, driving into work together should be temptation enough, he supposed, without hanging together on the weekends, but Shane had asked. "We practically front
Better than fighting the tourists."
"The pirate cave is nearby?"
"That's what he calls our turret." Logan pointed to the top of their old Victorian. "I haven't been able to convince him that a cave isn't likely to be surrounded by windows." Logan stepped closer to Melody, as Shane followed something hopping in the grass back toward Jessie's. "I won't let him go up alone, because there's a door to the widow's walk up there. Even with it locked, the thought of him having access to the roof makes me crazy. What do you think about me using a leash on him, Saturday?"