Melting the Millionaire's Heart Read Free

won’t be long now, if the lack of feeling in my knees is any indication.
    She might not have the greatest social skills in the world where men were concerned, but even she knew that would be…odd. So instead, she settled for, “That’s very nice of you to offer, but my friends are expecting me at Langford’s. They’ll be worried if I don’t show.”
    “So call ‘em. They’ll understand. Nobody with a brain would stay out in this weather.” He paused and then flashed that killer grin again. “No offense.”
    “None taken.” She’d pretty much already decided she’d been an idiot tonight. She couldn’t fault him for agreeing.
    He held out his cell phone. How bad could he be? Serial killers didn’t offer their cell phones to their potential victims. Why waste minutes on somebody you were just going to off? “Still, I’d rather just get to my destination. Maybe I can walk. How far is it to the Langford estate?”
    He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’d say ten miles to the gatehouse. In the other direction from where you’re heading, though.”
    She stared. “What?”
    “You’re headed away from the house. You’ve got ten miles to the gatehouse alone, and then a long way up the drive from there. Sure you won’t take me up on it?”
    Oh, my God. True, she’d never been good at navigation, but she’d been so careful to Google driving directions before she left her apartment in Indianapolis. And she’d been on the right track, she knew it, until…the accident. The car had spun and slid crazily, and she’d been frazzled from the crash and Carolyn’s announcement. She must have gotten disoriented, so turned around that when she set off, she’d gone in the wrong direction.
    Brilliant. She’d truly screwed up this time.
    Dr. Dunne would just have to suck up without her. Even keeping her job wasn’t worth losing her life and limb to frostbite, which would happen if she didn’t get her butt inside, pronto. “Okay, thanks. I’ll just text my friend first to let her know where I am.”
    “Sure. Get in and get warm while you do it.”
    She accepted gladly and pulled out her phone.
    Caught a ride with a nice guy. Going to wait out the storm with him. Don’t worry! Be there ASAP.
    “Mind if I give her your number just in case?” she asked him. “My cell’s nearly dead.”
    “Sure.” He recited a number. She typed it in and hit Send .
    In mere seconds, Carolyn’s response came through.
    WTH? Is he hot?
    She glanced discreetly at her rescuer, at his wavy brown, just-a-little-too-long hair above the collar of his jacket, and his leather-clad hands firm on the wheel.
    YUP.
    She clicked Send. A second later, with a sad chime, the battery on her phone died.

Chapter Two
    “I’m sorry, but I didn’t get your name,” the woman in Ryan Langston’s passenger seat said. “I’m Kayla Johnston.”
    “RJ.” It wasn’t a lie. His family had been calling him that for years. He just didn’t go by it professionally. He pulled one hand away from the wheel just long enough for a quick shake.
    “RJ what?” she asked.
    His brain spun. She’d been headed to his estate, so that meant she worked for the Horizons school. The same school he was considering donating big bucks to. If she found out who he really was, she’d be all over him, and not in a good way. He’d seen dollar signs in too many eyes to not know the effect his money had on people. If the weather forced him to spend the night with a woman, he’d prefer not to do it fending off eager pleas for funding, when there were so many more enjoyable ways to pass time. Lucky for him, his unexpected passenger was a babe—kind of a “girl next door” type, if you lived next door to a really cute, sexy girl. That was what the folks in business school called a “value-add.”
    BS like that was why he’d never gone to business school. He’d opted to start his own business at eighteen instead.
    “RJ Reynolds,” he said after a pause, giving his