Meltdown Read Online Free PDF Page B

her. No amount of scientific logic could counteract the powerful physical attraction she felt for him. God knows she’d tried. Too much time under that seductive gaze might make her forget that he was a calculating manipulator who saw her computer as a way to further his own career. Einstein deserved better, and she intended to see that he got it.
    As far as Melanie was concerned nothing had changed since last night—nothing except that Chris’s proximity gave him the upper hand. Turning him down over the phone last night had taken every ounce of her resolve. Turning him down face-to-face was going to be infinitely more difficult. That hot, honey-edged smile of his was throwing her senses into overload. Lord, how could someone so coldhearted make her feel so warm? “Mr. Sheffield, as I stated last night, I’m not interested. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ve made the trip for nothing.”
    Chris’s smile deepened. His gaze slid over her, leisurely taking in her hip-hugger cutoffs and her clinging tank top. “I wouldn’t say that.”
    The look caressed her like an intimate touch, leaving a burning trail in its wake. She remembered her daydreams, the passionate fantasies she’d created with Chris as the hero. She felt her body respond, and hated herself for it. “Mr. Sheffield—”
    “Chris.”
    Even his name whispered seduction. She couldn’tresist saying it. Just once. “Chris. As I told you, I’m not interested.”
    “How do you know unless you hear me out?”
    She knew all right. Casanova Sheffield’s powers of persuasion were legend, or they were according to the stories she’d heard in the data-entry department. And if his southern comfort voice could make her tight and tingly in all the wrong places, heaven only knew what his touch could do. She had to end this conversation and get rid of him. Now. “Mr. Sheffield—”
    “What happened to ‘Chris’?”
    She gritted her teeth. “Mr. Sheffield, I’m in no mood to play word games with you. I’m not interested in your ideas, and that’s final. Now, please leave.”
    She’d used her harshest, most intimidating voice, the one her mother called her “Schoolmarm Special.” Chris didn’t bat an eye. He just leaned back against the post, crossing his arms in front of him and smiling like a cat in cream.
    “I’m not leaving,” he stated, “until I’ve said my piece.”
    “Then say it to the door,” Melanie said, shutting and locking it.
    She retreated across the cluttered room into the haven of her fan chair, hugging her arms tightly around her body, as if that could stop the wild pace of her beating heart. She filled her mind with numbers—cold equations designed to block out the image of the powerful, sexually devastating man standing on her front porch. Multiplication tables, binomial equations, linear coefficients—she tried them all. With no success.
    It’s only hormones, she told herself. A simple chemical reaction. It’ll pass.
    It might have, but she never got the chance to findout. A soft, telltale click informed her the door had been unlocked. Einstein. She’d forgotten that her naive computer had taken Chris’s side in last night’s argument. She jumped up, hoping she had time to relatch the door before Chris discovered it was open.
    But before she managed even half a step the door swung inward. It was too late. There was nothing she could do. Wordlessly she sank back into the fan chair and watched as Chris Sheffield entered the room.
    Her living room looked like a fire sale for a computer hardware discount store. After that jungle of a front yard of hers he should have expected the clutter. The woman was a perpetual contradiction: A meticulous navy suit with a disaster area for a house; a starched linen temperament in the body of a walking dream.
    He’d nearly lost it when she’d opened the front door wearing that next-to-nothing outfit. The tank top stretched taut across the sweet curves of her breasts, giving extra