My Darling Melissa Read Online Free PDF

I’m the man who saved you from your family’s undying pity and then almost single-handedly dragged you back from death’s door.”
    “I don’t want anything from you, not even breakfast,” Melissa muttered through her teeth, but she smiled at passersby lest they think something was wrong. “Go away and leave me alone before I have you arrested!”
    “You wouldn’t do that.” They’d reached a hotel, and Quinn thrust Melissa through the door and into the lobby. She had to take long strides to keep up with him. His voice dropped to a companionable whisper. “If you did, I’d be forced to explain to the police that your celebrated family is probably searching high and low for their precious darling. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were offering a sizable reward.”
    Melissa thought back to the time her brother Keith’s first wife was killed. He’d disappeared in a fit of grief, and Adam and Jeff had established a reward and gotten posters printedwithin the space of a few days. She looked imploringly at Quinn as he escorted her into the dining room and smoothly seated her near a window.
    When he joined her at the table he smiled warmly. “I’ve been thinking,” he announced, “about your offer to marry me.”
    Melissa’s cheeks flamed, and she was glad Quinn couldn’t know how rapidly her heart was beating. “I wasn’t serious,” she said. She couldn’t help remembering the kiss they’d shared on Quinn’s bed, nor could she stop the rush of sensations the memory unleashed. If she were Quinn’s wife, she would have a legal and moral right to explore the strange delights his body had promised to hers.
    “I think you were,” Quinn argued affably.
    A waitress came, bringing coffee and taking Melissa’s order, and then they were alone again.
    “I’ve changed my mind,” Melissa spat, as though there had been no break in the ridiculous conversation. “I’d sooner marry a woolly African ape than you, Quinn Rafferty!”
    He had the brazen effrontery to take one of her hands in his. The way he chafed the inside of Melissa’s wrist with his callused thumb caused a tender blossoming sensation deep within her. “Marry me,” he said in an audacious undertone.
    Melissa nearly upset her coffee, so swiftly did she pull her hand free of his grasp. “How fickle you are!” she whispered furiously. “What about Gillian?”
    “I told you. That was just business.”
    “Whereas you harbor a deep and undying affection for me, I suppose,” Melissa taunted.
    “I sure as hell feel something,” Quinn responded blithely. “Might as well find out what it is.”
    If they hadn’t been in a public place, and if people hadn’t already started to look, Melissa would have slapped Quinn again. She lowered her eyes to the plate of ham, eggs, and biscuits the waitress brought to her and concentrated as best she could on her meal.
    As hungry as she was, Melissa could barely eat, heremotions were in such a tangle. She’d truly loved Ajax, or thought she had, but he’d never made her feel such anger, such tenderness, such frustration.
    “I won’t marry you,” she said firmly when she’d eaten what she could. “I couldn’t think of tying myself down to a man who merely liked me.”
    “Who says I like you?” Quinn countered.
    Melissa slammed down her fork and made to stand up, but Quinn stopped her by taking a hard but painless grip on her wrist.
    “Finish your breakfast,” he ordered.
    Although she longed to defy him, Melissa found herself obeying.

Three
    The hotel dining room was filled with conversation and the cheery clatter of good china. Melissa gazed at Quinn over the rim of her coffee cup, having made short work of her breakfast.
    Quinn wasn’t sure why he wanted to argue for marriage, when all his life he’d been firmly opposed to the institution. Even his engagement to Gillian Aires had been entered into with an eye to bailing out again if the waters got too rough, but here he was, ready