A Bride for Christmas Read Free

glossy magazines we buy, Ma. I’m the first Australian Carver bride. I reckon we ought to phone some reporters.’
    ‘No,’ Guy snapped, rising and looking at Kylie in distaste. ‘You’re not a Carver Bride. You are Mrs Westmere’s responsibility. My takeover was supposed to be confidential, and the name-change won’t happen yet. There’ll be no Carver Brides until my people are here and we can get rid of this…’ he gazed around the salon with distaste ‘…this fluff.’
     
    Had he made a mistake? Guy watched as the hem-marking continued. ‘It’s a small place,’ Malcolm had told him. ‘The council has the power to make all sorts of complications, like refusing our requests to expand the building. We need to keep the locals on our side. Make an effort, Guy.’
    Maybe he hadn’t made an effort. But really…Kylie, a Carver Bride? Some things were unthinkable. And what had happened to the confidentiality clause? It could be a disaster.
    He waited on, ignored by the Grubbs, which suited him. Finally the hem was finished, and Kylie and her mother sailed off down the street to spread the news. Indignation was oozing from every pore.
    They might be indignant, but so was he.
    ‘I understood this takeover was to be kept quiet,’ he said, in a voice that would have had his secretary shaking. Cool, low and carefully neutral.
    It didn’t have Jenny quaking. ‘Your accountant, or whoever he is, should have said that earlier. My mother-in-law had ten minutes between offer and acceptance where that stipulation wasn’t known. Ten minutes can mean a lot of gossip in Sandpiper Bay.’
    ‘It means I can call the contract off.’
    ‘Fine,’ she said and tilted her chin. ‘Go ahead.’
    He was taken aback. She should be apologising. He’d come all the way here to find the terms of the contract had been breached, and all she was saying was take it or leave it.
    He’d come a long way. Maybe it didn’t matter so much. If he worked hard to get the place sleek before anyone important saw it…
    That meant he also had to get rid of unsuitable clients. Fast. Clients like the Grubbs had no place in a salon such as this.
    ‘Why the hell did you take that pair on?’ he demanded of Jenny, watching through the pink-tinged window as Shirley tugged her daughter into the butcher shop next door.
    Jenny was still on the floor, gathering pins. When she answered, her voice was carefully dispassionate. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? They’re local, and I’m the local bridal salon.’
    ‘They’ll do your reputation no good at all. And as for you being the local bridal salon…We have a contract. Unless I walk away, you’re no longer in charge. And you won’t be doing weddings like this.’
    ‘Right.’ Jenny sat back on her heels and eyed him with disfavour. ‘So the Pregnant-with-Tulle-and-Cupids isn’t a Carver look?’
    He choked. She eyed him with suspicion, and then decided to smile. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s the first positive I’ve seen. I hoped you’d have a sense of humour.’
    He collected himself. ‘I haven’t.’
    ‘Yes, you have. I can see it. It’s a pity it seems the only good thing I’ve seen.’ She went back to gathering pins.
    His jaw dropped. She was criticising him, he thought, astonished. She was on his staff. Criticism was unthinkable.
    He tried to remember when he’d last heard criticism from his staff—and couldn’t.
    ‘You realise things are going to have to change around here?’ he said cautiously. ‘There’ll be less fluff, for a start.’
    She thought about that as she kept sorting pins, and suddenly she smiled. Which threw him all over again. It was an amazing smile, he decided, feeling more than a little confounded. Somewhere his vision of the Widow Westmere was being supplanted by this girl called Jenny. This woman? Okay, a woman. Her body was slim and lithe. Her glossy brown curls were cut in a pert, elfin haircut, which, combined with her informal jeans, her T-shirt and