His Christmas Virgin Read Free Page A

mind.’
    â€˜ If I change my mind,’ she corrected firmly. ‘Which I won’t. Now, if you will excuse me, Mr Buchanan?’ She raised ebony brows. ‘I really am very busy.’
    And Jonas wasn’t? With millions of pounds invested in one building project or another all over the world, Jonas’s own time was, and always had been, at a premium. He certainly didn’t have any more of it to waste tonight on this woman.
    He stepped back. ‘As I said, you know where to reach me when you’ve had enough.’
    â€˜Goodnight, Mr Buchanan,’ she shot back with saccharin—and pointed—sweetness, before quietly closing the door in his face.
    Jonas continued to scowl at that closed door for several minutes after she had carried out her threat to turn off the outside light and left him in darkness apart from the lights visible inside the warehouse itself.
    He had already invested too much time and money in the building project due to begin on this site in the New Year to allow one stubborn individual to ruin it for him, or Buchanan Construction.
    Obviously the money he had so far offered for this property wasn’t enough of a reason for Miss McGuire to agree to move. Which meant Jonas was going to have to come up with a more convincing reason for her to want to leave.

CHAPTER TWO
    â€˜C HEER up, Mac,’ Jeremy Lyndhurst teased as the first of the guests invited to this evening’s viewing began to come through the gallery. The fifty-something co-owner of the prestigious Lyndwood Gallery continued, ‘A few hours of looking good and being socially polite this evening, and tomorrow you can go back to being reclusive and dressing like a tramp!’
    Mac chuckled huskily—as she knew she was meant to—at this reminder of the affront it was to Jeremy’s own impeccable dress sense whenever she turned up at his gallery in her paint-smeared working clothes. Which she had done a lot the last few weeks as she came to deliver the individual paintings due to be exhibited at this evening’s ‘invitation only’ showing of her work.
    Jeremy’s partner—in more ways than one—Magnus Laywood, a tall, blond giant in his forties, was at the door to ‘meet and greet’ as more of those guests began to arrive; mainly art critics and serious collectors, but also some other individuals who were just seriously rich.
    There were twenty of Mac’s paintings on show this evening, and all of them expertly displayed by Jeremy and Magnus, on walls of muted cream with their ownindividual lighting so that they showed to their best advantage.
    It was the first individual exhibition of its kind that Mac had ever agreed to do—and now that the evening had finally arrived she was so nervous her knees were knocking together!
    â€˜Here, drink this.’ Jeremy picked up a glass of champagne from one of the waiters who were starting to circulate amongst the guests in the rapidly filling room, and handed it to her. ‘Your face just went green!’ he explained with a chuckle.
    Mac took a restorative sip of the bubbly alcohol. ‘I’ve never been so nervous in my entire life.’
    â€˜Oh, to be twenty-seven again,’ Jeremy murmured mournfully.
    Mac took another sip of the delicious champagne. ‘What if they don’t like my work?’ she wailed.
    â€˜They can’t all be idiots, darling,’ Jeremy drawled. ‘It’s going to be a wonderful evening, Mac,’ he reassured her seriously as she still looked unconvinced. ‘I know how hard this is for you, love, but just try to enjoy it, hmm?’
    The problem was that Mac had never been particularly fond of exhibiting her work. Selling it, yes. Showing it to other people, and being ‘socially polite’ to those people, no. Unfortunately, as Mac was well aware, she couldn’t make a living from her paintings if she didn’t sell them.
    â€˜I’ll