The Matchmaker Bride Read Free

his eyes, something dark and unsettling. ‘And you’ll dance, won’t you? At the wedding?’ His voice had dipped to a husky murmur, a tone Emily didn’t think she’d ever heard him use before, a tone that brushed across her senses with a shiver. She frowned, then froze as she realised just what Jason was alluding to with that little murmured remark…. Jack and Isobel’s wedding, when they’d danced, and she had been seventeen years old and very, very silly. In the seven years since that episode had occurred, Jason had never mentionedit. Neither had she. She’d assumed he’d forgotten it—just as she had. Almost…until now. Now it was suddenly taking up far too much space in her brain.
    ‘Of course,’ she said after a moment, her voice light. She decided to ignore any implication he might have been making. They hardly needed to talk about that unfortunate episode now. ‘I love to dance.’ She glanced at him again and, despite her now almost twenty-five years, she felt every inch the gauche girl she’d been at that wedding. She’d made such a fool of herself, but at least she could laugh about it now. She would laugh about it.
    ‘I know,’ Jason said, his voice still no more than a murmur. ‘I remember how we danced.’ The corner of his mouth quirked up again, only for a second, as his gaze held hers. His eyes really were the most amazing colour…like whisky, or chocolate, but with golden glints…. ‘Don’t you?’ he pressed, a lilt of challenge in his voice.
    So he was going to mention it—and make her mention it, as well. From that knowing glint in his eyes, he intended to tease her about it, although why he’d waited seven years to do so, Emily had no idea. She smiled wryly, determined to ride it out. ‘Ah, yes. How could I forget?’ Jason didn’t say anything, and Emily shook her head, rolling her eyes as if it was no more than an amusing little anecdote. It was a silly enough episode, seven years in the past, and surely it had no power to embarrass her now, even if she’d been mortified at the time.
    It was just, Emily told herself, that they’d never talked about it, not when he’d hired her, not when he’d kissed her cheek at their niece’s baptism, nor when he’d sat at the far end of the table at Christmas dinner. On all of those occasions he’d remained rather remote, and only now was Emily realising how glad she’d been to retain that little distance. Yet here he was now, standing so close, bringing up all these memories, and behaving in a very un-Jasonlike way. It unnerved her.
    She let out a light little laugh and gave him a self-mocking smile. ‘I made quite an idiot of myself over you.’
    Jason arched an eyebrow. ‘Is that how you remember it?’
    Of course he wouldn’t make it easy for her. He never did. Not when she was six, not when she was seventeen, and not even now she was almost twenty-five. She should be used to his lightly mocking smiles, the eloquent arch of a single eyebrow, but somehow with the distance in their professional relationship she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten how much he could affect her.
    ‘You don’t remember?’ she asked, pretending to shudder. ‘That’s a relief, I suppose.’
    Jason didn’t speak for a moment, and Emily busied herself with organising the dirty cutlery into a tidy pile. ‘I remember,’ he finally said, quietly, without any humour at all, and she felt a strange, icy thrill all the way down her spine.
    And suddenly, without either of them saying anything more, Emily felt as if that memory was right there with them, living and breathing and taking all the air. She certainly remembered it, could feel even now how young and happy she’d been—and so very silly.
    Jason had asked her to dance, the obvious and polite thing to do since he was the brother of the groom and she the sister of the bride. He’d been a worldly twenty-nine to her naive seventeen years, and she’d been breathless and giddy from three glasses of