Under the Boss's Mistletoe Read Free

suede with a black stripe was perfect with the suit—but she wasn’t used to walking on quite such high heels, and the lobby floor had an alarmingly, glossy sheen to it. It was a relief to get across to the reception desk without mishap.
    ‘I’m looking for a company called Primordia,’ she said, glancing down at the address Joss had scribbled down. ‘Can you tell me which floor it’s on?’
    The receptionist lifted immaculate brows. ‘This is Primordia,’ she said.
    ‘What, the whole building?’ Cassie’s jaw sagged as shestared around the soaring lobby, taking in the impressive artwork on the walls and the ranks of gleaming lifts with their lights going up, up, up…
    ‘Apparently he’s boss of some outfit called Primordia,’ Joss had said casually when she’d tossed the address across the desk.
    This didn’t look like an ‘outfit’ to Cassie. It looked like a solid, blue-chip company exuding wealth and prestige. Suddenly her suit didn’t seem quite so smart.
    ‘Um, I’m looking for someone called Jake Trevelyan,’ she told the receptionist. ‘I’m not sure which department he’s in.’
    The receptionist’s brows climbed higher. ‘Mr Trevelyan, our Chief Executive? Is he expecting you?’
    Chief Executive? Cassie swallowed. ‘I think so.’
    The receptionist turned away to murmur into the phone while Cassie stood, fingering the buttons on her jacket nervously. Jake Trevelyan, bad boy of Portrevick, Chief Executive of all this?
    Blimey.
    An intimidatingly quiet lift took her up to the Chief Executive’s suite. It was like stepping into a different world. Everything was new and of cutting-edge design, and blanketed with the hush that only serious money can buy.
    It was a very long way from Portrevick.
    Cassie was still half-convinced that there must be some mistake, but no. There was an elegant PA, who was obviously expecting her, and who escorted her into an impressively swish office.
    ‘Mr Trevelyan won’t be a minute,’ she said.
    Mr Trevelyan! Cassie thought of the surly tearaway she had known and tried not to goggle. She hoped Jake—sorry, Mr Trevelyan —didn’t remember her flirting with him in that tacky dress or telling him that she never wanted to see him again. It wasn’t exactly the best basis on which to build a winning client-relationship.
    On the other hand, he was the one who had asked to seeher. Surely he wouldn’t have done that if he had any memory of those disastrous kisses? Joss must be right; he had probably forgotten them completely. And, even if he hadn’t, he was unlikely to mention that he had kissed her in front of his fiancée, wasn’t he? He would be just as anxious as her to pretend that that had never happened.
    Reassured, Cassie pinned on a bright smile as his PA opened a door into an even swisher office than the first. ‘Cassandra Grey,’ the woman announced.
    It was a huge room, with glass walls on two sides that offered a spectacular view down the Thames to the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.
    Not that Cassie took in the view. She had eyes only for Jake, who was getting up from behind his desk and buttoning his jacket as he came round to greet her.
    Her first thought was that he had grown into a surprisingly attractive man.
    Ten years ago he had been a wiry young man, with turbulent eyes and a dangerous edge that had always left her tongue-tied and nervous around him. He was dark still, and there were traces of the difficult boy he had been in his face, but he had grown into the once-beaky features, and the surliness had metamorphosed into a forcefulness that was literally breathtaking. At least, Cassie presumed that was why she was having trouble dragging enough oxygen into her lungs all of a sudden.
    He might not actually be taller, but he seemed it—taller, tougher, more solid somehow. And the mouth that had once been twisted into a sneer was now set in a cool, self-contained line.
    Cassie was forced to revise her first thought. He