Under the Boss's Mistletoe Read Free Page B

ones she was wearing now, and suddenly allgrown-up. That was the first time he had noticed her lush mouth, and wondered about the woman she would become.
    That mouth was still the same, Jake thought, remembering its warmth, its innocence, remembering how unprepared he had been for the piercing sweetness that just for a moment had held them in its grip.
    Now here she was again, sitting there and watching him with a wary expression in the big brown eyes. Not recognise her?
    Jake smiled. ‘Not a chance,’ he said.
    Oh dear. That wasn’t what she had wanted to hear at all. Almost reluctantly, Cassie met the dark-blue gaze and felt her skin prickle at the amusement she read there. It was obvious that Jake remembered the gawky teenager she had been all too well. Those kisses might have been shattering for her, but for him they must have been just part of her gaucheness and lack of sophistication.
    She lifted her chin. ‘It’s a long time ago,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you’d remember me.’
    Jake met her eyes blandly. ‘You’d be surprised what I remember,’ he said, and the memory of the Allantide Ball was suddenly shimmering between them. He didn’t have to say anything. Cassie just knew that he was remembering her hopeless attempts to flirt, and her clumsy, mortifyingly eager response to his kiss, and a tide of heat seemed to sweep up from her toes.
    She jerked her eyes away. ‘So,’ she began, but all at once her voice was so high and thin that she had to clear her throat and start again. ‘So…’ Oh God, now she sounded positively gravelly! ‘What took you back to Portrevick?’ She managed to find something approaching a normal pitch at last. As far as she knew, Jake had left the village that awful day he had kissed her on his motorbike and had never been back.
    Jake’s expression sobered. ‘Sir Ian’s death,’ he said.
    ‘Oh yes, I was so sorry when I heard about that,’ said Cassie, latching on to what she hoped would be a safe subject.‘He was such a lovely man,’ she remembered sadly. ‘Mum and Dad went back for the funeral, but one of our clients was getting married that day so I was on duty.’
    The door opened at that point and Jake’s PA came in with a tray of coffee which she set on the table between them. She poured two cups and made a discreet exit. Why could she never be that quiet and efficient? Cassie wondered, admiring the other woman’s style.
    Jake passed one of the cups to her, and she accepted it gingerly. It was made of the finest porcelain, and she couldn’t help comparing it to the chipped mugs she and Joss used to drink endless cups of tea in the office.
    ‘I had to go and see Sir Ian’s solicitor on Friday,’ Jake said, pushing the milk jug towards her. ‘I stayed in the pub at Portrevick, and your name was mentioned in connection with weddings. One of your old friends—Tina?—said that you were in the business.’
    ‘ Did she?’ Cassie made a mental note to ring Tina the moment she left and demand to know why she hadn’t told her that Jake Trevelyan had reappeared. It wasn’t as if Tina didn’t know all about that devastating kiss at the Allantide Ball, although Cassie had never told anyone about the second one.
    Jake raised his eyes a little at her tone, and she hastened to make amends. Perhaps she had sounded rather vengeful, there. ‘I mean, yes, that’s right,’ she said, helping herself to milk but managing to slop most of it into the saucer.
    Now the cup was going to drip all over everything. With an inward sigh, Cassie hunted around in her bag for a tissue to mop up the mess. ‘I am.’
    That sounded a bit too bald, didn’t it? You’re supposed to be selling yourself here, Cassie reminded herself, but she was distracted by the need to dispose of the sodden tissue now. She couldn’t just leave it in the saucer. It looked disgusting, and so unprofessional.
    ‘In the wedding business, that is,’ she added, losing trackof where she had begun.