Under the Boss's Mistletoe (15 page)

Jake made a face. ‘A car would be much more sensible. It’s a steep hill up from the village.’

‘Yes, well, this is a fantasy,’ said Cassie a little crossly. ‘Who wants a sensible fantasy? It was a horse and carriage,’ she insisted. ‘A
white
horse, in fact. Or possibly two.’

‘OK,’ said Rob, breaking into the discussion. ‘I’ve taken as many details as I can. Let’s have the bride and groom looking into each other’s eyes.’

He posed them by some candles Cassie had lit, and while he fiddled with his camera Cassie adjusted Jake’s bow tie. ‘You look very nice,’ she said approvingly.

‘And you look beautiful,’ said Jake.

A jolt had shot through him as he had looked up to see her coming down the staircase, and he was feeling jarred, as if it was still reverberating through him. The dress was white and elegantly floaty. She looked glamorous and sexy and, yes, beautiful.

And then she had stumbled, and he hadn’t been able to resist smiling, pleased to see that it was Cassie after all and not some elegant stranger.

Unable to resist touching her, he ran his hands up her bare arms. ‘It’s Christmas Eve. Weren’t you a bit chilly in that carriage?’ he said, trying to lighten the atmosphere, trying to loosen whatever it was that had taken such a tight grip on his heart when he had looked up to see Cassie as a bride.

‘I had a
faux
fur stole to wear when we came out of the church,’ she explained.

‘And a muff, I hope?’ said Jake, remembering Michelle at the wedding fair, and they both started to laugh at the same time.

They had forgotten Tina and Rob, who was snapping away. They had forgotten the article, forgotten why they were dressed up as a bride and groom. They had forgotten every
thing except the warmth and the laughter—then somehow they weren’t laughing any more, but were staring hungrily at each other.

‘That’s great,’ called Rob from behind his camera. ‘Now, what about a…?’

He tailed off, realising that Cassie and Jake weren’t even listening.

‘A kiss,’ he finished, but they were already there. Cassie was locked in Jake’s arms, and they were kissing in a way that would have raised a few eyebrows at a real wedding, where kisses for the camera were usually sweet and chaste. There was nothing sweet or chaste about this kiss.

Rob looked at Tina, who rolled her eyes. ‘Guys?
Guys!’
she shouted, startling Jake and Cassie apart at last. ‘You’re embarrassing Rob,’ she said with a grin as they looked at her with identically disorientated expressions. ‘These photos are supposed to be for a brides’ magazine, not something they keep on the top shelf! They don’t want pictures of the wedding night, just a sweet little peck on the lips so the readers can all go “aah”.’

‘Sorry, yes, I suppose we got a bit carried away,’ said Cassie, flustered.

‘A bit? We didn’t know where to look, did we, Rob?’

‘It must have been all the time shut up in that carriage,’ muttered Jake, alarmed at how easily he lost control the moment he laid hands on Cassie.

They posed for a whole ream of photographs, but at last Rob decided that he had enough. ‘I’ll send you the link so that you can look at them online,’ he told Cassie. ‘And then you can pick a selection of the best to send to
Wedding Belles
after Christmas.’

Jake couldn’t wait for Rob and Tina to be gone. He closed the door after them with relief and turned back to Cassie, who was blowing out the candles.

‘Now, where was that mistletoe again?’ he said, and she
beckoned him over so that she could put her arms around his neck and kiss him.

‘Right here,’ she said.

‘I
’VE
got to go back to London this afternoon,’ said Jake the next morning as they lay in bed. Realising how reluctant he was to go sent him teetering perilously on the edge of that sheer drop again, though, and he shied away from the thought. He smoothed the curls back from Cassie’s face. ‘Do you want a lift?’

Keep it light,
he told himself. Offering a lift back to London wasn’t the same as suggesting that she move in with him, have his baby or anything that smacked remotely of commitment. It was just saving a train fare.

‘I can’t,’ sighed Cassie. ‘I promised to meet one of the contractors tomorrow to talk about electrics. Now that the hall is done, we need to start work on the kitchens and bathrooms. There’s still a long way to go before we can open as a venue. I really need to stay another couple of days.’

Jake was horrified by how disappointed he was at the prospect of three nights without her, but perhaps a few days apart wasn’t a bad thing. It would give him a chance to get himself under control and start thinking clearly again. He wasn’t himself when Cassie was right there, warm, soft and desperately distracting. It was too easy to lose control, too easy to forget what he risked by letting go of his careful, ordered life.

So when Cassie said that she would be back in London on Wednesday he made himself hold back. He didn’t offer to
meet her at the station, take her out to dinner or take her back to his apartment to see how she looked amongst his furniture, the way he really wanted to do. ‘Give me a ring when you’re back,’ was all he said.

Right. Not ‘I’ll miss you’. Not ‘I love you’. Not even ‘I’ll call you’, thought Cassie. But what had she expected? Jake was a careful man nowadays. He might have made love to her with a heart-stopping tenderness and passion, but he wasn’t about to rush into a relationship with her.

And quite right too, Cassie reminded herself. She had decided that the here and now was enough for her, and it was obviously enough for Jake as well. So she smiled as she kissed him goodbye after lunch and waved him off to London.

She ought to be happy, she thought as she went back inside and began the dreary task of taking down the Christmas decorations. She had had the most wonderful weekend. OK, so Jake hadn’t said that he wanted to see her again, but he hadn’t said that he
didn’t
want to, either. He couldn’t have made love to her like that if he
didn’t
feel anything, could he?

They had all the photos they needed for the article, so there was no real need for him to come down to Portrevick again. But he might need her to be his fiancée again in London. It would look suspicious if they broke off their supposed engagement just yet. They had agreed that they would keep the pretence going until after Christmas, and that was still weeks away, Cassie reassured herself. It was only the beginning of November. Anything could happen in that time.

Just because Jake hadn’t talked about the future didn’t mean they couldn’t have one.

Still, Cassie couldn’t help feeling bereft now that he had gone. She wandered disconsolately around the great hall, taking down the fairy lights and dismantling the table she had laid so carefully the day before.

When the bell jangled, she hurried to open the massive
front door, relieved at the distraction. She hoped it would be Tina, who had promised to come and give her a lift back to the village. A good chat with her old friend was just what she needed. But when she threw the door open wide, the smile was wiped from her face. It wasn’t Tina who stood there.

It was Natasha.

‘Oh!’

Natasha smiled a little hesitantly. ‘Hi,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid Jake isn’t here,’ said Cassie, unable to think of any other reason Natasha would be here on her own. ‘He’s gone back to London.’

‘Actually, it was you I was hoping to see. Have you got a moment?’

The last person Cassie wanted to talk to right then was Natasha, but she couldn’t think of a polite way to refuse. ‘Sure,’ she said reluctantly, and stood back. ‘Come in.’

Gracefully, Natasha stepped into the hall. Swathed in a fabulous cream cashmere pashmina, she stood looking beautiful and making everything around her seem faintly shabby in comparison.

Including Cassie.

There was an awkward silence. ‘Would you like some tea?’ Cassie found herself asking to her own disgust.

‘That would be nice, thank you.’

‘We’ll go to the kitchen. It’s warmer there.’

Cursing her mother’s training, which meant that you always had to be polite whatever the cost, Cassie led the way to the kitchen.

Natasha sat at the table, unwinding her pashmina to reveal an exquisite pale-blue jumper, also cashmere by the look of it, and Cassie sighed as she filled the kettle. If she tried to wear a top that colour, she would spill something down it and ruin it two seconds after she had put it on, but Natasha looked as if she had stepped out of the pages of a magazine.

Switching on the kettle, she turned and leant back against
the worktop and folded her arms. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

‘About Jake,’ said Natasha.

Cassie stiffened. ‘What about him?’

‘I just wanted to know…how he is.’ Natasha moistened her lips. ‘I’d hoped to see him at the ball the other night, but I couldn’t find him.’

Cassie thought about what Jake had been doing while Natasha had been looking for him, and her toes curled. ‘He’s fine,’ she said shortly.

‘I see,’ whispered Natasha, and to Cassie’s horror the green eyes filled with tears. ‘I’d hoped…I’d hoped…’

‘That he’d be pining for you?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded miserably. ‘I’ve been such a fool,’ she burst out. ‘Rupert—he was like a madness. I’ve always been so sensible, and to be pursued like that by someone so glamorous and so exciting, well, I was flattered. You know what Rupert’s like.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Cassie. ‘But I know what Jake is like too, and so should you. He’s worth a thousand Ruperts, and he deserved better than being left without warning—and for Rupert of all people! You must have known how humiliating that would be for him,’ she said accusingly.

Natasha bit her lip. ‘I can see that now, of course I can, but at the time I wasn’t thinking clearly.’

Dropping her head into her hands, she clutched her perfectly straight blonde hair with her perfectly manicured fingers. ‘It sounds crazy now, but I just lost my head. I was tired of being clever and careful and doing the right thing all the time. Rupert was such fun and so seductive. Being with him seemed like my only chance to do something wild and spontaneous. It was like my own little rebellion.’

‘A little self-indulgent, don’t you think?’ said Cassie, unmoved. ‘Couldn’t you have found a way to have fun and be
spontaneous
that didn’t involve hurting Jake?’

‘I never meant to hurt him, you must believe that!’ Natasha lifted her head to look at Cassie with imploring green eyes. ‘We never had a very demonstrative relationship. I suppose other people would have looked at us and thought we were cool, but I didn’t appreciate what I had. I thought I wanted something different, but then I didn’t like it. The truth is that I’m not a rebel. I’m conventional. I’m careful. I like a plan, just like Jake. With Rupert, I never know where we’re going to be or what we’ll be doing, and I hate it!

‘I miss Jake,’ she said on a sob, and the tears spilled over at last. ‘When I’m with him, I feel so safe. We had so much in common. We were perfect together, but I treated him so badly, and now I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me.’

Cassie poured boiling water onto two tea bags. Her face felt tight. Her heart felt tight. ‘Why have you come to me?’ she asked coolly, squeezing the bags with a spoon before fishing them out.

Natasha wiped tears from under her eyes. Predictably, she was one of those women who looked beautiful even when they were crying. When Cassie cried, she went all blotchy, her nose ran and her eyes turned piggy.

‘Because Rupert said he doesn’t think you’re really engaged to Jake,’ said Natasha in a rush. ‘He thinks Jake is just saving face, and if…if that’s true…then I would like to go to him, to tell him how desperately sorry I am that I hurt him, and ask if he’ll give me another chance. I swear I would never do anything like this again,’ she promised, an edge of desperation in her voice. ‘I can be what Jake needs, I know I can.’

Tight-lipped, Cassie handed Natasha a mug and pushed the carton of milk towards her. She wasn’t ready to prove Rupert right just yet, and besides there was last night. Everything had changed now.

Hadn’t it?

‘And what
does
Jake need?’ she prevaricated.

‘He needs someone who’ll make him feel safe too,’ said Natasha. ‘I know what a struggle it has been for him to get where he is now. He needs someone who’ll let him forget the past and love him for the person he is now. Someone who understands what drives him and doesn’t try to challenge him.’

No,
thought Cassie instinctively. She shook her head. ‘I think you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Jake shouldn’t forget the past. He needs to accept it, accept that it’s part of him. You can’t just pretend the past never existed.’

‘If someone doesn’t want to talk about their childhood, you should respect that,’ said Natasha. ‘Jake knew I would never press him about it. It’s one of the reasons he felt comfortable with me.’

Cassie could feel herself prickling with irritation. ‘Jake deserves more than comfortable, Natasha,’ she said. ‘He needs laughter and love and passion and—and
acceptance
of who he was and who he is.’

‘I can give him all of that,’ said Natasha defensively. ‘I do accept him. If I didn’t, I would want to change him, and I don’t. He doesn’t need to change for me.’

But perhaps he needed to change for himself.

Jake needed to let down his guard, to throw away his rule book and his specifications and let himself love and be loved—but that would mean him giving up control, and Cassie wasn’t sure he would be able to do that.

He didn’t believe in love. Jake had made that very clear. He thought all you needed for a successful relationship was a formula, and Natasha fitted his specifications perfectly. He had told her that.

They had agreed that they were completely incompatible. Two nights weren’t going to change that, were they?

Cassie’s heart cracked. She so wanted to believe that this magical weekend had been the start of something wonderful, but what, really, did she have to go on? When Jake kissed her, when his hands drifted lazily, possessively, over her body, she
hadn’t needed to hear that he loved her. Then, the here and now had been enough, but now he had gone, and she could feel her confidence leaking out of her in the face of Natasha’s glowing beauty.

It was too easy now to wonder if he had turned to her on the rebound from Natasha, if he had simply been looking for someone different to distract him from the hurt and the humiliation of being left by the woman he really wanted.

Now, too late, she could remember that it had only ever been a pretence, and Jake had never suggested otherwise. Why hadn’t she remembered that before?

Because it wasn’t a pretence for her, not any more. Cassie loved Jake. She knew that she could give him what he really needed.

But what he needed wasn’t necessarily what he wanted.

Stirring her tea, Cassie looked across the table at Natasha, who had dried her tears and was looking poised and elegant once more.

Looking exactly like the kind of woman Jake had aspired to for so long.

A lead weight was gathering in Cassie’s chest as she remembered everything Jake had ever told her. He didn’t want to take the risk of falling in love. He didn’t want to lose control. He didn’t want to change.

Natasha could give him so many of things he had said he
did
want. She wouldn’t push him. She would let him keep his emotions all buttoned up—and wasn’t that, really, all Jake wanted?

Strange that she and Natasha should love the same man when they were so different, Cassie thought. There was Natasha: so beautiful, so sensible, so classy and so cool, representing the future Jake had worked so hard for—and there was her; clumsy, messy Cassie who muddled through and did her best but would never be more than an also-ran. Who would always be associated with the past he resented so much.

Did she really think Jake would rather be with her than Natasha?

Better to face reality now, Cassie decided. She wasted too much of her life dreaming as it was. This time, she would be the sensible one.

Natasha had been watching her face. ‘Is it true?’ she asked quietly. ‘Is Jake just trying to save face by pretending to be engaged to you?’

Cassie looked down at the ruby ring which she had never got round to taking off the night before. Very slowly, she drew it off and dropped it onto the table, where it clattered and rolled for a moment before toppling over.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s true.’

‘You did
what?’
said Tina in disbelief. She had arrived about ten minutes after Natasha had left to find Cassie a sodden mess in the kitchen.

‘I told Natasha the truth.’

‘And sent her back to Jake with
your
ring? You’re mad, Cassie! You and Jake had something really good going there.’

‘We were just pretending,’ said Cassie drearily, blowing her nose. Unlike Natasha, she wasn’t a pretty sight when she cried, and she had just cried more than she had ever cried before.

Tina wasn’t having any of it. ‘Don’t give me that. I saw the way you kissed each other last night. There was nothing fake about that. Good grief, the top of my head practically blew off, and that was just watching you!’ She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at Cassie. ‘I can’t believe you’d just give up and let that drippy Natasha swan back to him. It’s not like you to be so wet. You’re crazy about Jake, and you just gave him up without a fight. What’s that about?’

‘Because it’s not a fight I could ever win,’ Cassie said miserably. Did Tina think she hadn’t thought about it? ‘We’re completely incompatible.’