Under the Boss's Mistletoe (7 page)

‘Er, well, anyway…We’re supposed to be talking about the Hall,’ she said brightly.

Jake seemed to focus on her properly for the first time. ‘You said you had made some progress?’

‘I have.’ Cassie told him about the contractors she had engaged. A small army of them was already hard at work. ‘They’re mostly cleaners,’ she explained. ‘There’s so much wood in the great hall that it doesn’t need much decorating—
although they’re repainting the roof—but the walls, the floor and the fireplace need a thorough clean and polish. It’s all well in hand for the Allantide Ball.’

‘Good,’ said Jake absently. Cassie wondered if he had even been listening. He was frowning down at a knife he was spinning beneath one finger.

‘I’ve also been in touch with various local caterers, florists, photographers and so on, and started to draw up a directory of our own.’

‘It all sounds very promising,’ said Jake as Giovanni’s nephew appeared with a carafe of wine. Less expansive than his uncle, or perhaps just more sensitive to Jake’s grim expression, he took their orders with the minimum of fuss.

‘You’ve been busy,’ Jake added to Cassie, folding the menu and handing it back to the waiter.

Well, at least he had been listening. She had wondered there for a minute. ‘There’s lots to do, but I’m enjoying it.’

Jake reached for the carafe, but, mindful that she was supposed to be the host, Cassie got there first, and he watched without comment as she filled two glasses. She didn’t know about Jake, but she certainly needed one!

She drew a breath. ‘I’ve been thinking about a promotion, too.’

If only Jake was in a more amenable mood, she thought. It was going to be tricky enough breaking the news of the deal she had made with
Wedding Belles
as it was. She took a sip of wine to fortify herself. ‘Do you remember me saying it might be worth contacting a couple of magazines in case they wanted to run a piece about setting up the Hall as a venue?’ she began cautiously.

‘Vaguely.’

It was hardly the most encouraging of responses, but Cassie ploughed on anyway. ‘Well, I did that, and one of them is very keen on the idea.’

There was a pause. Jake could see that she was waiting
for him to say something, although he wasn’t sure what. ‘OK,’ he said.

‘But they want a bit more of a human-interest angle.’

‘Human interest?’

‘Yes, you know, to personalise the story? So it’s not just the story of how the building is being prepared, it’s also about a couple preparing to get married there. The readers love real-life stories,’ Cassie hurried on. ‘The editor of
Wedding Belles
—that’s the magazine—wants to follow a couple who are going to be married there. So the article will be illustrated with pictures of them choosing the flowers, planning menus, trying on wedding dresses and all that kind of thing.’

‘But we haven’t got any couples yet,’ Jake objected. ‘Surely the whole point of promoting the Hall like this is to
find
someone who wants to get married there?’

‘Quite,’ said Cassie, relieved that he at least could see the point of the article. ‘We haven’t got any punters yet, but we
have
got you and Natasha…’ She trailed off, hoping that Jake would get where this was all going.

He had gone very still. ‘What about me and Natasha?’

‘OK, I
may
have stretched the truth a little bit here,’ Cassie acknowledged, and took the final hurdle in a rush. ‘But the editor was so keen on the idea that I told her that you were getting married at the Hall at Christmas.’

‘What?’

Jake’s voice was like a lash, and carried right across the restaurant. Diners on nearby tables turned to look at them in surprise, and behind Jake at the bar Giovanni clutched a hand to his heart with an exaggerated expression of sympathy for her.

Cassie glowered at him and turned deliberately back to Jake. She had been afraid he might react like that.

‘I know it’s a cheek,’ she said, holding up her hands in a placatory gesture. ‘But I really do think it would be great publicity for the Hall. And you don’t have to go through with it if Natasha doesn’t want to get married there. They’ll only want
pictures of a few set occasions, so I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t set up a few shots and create a story for them.’

Jake was looking grimly discouraging, so she hurried on before he could give her a flat no. ‘We don’t need to tell them that it isn’t actually the dress Natasha is going to wear, or those aren’t really the flowers she’d choose,’ she reassured him. ‘You and Natasha would just be models, if you like, showing what a wonderful wedding-venue the Hall will be. I know you’re both busy, but it shouldn’t take up too much time. Just a few hours every now and then to have your photos taken.

‘It would be a really effective way to promote the Hall,’ Cassie went on when there was still no response from Jake. There was an edge of desperation in her voice by now. It had taken ages to get the editor of
Wedding Belles
to agree to feature Portrevick Hall, and it was only the promise of the human interest lent by the owner himself getting married there—another little stretching of the truth—that had swung it for her.

‘You did say you wanted the venue to be self-sustaining as soon as possible,’ she reminded him.
‘Wedding Belles
is really popular with brides-to-be around the country, and its circulation figures are amazing. If they run a feature about the Hall, we’ll have couples queuing up to book it, and you’ll be able to hand the whole place over to a manager much sooner than you thought.’

Jake drank some wine, then put down his glass. ‘There’s just one problem,’ he said.

‘Just one?’ said Cassie, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘That doesn’t sound too bad!’

He didn’t smile back. ‘Unfortunately it’s quite a major one,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid Natasha isn’t around to model anything any more. She’s left me.’

Cassie put down her glass so abruptly, wine sloshed onto the tablecloth. ‘Natasha’s
left
you?’

‘So it seems.’

‘But…but…’ Cassie was floundering. It was the last thing she had expected to hear. ‘God, I’m so sorry! I had no idea…’ No wonder Jake was looking so grim! ‘When did all this happen?’

‘When I got back from Cornwall.’ Jake reached across with his napkin and mopped up the wine Cassie had spilt before she made even more of a mess. ‘Natasha was waiting for me with her case packed. She said she was sorry, but she had met someone else and fallen madly in love with him.’

His first reaction had been one of surprise at her words. Natasha had never been the type to do anything
madly.
One of the things he had always liked about her was her calm, rational approach to everything, and now it seemed as if she was just as illogical and emotional as, well, as Cassie.

‘How awful for you.’ Cassie’s round face was puckered with sympathy. ‘How long had it been going on?’

‘Hardly any time. She said he’d literally swept her off her feet. I’ll bet he did,’ Jake added grimly. ‘He’s had plenty of practice.’

‘Gosh, he’s not a friend of yours, is he?’ That would make it twice as humiliating for him.

‘A friend?’ Jake gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Hardly! Rupert Branscombe Fox is no friend of mine.’

‘Rupert?’
Cassie’s eyes were out on stalks. Crikey, this was like something out of a soap opera! ‘But how on earth did Natasha meet Rupert?’

‘It was my own fault,’ said Jake. Funnily enough, now that he’d started talking, he didn’t feel too bad. He’d been so angry before that he could barely bite out a word. ‘I invited Rupert round to discuss the trust at home, and Natasha was there. I didn’t think she was that impressed with him at the time.’

Cassie remembered now. Perfect Natasha had decided that Rupert was shallow—or that was what she had said, anyway.

‘What changed her mind?’

‘Rupert did. He deliberately set out to seduce Natasha to get at me.’ Jake’s expression was set. ‘I can’t believe she fell for it,’ he said, sounding genuinely baffled. ‘I thought she was
too sensible to have her head turned by Rupert’s very superficial attraction. I can’t understand it at all.’

Cassie could. Even as a boy, Rupert had been extraordinarily good-looking, and if he had turned the full battery of his sex appeal on Natasha he must have been well nigh irresistible. Perhaps Natasha had been tired of being told how admirably sensible she was.

But poor Jake. How hurt and angry he must have been!

‘Rupert’s very…charming,’ she said lamely.

Jake tossed back his wine and poured himself another glass. ‘He’s
using
Natasha. I can’t believe she can’t see it for herself!’

‘Maybe he’s fallen in love with her,’ Cassie suggested

‘Love?’ Jake snorted. ‘Rupert doesn’t love anyone but himself.’

‘You don’t
know
that—’

‘Sure I do,’ he interrupted her. ‘Rupert was kind enough to explain it to me. Natasha was perfect for his purposes, he said. He was furious and humiliated by the trust Sir Ian had set up, and he’s chosen to blame me for it. Breaking up my relationship with Natasha was doubly sweet. It hurt me, and it gives him access to the trust money, or so he thinks. He claims he’s going to marry her because I won’t have any grounds for arguing that Natasha isn’t a sensible woman, as specified by Sir Ian. He was quite sure I would understand,
old chap.’

Ouch. Cassie grimaced at the savagery in Jake’s voice. She didn’t blame him for being angry. She could practically hear Rupert’s light, cut-glass tones, and could just imagine what effect they would have had on Jake.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Well, I’m certainly not handing over the money yet. Natasha deserves better than to be married for such a cynical reason. The moment Rupert’s got his hands on the money, he’ll dump her like the proverbial ton of bricks,’ said Jake. ‘He’s still got to prove to me that he’s settled down, and I’ll believe that when I see it!’

Under the circumstances, it was generous of him to still think about Natasha, Cassie thought. He must love her, even if she had proved to be not quite as perfect as he had believed.

Cassie pushed her glass around, making patterns on the tablecloth. It would be quite something to be loved by someone like Jake, who didn’t give up on you even when you made a terrible mistake. She wondered if Natasha would realise that once the first thrill of being with Rupert wore off.

As it inevitably would. Cassie wasn’t a fool, whatever her family thought. She had long ago realised that Rupert’s appeal lay largely in the fact that he was out of reach. He was so impossibly handsome, so extraordinarily charming, so unbelievably glamorous, that you couldn’t imagine doing anything ordinary with him. He was the kind of man you dreamed of having a mad, passionate affair with, not the kind of man you lived with and loved every day.

Not like Jake.

Cassie’s fingers stilled on the glass. Where had
that
thought come from?

Looking up from her wine, she studied him across the table. Lost in his own thoughts, he was broodingly turning a fork on the tablecloth, his own head bent and the dark, stormy eyes hidden. She could see the angular planes of his face, the jut of his nose, the set of his mouth, and all at once it was as if she had never seen him before.

There was a solidity and a control to him, she realised, disconcerted to realise that she could imagine living with him in a way she had never been able to with Rupert. Bumping into Rupert again had been one of her favourite fantasies for years, but in her dreams they were never doing anything ordinary. They were
getting
married, not
being
married. They were going to Paris or sitting on a yacht in the Caribbean, not having breakfast or watching television or emptying the dishwasher.

How strange that she could picture Jake in her flat, could
see him coming in from work, taking off his jacket, loosening his tie, reaching for her with a smile…

A strange shiver snaked its way down her spine. It was just Jake, she reminded herself. But he was so immediate, so real, so
there,
that his presence felt like a hand against her skin, and all at once she was struggling to drag enough oxygen into her lungs.

And then he looked up, the dark-blue eyes locked with hers, and she forgot to breathe at all.

‘Spaghetti carbonara.’

Cassie actually jumped as Giovanni deposited a steaming plate in front of her.

‘And fettucine
all’arrabiata
for your
client!’

She barely noticed Giovanni’s jovial winks and nods of encouragement as he fussed around with pepper and parmesan. How long had she been staring into Jake’s eyes, unable to look away? A second? Ten? Ten
minutes?
She hoped it was the first, but it was impossible to tell. She felt oddly jarred, and her heart was knocking erratically against her ribs.

She was terrified in case Jake was able to read her thoughts in her eyes. Of course, she would have known if he had, because he would look absolutely horrified. He probably couldn’t think of anything worse than going home to her in an untidy flat every night.

Why was
that
a depressing thought?

A
ND
why was she even
thinking
about it? Cassie asked herself crossly as she picked up her fork. Disappointed by her lack of response, Giovanni had taken himself off at last. Jake was obviously still in love with the not-quite-so-perfect Natasha, who had had her sensible head turned by Rupert.

Twirling spaghetti in her spoon, she forced her mind back to the conversation. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said when Giovanni had left. ‘If it’s any comfort, I don’t imagine Rupert will be easy to live with. Perhaps Natasha will change her mind.’

‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ said Jake.

That wasn’t quite what Cassie had been hoping to hear.
I wouldn’t take her back if she grovelled from here to Friday
was more what she had had in mind.

She sighed inwardly. Stop being so silly, she told herself.

‘In the meantime, I’ll go back to
Wedding Belles
and tell them that we’d still like a feature on the Hall, but we can’t manage the human-interest angle.’

Jake’s gaze sharpened. ‘I thought you said they wouldn’t do a piece without that?’

‘No, well, it’s not the end of the world. We can find other ways of promoting the Hall.’

‘They won’t reach the same market, though?’

‘Probably not.’

Jake brooded, stirring his fork mindlessly around in the fettucine. ‘To hell with it!’ he said explosively after a while and looked up at Cassie, who regarded him warily. ‘I’m damned if I’m going to let Rupert mess up my plans for the Hall, too. He’s made enough trouble! I say we go ahead with it anyway.’

‘We can’t do much about it without Natasha,’ she reminded him reluctantly.

‘Unless…’ Jake trailed off, staring at Cassie as if seeing her properly for the first time.

She stared back, more than a little unnerved. ‘What?’

‘Did you tell this editor Natasha’s name?’

‘No, I didn’t go into details. I just said the owner of the Hall was getting married.’

‘So I don’t really need Natasha—I just need a fiancée?’

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘So why don’t I marry you?’

There was a rushing sound in Cassie’s ears. She went hot, then cold, then hot again. ‘Me?’ she squeaked. ‘You don’t want to marry me!’

‘Of course I don’t,’ said Jake, recoiling. ‘God, no! But you said yourself that it doesn’t have to be a real engagement. If all we need is to have a few photographs taken, why shouldn’t you be the bride-to-be?’

‘Well, because—because—’ Cassie stuttered, groping for all the glaringly obvious reasons why she couldn’t, and bizarrely unable to think of any. ‘Because everyone would know it wasn’t true.’

‘You just said you didn’t give the magazine any names.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of them. I was thinking of all the people who know perfectly well we’re not engaged.’

‘Who’s going to know?’

‘Anyone who sees the article,’ she said, exasperated, but Jake only looked down his nose.

‘I don’t know anyone who’s likely to read
Wedding Belles,’
he said.

Cassie glared at him. ‘It’s not just about you, though, is it? I know masses of people who read it for one reason or another, and if one of my friends gets whiff of the fact that I’m apparently engaged without telling anyone I’ll never hear the end of it!’

Jake couldn’t see the problem. ‘The article won’t be published until next year,’ he said dismissively. ‘We can worry about what we tell people then. Rupert will never stick with Natasha for more than a few weeks, so there’ll be no reason not to tell everyone the truth then. We’ll say it was just a marketing exercise.’

‘And what about when the
Wedding Belles
photographer comes down to take pictures of us supposedly planning our wedding at the Hall?’ asked Cassie, picking up her spoon and fork once more. ‘It’ll be all over Portrevick in no time. You know what the village is like. We’d never be able to keep it secret. Rupert’s got some fancy weekend place in St Ives; what’s the betting he’ll hear about it?’

‘What if he does? It wouldn’t do him any harm to think that I’m not inconsolable.’

‘No, but if he gets wind of the fact that you’re just pretending…’ Cassie trailed off and Jake nodded.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Rupert wouldn’t hesitate to make trouble for me in whatever way he could.’ He looked across the table at Cassie. ‘In that case, let’s make it true,’ he said.

She stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘
Let’s make it a real engagement
,’ he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Or, at least, not a secret one,’ he amended. ‘We can tell everybody who needs to know, and do the photographs for the article quite openly. We’ll know it’s not a real engagement, but we don’t have to tell anyone else that.’

Let’s make it a real engagement. Cassie was furious with
herself for the way her heart had jumped at his words, in spite of the fact that only a matter of minutes ago he had been recoiling in horror at the very idea. ‘Nobody would believe it,’ she said flatly.

‘Why not?’

‘Come on, Jake. I’m hardly your type, am I? Are you really going to ask people to believe you took one look at me and fell in love with me? They’d know it wasn’t true.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Jake studied her over the rim of his glass. It was warm in the restaurant, and she had shrugged off the silky cardigan, leaving her shoulders bare. She was a warm, glowing figure in the candlelight. ‘I can think of more unlikely scenarios,’ he said.

His gaze flustered Cassie, and she tore her eyes away to concentrate fiercely on twisting spaghetti around her fork. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘And when was this supposed to have happened?’

‘How about when you walked into my office and fell into my arms?’

Cassie felt her colour rising at the memory. ‘And you thought, “I’ve been waiting all my life for someone clumsy to come along”?’

‘Perhaps I’ve had a thing about you since I kissed you at the Allantide Ball,’ Jake suggested. ‘Perhaps I’ve been waiting ten years to find you again.’

It was clear that he was being flippant, but there was an undercurrent of
Something
in his voice. Cassie did everything she could to stop herself looking up to meet his eyes again, but it was hopeless. Something stronger than her was dragging her gaze up from the fork to lock with Jake’s. She could almost hear the click as it snapped into place.

His eyes were dark and unreadable in the candlelight, but still her heart began that silly pattering again, while her pulse throbbed alarmingly.

She swallowed. ‘I don’t think that sounds very likely either.’

‘Well, then, we’ll tell it exactly as it was,’ said Jake, sounding
infuriatingly normal. How come
his
heart wasn’t lurching all over the place at the very thought of falling in love with her? He clearly wasn’t having any trouble breathing, either.

‘We met when you came to discuss developing the Hall as a wedding venue. Then we drove down to Portrevick together.’

‘And on the way we fell madly in love and agreed to get married right away?’ said Cassie, who had managed to look away again at last.

Jake shrugged away her scorn. ‘You’re the one who believes in that kind of thing,’ he reminded her. ‘If we say that’s what happened, why would anyone believe it wasn’t true?’

‘I can’t believe you’re making it all sound so reasonable,’ she protested.

How had they got to this point? It was as if the whole evening had been turned on its head. When she arrived, she had been cock-a-hoop at the idea of the magazine feature, and her only concern had been how to convince Jake to go for it. Now it was Jake talking her into an engagement just to make sure the article went ahead. How had that happened?

‘Look, it makes sense.’ Jake was clearly losing patience. ‘You’re the ideal person to feature in the article. You know all about weddings. You’ll be able to say all the right things and make sure the Hall comes out of it looking beautiful.’

‘That’s true, I suppose.’ Cassie looked at the fork she had laden so carefully with spaghetti and put it down. She had lost her appetite. ‘But what about you?’ she said hesitantly.

‘What about me?’

‘Won’t you find it very difficult?’

‘It might be a bit of a struggle to look interested in table decorations,’ said Jake. ‘But I expect I can manage if it’s just one or two photo sessions. I won’t be required to do much else, will I?’

‘I wasn’t thinking about that,’ said Cassie. ‘I was thinking about what it would be like for you to have to pretend to be happy with me when I know how you must be feeling about Natasha. I’d be devastated if it was me.’

‘At least I won’t look it,’ said Jake, wondering how he did feel.

Angry, humiliated—yes. But
devastated?
Jake didn’t think so. His overwhelming feeling, he decided, was one of disappointment in Natasha. He had been attracted by her beauty, of course, but just as much he had liked her intelligence and composure. He couldn’t believe that she would lose her head over someone like Rupert, of all people.

Jake remembered telling Cassie how well he and Natasha were matched. Natasha was perfect, he had told her. And she had been. She had never irritated or distracted him the way Cassie did, for instance. She was everything he needed in a woman.

More than that, when he looked at Natasha, Jake had felt as if he had left Portrevick behind him once and for all. With a beautiful, accomplished, sexy, successful woman like Natasha on his arm, he’d been able to believe that he had made it at last.

And then Rupert Branscombe Fox had lifted his little finger and she had gone.

Jake’s jaw tightened and he stared down at the wine he was swirling in his glass. Rupert’s condescension could still reduce him to a state of seething resentment. Rupert in return would never forgive him for humiliating him in that stupid fight, or for being the one his uncle had entrusted with his not-inconsiderable fortune.

‘Rupert wants me to be devastated,’ he told Cassie. ‘He wants me to feel humiliated and heartbroken. He wants me to have to tell everyone that my beautiful girlfriend has dumped me for him. I’ve got no intention of giving him that satisfaction.’

Jake set down his glass and looked directly at Cassie. ‘You asked if I’d find it difficult to pretend to be in love with you instead of Natasha—the answer is that it wouldn’t be half as hard as losing face with Rupert. I’d do anything rather than do that. I’m sorry about Natasha, but this isn’t about her. It’s between Rupert and me.’

‘Getting engaged to me would make it look as if Rupert had done you a favour by taking Natasha off your hands,’ said Cassie slowly. She knew that Jake and Rupert had never got on, but she hadn’t realised the rivalry between them was still so bitter.

‘Exactly,’ said Jake. ‘You’d be helping me to save face, and that would mean a lot to me. I’m not proud. I’ll beg if you want me to.’

‘I don’t know.’ Cassie fingered the wax dribbling down the candle uncertainly. ‘If we’re pretending to be engaged in Portrevick, word’s bound to get back to my parents. What are they going to think if they find out I’m apparently marrying you and haven’t told them?’

Jake shrugged. ‘Tell them the truth, then. What does it matter if they know? They’re not going to rush off to
Wedding Belles
to tell the editor their daughter is telling a big fib, are they?’

‘No, but they might rush to tell Liz and my brothers that I’ve got myself in a stupid mess again,’ said Cassie, who could imagine the conversation all too clearly:
why can Cassie never do anything properly? When is she going to grow up and get a proper job that doesn’t involve silly pretences?

‘I’m sick of being the family failure,’ she told Jake. ‘I wanted to show them that I could be successful too. That was why I so pleased when you gave us the contract to turn the Hall into a wedding venue. I rang my parents and told them I had a real career at last.’

She squeezed a piece of wax between her fingers, remembering the warm glow of her parents’ approval. ‘I don’t want to tell them my great new job involves pretending to be in love with you.’

‘Do you want to tell them you’ve lost your great new job because you weren’t prepared to do whatever it took to make it work?’

Cassie dropped the wax and sat back in her chair. ‘Isn’t that blackmail?’ she said dubiously, and Jake sighed impatiently.

‘It’s telling you to hurry up and make a decision,’ he said.
‘Look, if it’s such a problem, say we really
are
engaged, then when we’ve finished with all the photos you can tell them you’ve changed your mind and dumped me. If they remember me at all, I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear it,’ he finished in an arid voice.

Cassie turned it over in her mind. It might work. Of course, the best scenario would be that her family never got to hear about her supposed engagement at all, but if they did get a whiff of it she could always pretend that Jake had swept her off her feet. It was only three months to Christmas. She could easily find excuses not to take him home in that time.

Tina might be a little harder to fool, especially as she was on the spot in Portrevick, but there was no reason why she shouldn’t tell her old friend the truth. Tina could be trusted to keep it to herself—and besides they might need her to pretend to be the bridesmaid.

Anyway, it didn’t sound as if she had a choice. Cassie wasn’t entirely sure whether Jake was serious about making the engagement a condition of the contract, but she wasn’t prepared to push him on it. He had been hurt by Natasha, humiliated by Rupert, and was clearly in no mood to compromise.

And really, would it be so bad? Cassie asked herself. The article had been her idea to start with, and she still believed it would be just what they needed to kick-start promotion for the Hall. Of course, she hadn’t reckoned on taking such a prominent role herself, but Jake was right. She would be able to decorate the Hall exactly as she wanted without having to take Natasha’s wishes into account. She could recreate her dream wedding for the article.