Under the Boss’s Mistletoe

seems to me that marriage is a serious business, and you should approach it in a serious way, not muddle it all up with big dresses, flowers, cakes and whatever else goes on at weddings these days.’

‘Weddings are meant to be a celebration,’ she reminded him. ‘What do you want the bride and groom to do instead-sit down and complete a checklist?’

‘At least then they would know they were compatible.’

Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘So what would be on your checklist?’

‘I’d want to know that the woman I was marrying was intelligent, and sensible…and confident,’ Jake decided. ‘More importantly, I’d need to be sure that we shared the same goals, that we both had the same attitude to success in our careers…and sex, of course…and to little things like tidiness that can put the kybosh on a relationship quicker than anything else.’

‘You don’t ask for much, do you?’ said Cassie tartly, reflecting that she wouldn’t get many ticks on Jake’s checklist. In fact, if he had set out to describe her exact opposite, he could hardly have done a better job. ‘Clever, confident, successful and tidy. Where are you going to find a paragon like that?’

‘I already have,’ said Jake.

Oh.

‘Oh,’ said Cassie, unaccountably put out. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Natasha. We’ve been together six months.’

‘So why haven’t you married her if she’s so perfect?’ Try as she might, Cassie couldn’t keep the snippiness from her voice.

‘We just haven’t got round to talking about it,’ said Jake. ‘I think it would be a good move, though. It makes sense.’

‘Makes sense?’ echoed Cassie in disbelief. ‘You should get married because you’re in love, not because it makes sense!’

‘In my book, committing yourself to someone for life because you’re in love is what doesn’t make sense,’ he retorted.

Crikey, whatever happened to romance? Cassie shook her head. ‘Well, if you ever decide that doing a checklist together isn’t quite enough, remember that Avalon can help you plan your wedding.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ he said. ‘I imagine Natasha would like a wedding of some kind, but she’s a very successful solicitor, so she wouldn’t have the time to organise much herself.’

Of course, Natasha would be a successful solicitor, Cassie thought, having taken a dislike to his perfect girlfriend without ever having met her. She was tempted to say that Natasha would no doubt be too busy being marvellous to have time to bother with anything as inconsequential as a wedding, but remembered in time that Avalon’s business relied on brides being too busy to do everything themselves.

Besides, it might sound as if she was jealous of Natasha.

Which was nonsense, of course.

‘I certainly wouldn’t know where to start,’ Jake went on. ‘Weddings are unfamiliar territory to me.’

‘You must have been to loads of weddings, mustn’t you?’

‘Very few,’ he said. ‘In fact, only a couple. I lived in the States until last year, so I missed out on various family weddings.’

‘I don’t know how you managed to avoid them,’ said Cassie. ‘All my friends seem have got married in the last year or so. There was a time when it felt as if I was going to a wedding every other weekend, and that was just people I knew! It was as if it was catching. Suddenly everyone was married.’

‘Everyone except you?’

‘That’s what it feels like, anyway,’ she said with little sigh.

‘Why not you? You’re obviously not averse to the idea of getting married.’

‘I just haven’t found the right guy, I suppose.’ Cassie sighed again. ‘I’ve had boyfriends, of course, but none of them have had that special something.’

Jake slanted a sardonic glance at her. ‘Don’t tell me you’re still holding out for Rupert Branscombe Fox?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, flushing with embarrassment at the memory of the massive crush she had had on Rupert.

Not that she could really blame herself. What seventeen-year-old girl could be expected to resist that lethal combination of good looks and glamour? And Rupert could be extraordinarily charming when he wanted to be. He wasn’t so charming when he didn’t, of course, as Cassie had discovered even before Jake had kissed her.

Whoops; she didn’t want to be thinking about that kiss, did she?

Too late.

Cassie tried the looking-out-of-the window thing again, but London was a blur, and she was back outside the Hall again, being yanked against Jake again. She could smell the leather of his jacket, feel the hardness of his body and the unforgiving steel of the motorbike.

In spite of Cassie’s increasingly desperate efforts to keep her eyes on the interminable houses lining the road, they kept sliding round to Jake’s profile. The traffic was heavy and he was concentrating on driving, so she gave in and let them skitter over the angular planes of his face to the corner of his mouth, at which point her heart started thumping and thudding alarmingly.

It was ten years later. Jake had changed completely. The leather jacket had gone, the bike had gone.

But that mouth was still exactly the same.

That mouth…She knew what it felt like. She knew how it tasted. She knew just how warm and sure those firm lips could be. Jake was an austere stranger beside her now, but she had kissed him. The memory was so vivid and so disorientating that Cassie felt quite giddy for a moment.

She swallowed. ‘I had a major crush on Rupert, but it was just a teenage thing. Remember what a gawk I was?’ she said, removing her gaze firmly back to the road. ‘I have this fantasy that if I bumped into Rupert now he wouldn’t recognise me.’

‘I recognised you,’ Jake pointed out unhelpfully.

‘Yes, well, that’s the thing about fantasies,’ Cassie retorted in a tart voice. ‘They’re not real. I’m never likely to meet Rupert again. He lives in a different world, and the closest I get to him is seeing his picture in a celebrity magazine with some incredibly beautiful woman on his arm. Even if by some remote chance I did meet him I know he wouldn’t even notice me, let along recognise me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, I’m much too ordinary for the likes of Rupert,’ said Cassie with a sigh. ‘You were right about that, anyway.’

Jake looked taken aback. ‘When did I ever say you were ordinary?’

‘You know when.’ She flashed him an accusing glance. ‘After the Allentide Ball.’ After you kissed me. ‘Before you punched Rupert on the nose. I gather you took it upon yourself to tell Rupert I wasn’t nearly sophisticated enough for him.’

It still rankled after all these years.

‘You weren’t,’ said Jake.

‘Then why were you fighting?’

‘Not because Rupert leapt to defend your sophistication and readiness to embark on a torrid affair, if that’s what you were thinking!’

‘He said you’d been offensive,’ said Cassie.

‘Did he?’ said Jake with a certain grimness.

It was typical of Rupert to have twisted the truth, he thought. He had been sitting at the bar, having a quiet drink, when Rupert had strolled in with his usual tame audience. Jake had found Rupert’s arrogance difficult to deal with at the best of times, and that night certainly hadn’t been one of those.

Jake often wondered how his life would have turned out if he hadn’t been in a particularly bad temper that night. The raw, piercing sweetness of Cassie’s kiss at the Allentide ball had caught him unawares, and it didn’t help that she had so patently been using him to attract Rupert’s attention. Jake had been left feeling edgy, and furious with himself for expecting that it could have been any different and caring one way or the other.

And then Rupert had been there, showing off as usual. He’d been boasting about having had the estate manager’s ungainly daughter, and making the others laugh. Jake’s hand had clenched around his glass. He might not have liked being used, but Cassie was very young. She hadn’t deserved to have her first experience of sex made