Under the Boss’s Mistletoe

CHAPTER THREE

‘IT’S my word against Rupert’s, I suppose, but I can tell you, I was never offensive about you,’ he said to Cassie. ‘And being ordinary isn’t the same thing as not being sophisticated. Believe me, you’ve never struck me as ordinary!’

‘But I am,’ said Cassie glumly. ‘Or I am compared to Rupert, anyway. He’s just so glamorous. Even you’d have to admit that.’

Jake’s snort suggested he wasn’t prepared to admit anything of the kind.

Of course, he’d never had any time for Rupert. Cassie supposed she could understand it. Rupert might be handsome, but even at the height of her crush she had recognised that arrogance in him as well. At the time, she had thought that it just added to his air of glamour.

The truth was that she still had a soft spot for Rupert, so good-looking and so badly behaved. In another age, he would have been a rake, ravishing women left, right and centre. Cassie could just see him in breeches and ruffles, smiling that irresistible smile, and breaking hearts without a flicker of shame.

Not the kind of man you would want to marry, perhaps, but very attractive all the same.

Cassie sighed a little wistfully. ‘Rupert could be very charming,’ she tried to explain, not that Jake was likely to be convinced.

They had barely got going on the motorway, and already overhead gantries were flashing messages about queues ahead. Muttering in frustration, he eased his foot up from the accelerator.

‘What’s so charming about squandering an inheritance from your parents and then sponging off your uncle?’ he demanded irritably. ‘Sir Ian got tired of bailing him out in the end, but he did what he could to encourage Rupert to settle down. He left his fortune to Rupert in trust until he’s forty, in the hope that by then he’ll have come to his senses.’

‘Forty?’ Cassie gasped. Rupert was only in his early thirties, like Jake, and eight years would be an eternity to wait when you had a lifestyle like Rupert’s. ‘That’s awful,’ she said without thinking. ‘What’s he going to do?’

‘He could always try getting a job like the rest of us,’ said Jake astringently ‘Or, if he really can’t bring himself to do anything as sordid as earning his own living, he can always get married. Sir Ian specified that the trust money could be released if Rupert gets married and settles down. He can’t just marry anyone to get his hands on the money, though. He’ll have to convince me as trustee that it’s a real marriage and his wife a sensible woman before I’ll release the funds.’

‘Gosh, Rupert must have been livid when he found out!’

‘He wasn’t too happy,’ Jake agreed with masterly understatement. ‘He tried to contest the will, and when he didn’t get anywhere with that he suggested we try and discuss things in a “civilised” way-which I gather meant me ignoring Sir Ian’s wishes and handing the estate over to him to do with as he pleased.

‘I was prepared to be civilised, of course. I invited him round for a drink, and it was just like old times,’ he went on ironically. ‘Rupert was arrogant and patronising, and I wanted to break his nose again!’

‘You didn’t!’

‘No,’ admitted Jake. ‘But I don’t know what would have happened if Natasha hadn’t been there.’

‘What did she make of Rupert?’

‘She thought he was shallow.’

‘I bet she thought he was gorgeous too,’ said Cassie with a provocative look, and Jake pokered up and looked down his nose.

‘Natasha is much too sensible to judge people on their appearances,’ he said stiffly.

Of course she was. Cassie rolled her eyes as they overtook a van that was hogging the middle lane, startling the driver, who gave a grimace that was well out of Jake’s field of vision. The van moved smartly into the slow lane.

‘So how come she got involved with you if she’s so sensible?’ she asked, forgetting for a moment that Jake was an important client.

‘We get on very well,’ said Jake austerely.

‘What does getting on very well mean, exactly?’

Ahead, there was a flurry of red lights as cars braked, and Jake moved smoothly into the middle lane. ‘It means we’re very compatible,’ he said.

And they were. Natasha was everything he admired in a woman. She was very attractive-beautiful, in fact-and clear-thinking. She didn’t constantly demand emotional reassurance the way his previous girlfriends had. She was focused on her own career, and understood if he had to work late, as he often did. She never made a fuss.

And she was classy. That was a large part of her appeal, Jake was prepared to admit. Years ago in Portrevick, Natasha wouldn’t have looked at him twice, but when he walked into a party with her on his arm now he knew that he had arrived. She was everything Jake had never known when he was growing up. She had the assurance that came from a life of wealth and privilege, and every time Jake looked at her she reassured him that he had left Portrevick and the past behind him at last.

He didn’t feel like telling Cassie all of that, though.

The traffic had slowed to a crawl and Jake shifted gear. ‘I hope this is just sheer weight of traffic,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to spend any more time on the road than we have to.’

Nor did Cassie. She wriggled in her seat. Quite apart from anything else, she was starving. Afraid that she would be late, she hadn’t had time for breakfast that morning, and her stomach was gurgling ominously. She was hoping Jake would stop for petrol at some point, but at this rate they’d be lucky to get to a service station for supper, let alone lunch.

The lines of cars were inching forward in a staggered pattern. Sometimes the lane on their left would have a spurt of movement, only to grind to a halt as the supposed fast-lane speeded up, and then it would be the middle lane’s turn. They kept passing or being passed by the same cars, and Cassie was beginning to recognise the occupants.

An expensive saloon on their left was creeping ahead of them once more. Covertly, Cassie studied the driver and passenger, both of whom were staring grimly ahead and not talking.

‘I bet they’ve had a row,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘The couple on our left in the blue car.’ Cassie pointed discreetly. ‘Have a look when we go past. I can’t decide whether she left the top off the toothpaste again, or whether she’s incredibly possessive and sulking because he just had a text from his secretary.’

Jake cast her an incredulous glance. ‘What’s wrong with getting a text from your secretary?’

‘She thinks he’s having an affair with her,’ said Cassie, barely pausing to consider. ‘She insists on answering his phone while he’s driving. Of course the text was completely bland, just confirming some meeting or something, but she just knows that it’s a code.’

It was their lane’s turn to move. Against his better judgement, Jake found himself glancing left as they passed. Cassie was right; the people both looked hatched-faced.

‘They could be going to visit the in-laws,’ he suggested, drawn into the fantasy in spite of himself.

Cassie took another look. ‘You might be right,’ she allowed. ‘Her parents?’

‘His, I think. She’s got a face like concrete, so she’s doing something she doesn’t want to do. They don’t really approve of her.’

‘Hey, you’re good at this!’ Cassie laughed and swivelled back to watch the traffic. ‘Now, who have we got here?’ They were passing a hatchback driven by an elderly man who was clutching onto the wheel for dear life. Beside him, a tiny old lady was talking. ‘Grandparents off to visit their daughter,’ she said instantly. ‘Too easy.’

‘Perhaps they’ve been having a wild affair and are running away together,’ said Jake, tongue in cheek.

‘I like the way you’re thinking, but they look way too comfortable together for that. I bet she’s been talking for hours and he hasn’t heard a word.’

‘Can’t imagine what that feels like,’ murmured Jake, and she shot him a look.

‘I wonder what they think about us?’ she mused.

‘I doubt very much that anyone else is thinking about us at all.’

‘We must look like any other couple heading out of town for a long weekend,’ said Cassie, ignoring him.

Perhaps that was why it felt so intimate sitting here beside him. If they were a couple, she could rest her hand on Jake’s thigh. She could unwrap a toffee and pop it in his mouth without thinking. She could put her feet up on the dashboard and choose some music, and they could argue about which was the best route. She could nag him about stopping for something to eat.

But of course she couldn’t do any of that. Especially not laying a hand on his leg.

She turned her attention firmly back to the other cars. ‘Ooh, now…’ she said, spying a single middle-aged man looking harassed at the wheel of his car, and instantly wove a complicated story about the double life he was leading, naming both wives, all five children and even the hamster with barely a pause for breath.

Jake shook his head. He tried to imagine Natasha speculating about the occupants of the other cars, and couldn’t do it. She would think it childish. As it was, thought Jake.

On the other hand, this traffic jam was a lot less tedious than others he had sat in. Cassie’s expression was animated, and he was very aware of her beside him. She had pushed back the seat as far as it would go, and her legs, in vivid blue tights, were stretched out before her. Her mobile face was alight with humour, her hands in constant motion. Jake had a jumbled impression of colour and warmth tugging at the edges of his vision the whole time. It was very distracting.

Now she was pulling faces at a little boy in the back seat of the car beside them. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, while Cassie stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers in response.

Jake was torn between exasperation and amusement. He didn’t know where Cassie got her idea that she was ordinary. There was absolutely nothing ordinary about her that he could see.

He glanced at the clock as they inched forward. It was a bad sign that they were hitting heavy traffic this early. It wasn’t even midday, and already they seemed to have been travelling for ever.

Cassie had fallen silent at last. Bizarrely, Jake almost missed her ridiculous stories. Suddenly there was a curdled growl that startled him out of his distraction. He glanced at Cassie in surprise and she blushed and folded her arms over her stomach.

‘Sorry, that was me,’ she apologised. ‘I didn’t have time for breakfast.’

How embarrassing! Cassie was mortified. Natasha’s stomach would never even murmur. At least Jake seemed prepared to cope with the problem.

‘We’ll stop and get something to eat when we get out of this,’ he promised, but it was another twenty minutes before the blockage cleared, miraculously and for no apparent reason, and he could put his foot down.

To Cassie’s disappointment they didn’t stop at the first service-station they came to, or even the second. ‘We need to get as far on our way as we can,’ Jake said, but as her stomach became increasingly vocal he eventually relented as they came up to the third.

After a drizzly summer, the sun had finally come out for September. ‘Let’s sit outside,’ Cassie suggested when they had bought coffee and sandwiches. ‘We should make the most of the sun while we’ve got it.’

They found a wooden table in a sunny spot, away from the ceaseless growl of the motorway. Cassie turned sideways so that she could straddle the bench, and turned her face up to the sun.

‘I love September,’ she said. ‘It still feels like the start of a new school year. I want to sharpen my pencils and write my name at the front of a blank exercise-book.’

Perhaps that was why she was so excited about transforming Portrevick Hall into a wedding venue, Cassie thought as she unwrapped her sandwich. It was a whole new project, her chance to draw a line under all her past muddles and mistakes and start afresh. She was determined not to mess up this time.

‘It’s great to get out of London too,’ she went on indistinctly through a mouthful of egg mayonnaise. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing Portrevick again, too. I haven’t been back since my parents moved away, but the place where you grow up always feels like home, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Jake.

‘Really?’ Cassie was brushing egg from her skirt, but at that she looked up at him in surprise. ‘Don’t you miss it at all?’

‘I miss the sea sometimes,’ he said after a moment. ‘But Portrevick? No. It’s not such a romantic place to live when there’s never any money, and the moment there’s trouble the police are at your door wanting you to account for where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.’

Jake could hear the bitterness seeping into his voice in spite of every effort to keep it neutral. Cassie had no idea. She had grown up in a solid, cosy house in a solid, cosy, middle-class family. They might have lived in the same place, but they had inhabited different worlds.

Miss it? He had spent ten years trying to put Portrevick behind him.

‘You must have family still there, though, mustn’t you?’ said Cassie. There had always been lots of Trevelyans in Portrevick, all of them reputedly skirting around the edges of the law.

‘Not in Portrevick,’ said Jake. ‘There’s no work in a village like that any more.’ And there were richer pickings in places like Newquay or Penzance, he thought dryly. ‘They’ve all moved away, so there’s no one to go back for. If it wasn’t for Sir Ian and the trust, I’d be happy never to see Portrevick again. And once I’ve sorted out something for the Hall I’ll be leaving and I won’t ever be going back.’

Cassie was having trouble keeping the filling in her sandwich. The egg kept oozing out of the baguette and dropping everywhere. Why hadn’t she chosen a nice, neat sandwich like Jake’s ham and cheese? He was managing to eat his without any mess at all.

She eyed him under her lashes as she licked her finger and gathered up some of the crumbs that were scattered on her side of the table. Jake had always been such a cool figure in her memories of Portrevick that it had never occurred to her to wonder how happy he had been.

He hadn’t seemed unhappy. In Cassie’s mind, he had always flirted with danger, roaring around on his motorbike or surfing in the roughest seas. She could still see him, sleek and dark as a seal in his wetsuit, riding the surf, his body leaning and bending in tune with the rolling wave.

It was hard to believe it was the same man as the one who sat across the table from her now, contained and controlled, eating his sandwich methodically. What had happened to that fierce, reckless boy?

Abandoning her sandwich for a moment, Cassie took a sip of coffee. ‘If you feel like that about Portrevick, why did you agree to be Sir Ian’s trustee?’

‘Because I owed him.’

Jake had finished his own sandwich and brushed the crumbs from his fingers. ‘It was Sir Ian that got me out of Portrevick,’ he told her. ‘He was always good to my mother, and after she died he let me earn some money by doing odd jobs for him. He was from a different world, but I liked him. He was the only person in the village who’d talk to you as if he was really interested in what you had to say. I was just a difficult kid from a problem family, but I never once had the feeling that Sir Ian was looking down on me.’

Unlike his nephew, Jake added to himself. Rupert got up every morning, looked in the mirror and found himself perfect. From the dizzying heights of his pedestal, how could he do anything but look down on lesser mortals? A boy from a dubious family and without the benefit of private schooling…Well, clearly Jake ought to be grateful that Rupert had ever noticed him at all.

‘Sir Ian was lovely,’ Cassie was agreeing. ‘I know he was a bit eccentric, but he always made you feel that you were the one person he really wanted to see.’

Jake nodded. He had felt that, too. ‘I saw him the day after that fight with Rupert,’ he went on. ‘Rupert was all set to press assault charges against me, but Sir Ian said he would persuade him to drop them. In return, he told me I should leave Portrevick. He said that if I stayed I would never shake off my family’s reputation. There would be other fights, other brushes with the police. I’d drift over the line the way my father had done and end up in prison.’

Turning the beaker between his hands, Jake looked broodingly down into his coffee, remembering the conversation. Sir Ian hadn’t pulled his punches. ‘You’re a bright lad,’ he had said. ‘But you’re in danger of wasting all the potential you’ve got. You’re eaten up with resentment, you’re a troublemaker and you take stupid risks. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up in prison too. You can make a new life for yourself if you want it, but you’re going to have to work for it. Are you prepared to do that?’

Jake could still feel that churning sense of elation at the prospect of escape, all mixed up with what had felt like a shameful nervousness about leaving everything familiar behind. There had been anger and resentment, too, mostly with Rupert, but also with Cassie, whose clumsy attempt to make Rupert jealous had precipitated the fight, and the offer that would change his life if he was brave enough to take it.

‘The upshot was that Sir Ian said that he would sponsor me through university if I wanted the chance to start afresh somewhere new,’ he told Cassie. ‘It was an extraordinarily generous offer,’ he said. ‘It was my chance to escape from Portrevick, and I took it. I walked out of the Hall and didn’t look back.’

‘Was that when…?’ Cassie stopped, realising too late where the question was leading, and a smile touched Jake’s mouth.

‘When you accosted me on my bike?’ he suggested.

Cassie could feel herself turning pink, but she could hardly pretend now that she didn’t remember that kiss. ‘I seem to remember it was you who accosted me, wasn’t it?’ she said with as much dignity as she could, and Jake’s smile deepened.

‘I was provoked,’ he excused himself.

‘Provoked?’ Cassie sat up straight, embarrassment forgotten in outrage. ‘I did not provoke you!’

‘You certainly did,’ said Jake coolly. ‘I wasn’t in the mood to listen to you defending Rupert. He asked for that punch, and it was only because he was all set to report me to the police that Sir Ian suggested I leave Portrevick.

‘That turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me,’ he allowed. ‘And I’m grateful in retrospect. But it didn’t feel like that at the time. It felt as if Rupert could behave as badly as he liked and that silver spoon would stay firmly stuck in his mouth. I knew nobody would ever suggest that Rupert should leave everything he’d ever known and work for his living. I was angry, excited and confused, and I’m afraid you got in the way.’

He paused and looked straight at Cassie, the dark-blue eyes gleaming with unmistakable amusement. ‘If it’s any comfort, that kiss was my last memory of Portrevick.’

That kiss…The memory of it shimmered between them, so vividly that for one jangling moment it was as if they were kissing again, as if his fingers were still twined in her hair, her lips still parting as she melted into him, that wicked excitement still tumbling along her veins.

With an effort, Cassie dragged her gaze away and buried her burning face in her coffee cup. ‘Nice to know that I was memorable,’ she muttered.

‘You were certainly that,’ said Jake.

‘Yes, well, it was all a long time ago.’ Cassie cleared her throat and cast around for something, anything, to change the subject. ‘I’d no idea Sir Ian helped you like that,’ she managed at last, seizing on the first thing she could think of. ‘We all assumed you’d just taken off to avoid the assault charges.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. Portrevick was always ready to think the worst of me,’ said Jake, gathering up the debris of their lunch. ‘Sir Ian wasn’t the type to boast about his generosity, but I kept in touch all the time, and as soon as I was in a position to do so I offered to repay all the money he’d spent on my education. He flatly refused to take it, but he did say there was one thing I could do for him, and that was when he asked me to be his executor and the trustee. He asked me if I would make sure that the Portrevick estate stayed intact. You know how much he loved the Hall.’

Cassie nodded. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘I can’t say I liked the idea of taking on a complicated trust, and I knew how much Rupert would resent me, but I owed Sir Ian too much to refuse. So,’ said Jake, ‘that’s why we’re driving down this motorway. That’s why I want to get the Hall established as a venue. Once it’s up and running, and self-supporting, I’ll feel as if I’ve paid my debt to him at last. I’ll have done what Sir Ian asked me to do, and then I really can put Portrevick and the past behind me once and for all.’

He drained his coffee and shoved the sandwich wrappers inside the empty cup. ‘Have you finished? We’ve still got a long way to go, so let’s hit the road again.’

Cassie studied Portrevick Hall with affection as she cut across the grounds to the sweep of gravel at its imposing entrance. A rambling manor-house dating back to the middle ages, it had grown organically as succeeding generations had added a wing here, a turret there. The result was a muddle of architectural styles that time had blended into a harmonious if faintly dilapidated whole, with crumbling terraces looking out over what had once been landscaped gardens.

It was charming from any angle, Cassie decided, and would make a wonderful backdrop for wedding photos.

Her feet crunched on the gravel as she walked up to the front door and pulled the ancient bell, deliberately avoiding looking at where Jake had sat astride his motorbike that day. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see the outline of her feet still scorched into the stones.

Don’t think about it, she told herself sternly. She was supposed to be impressing Jake with her professionalism, and she was going to have to try a lot harder today after babbling on in the car yesterday. Jake had dropped her at Tina’s and driven off with barely a goodbye, and Cassie didn’t blame him. He must have been sick of listening to her inane chatter for seven hours.

So today she was going to concentrate on being cool, calm and competent.

Which was easily said but harder to remember, when Jake opened the door and her heart gave a sickening lurch. He was wearing jeans and a blue Guernsey with the sleeves pushed above his wrists; without the business suit he looked younger and more approachable.

And very attractive.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I was just making coffee. Do you want some?’

‘Thanks.’ Cassie followed him down a long, stone-flagged corridor to the Hall’s vast kitchen. Without those unsettling blue eyes on her face, she could admire his lean figure and easy stride.

‘Quite a looker now, isn’t he?’ Tina had said when they were catching up over a bottle of wine the night before. ‘And rich too, I hear. You should go for it, Cassie. You always did have a bit of a thing for him.’

‘No, I didn’t!’ said Cassie, ruffled. A thing for Jake Trevelyan? The very idea!

‘Remember that Allantide Ball…?’ Tina winked. ‘I’m sure Jake does. Do you think you could be in with a chance?’

‘No,’ said Cassie, and then was horrified to hear how glum she sounded about it. ‘I mean, no,’ she tried again brightly. ‘He’s already got a perfect girlfriend.’

‘Shame,’ said Tina.

And the worst thing was that a tiny bit of Cassie was thinking the same thing as she watched Jake making the coffee.

Which was very unprofessional of her.

Giving herself a mental slap, Cassie pulled out her Netbook and made a show of looking around the kitchen. They might as well get down to business straight away.

‘The kitchen will need replacing as a priority,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t do professional catering in here. There’s plenty of space, which is good, but it needs gutting and proper catering equipment installed.’

Jake could see that made sense. ‘Get some quotes.’ He nodded.

Cassie tapped in ‘kitchen-get quotes’ and felt efficient.

‘We should start with the great hall and see how much work needs to be done there,’ she went on, encouraged. ‘That’s the obvious place for wedding ceremonies.’

‘Fine by me,’ said Jake, handing her a mug. ‘Let’s take our coffee with us.’

The great hall had been the heart of the medieval house, but its stone walls had been panelled in the seventeenth century, and a grand wooden-staircase now swept down from a gallery on the first floor. At one end, a vast fireplace dominated an entire wall, and there was a dais at the other.

‘Perfect for the high table,’ said Cassie, pointing at it with her mug. Netbook under one arm, coffee clutched in her other hand, she turned slowly, imagining the space filled with people. ‘They’ll love this,’ she enthused. ‘I can see it being really popular for winter weddings.

‘I always dreamed about having a Christmas wedding here,’ she confided to Jake, who was also looking around, but with a lot less enthusiasm. ‘There was going to be a fire burning, an enormous Christmas tree with lights, candles everywhere…Outside it would be cold and dark, but in here it would be warm and cosy.’

Funny how she could remember that fantasy so vividly after all this time. In her dream, Cassie was up there on the dais, looking beautiful and elegant-naturally-with Rupert, who gazed tenderly down at her. Her family were gathered round, bursting with pride in her, and Sir Ian was there, too, beaming with delight.

Cassie sighed.

‘Anyway, I think it could look wonderful, don’t you?’

Jake’s mouth turned down as he studied the hall. ‘Not really. It looks pretty dingy and gloomy to me.’

‘That’s because it’s been empty for a while, and it needs a good clean. You’ve got to use your imagination,’ said Cassie. Perching on an immense wooden trestle-table, she laid the Netbook down and sipped at her own coffee. It was cool in the hall, and she was glad of the warmth.

‘It wouldn’t be so different from the Allantide Ball,’ she said. ‘Remember how Sir Ian used to decorate it with candles and apples and it looked really inviting?’

Then she wished that she hadn’t mentioned the Allantide Ball. In spite of herself, her eyes flickered to where Jake had been standing that night. She had been over by the stairs when she had spotted him. She could retrace her route across the floor, aware of the dark-blue eyes watching her approach, and a sharp little frisson shivered down her spine just as it had ten years ago.

And over there was the door leading out to the terrace…Cassie remembered the mixture of panic and excitement as Jake had taken her hand and led her out into the dark. She could still feel his hard hands on her, still feel her heart jerking frantically, and her blood still pounded at the devastating sureness of his lips.

Swallowing, she risked a glance at Jake and found her gaze snared on his. He was watching her with a faint, mocking smile, and although nothing was said she knew-she just knew-that he was remembering that kiss, too. The very air seemed to be jangling with the memory of that wretched ball, and Cassie wrenched her eyes away. What on earth had possessed her to mention it?

She sipped her coffee, trying desperately to think of something to say to break the awkward silence, and show Jake that she hadn’t forgotten that she was here to do a job.

‘What would you think about holding an Allantide Ball this year?’ she said, starting slowly but gathering pace as she realised that the idea, born of desperation, might not be such a bad one after all. ‘As a kind of memorial to Sir Ian? It would be good publicity.’

‘No one would come,’ said Jake. ‘I’m not exactly popular in Portrevick. I went into the pub the last time I came down and there was dead silence when I walked in. I felt about as welcome as a cup of cold sick.’

Cassie had gathered something of that from Tina. Apparently there was much speculation in the village about Sir Ian’s will, and the general feeling was that Jake had somehow pulled a fast one for his own nefarious purposes, in keeping with the Trevelyan tradition.

‘That’s because they don’t know the truth,’ she said. ‘Inviting everyone to the ball for Sir Ian and explaining what you’re planning for the Hall would make them see that you’re not just out to make a quick buck. You need the locals on your side if the wedding venue is to be a success,’ she went on persuasively. ‘I think this would be a great way to kick things off.’