Under the Boss's Mistletoe by Jessica Hart Read Free Book Online Page A

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