Under the Boss's Mistletoe Read Online Free Page A

told me that you were in the wedding business I was under the impression that you managed a venue. I hadn’t appreciated that you were involved with planning the weddings themselves.’
    ‘Well, we deal with venues, of course,’ said Cassie, desperate to hold on to something. ‘We help couples with every aspect of the wedding and honeymoon.’ She launched into her spiel, but Jake cut her off before she could really get going.
    ‘I’m really looking for someone who can advise on what’s involved in converting a house into a wedding venue. I’m sorry,’ he said, making to get to his feet. ‘It looks as if I’ve been wasting your time.’
    Cassie wasn’t ready to give up yet. ‘We do that too,’ she said quickly.
    ‘What, waste time?’
    ‘Set up wedding venues,’ she said, refusing to rise to the bait, and meeting his eyes so guilelessly that Jake was fairly sure that she was lying. ‘Between us, Joss and I have a lot of experience of using venues, and we know exactly what’s required. Where is the house?’ she asked quickly, before he could draw the conversation to a close.
    ‘I’m thinking about the Hall,’ he relented.
    ‘The Hall?’ Cassie repeated blankly. ‘Portrevick Hall?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘But…isn’t it Rupert’s now?’
    ‘No,’ said Jake. ‘Sir Ian left the estate in trust and I’m the trustee.’
    Cassie stared at him, her career crisis momentarily forgotten. ‘You?’ she said incredulously.
    He smiled grimly at her expression. ‘Yes, me.’
    ‘What about Rupert?’ she asked, too surprised for tact.
    ‘Sir Ian’s money was left in trust for him. He hasn’t proved the steadiest of characters, as you may know.’
    Cassie did know. Rupert’s picture was regularly in the gossip columns. There was a certain irony in the fact that Jake was now the wealthy, successful one while Rupert had a reputation as a hellraiser, albeit a very glamorous one. He seemed to get by largely on charm and those dazzling good looks.
    She forced her attention back to Jake, who was still talking. ‘Sir Ian was concerned that, if he left him the money outright, Rupert would just squander it the way he has already squandered his inheritance from his parents.’
    ‘It just seems unfair,’ she said tentatively. ‘Rupert is Sir Ian’s nephew, after all. I’m sure he expected to inherit Portrevick Hall.’
    ‘I’m sure he did too,’ said Jake in a dry voice. ‘Rupert’s been borrowing heavily on exactly that expectation for the last few years now. That’s why Sir Ian put the estate into a trust. He was afraid Rupert would simply sell it off to the highest bidder otherwise.’
    ‘But why make you the trustee?’ said Cassie without thinking.
    ‘It’s not a position I angled for, I can assure you,’ Jake said with a certain astringency. ‘But I owe Sir Ian a lot, so I had to agree when he asked me. I assumed there would be plenty of time for him to change his mind, and he probably did the same. He was only in his sixties, and he’d had no history of heart problems. If only he’d lived longer…’
    Restlessly, Jake pushed away his coffee cup and got to his feet. There was no point in ‘if only’s. ‘Anyway, the fact remains that I’m stuck with responsibility for the house now. I promised Sir Ian that I would make sure the estate remained intact. He couldn’t bear the thought of the Hall being broken up into flats, or holiday houses built in the grounds.
    ‘Obviously, I need to fulfil his wishes, but I can’t leave a house like that standing empty. It needs to be used and maintained, and somehow I’ve got to find a way for it to pay for itself.’
    Coming to a halt by the window, Jake frowned unseeingly at the view while he remembered his problem. ‘When I was down at Portrevick last week, sorting out things with the solicitor, she suggested that it might make a suitable wedding-venue. It seemed like an idea worth pursuing. I happened to mention it in the pub that night, and