Under the Boss’s Mistletoe

by Jessica Hart

  ‘Normally, yes,’ said Cassie, not so engrossed in the story of Sir Ian’s extraordinary will that she had forgotten that her new-found career with Avalon was on the line. ‘But the management of a venue is closely related to what we do, and in fact this is an area we’re looking at moving into,’ she added fluently. She would have to remember to tell Joss that they were diversifying. ‘Clearly, we have considerable experience of dealing with various venues, so we’re in a position to know exactly what facilities they need to offer.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Jake sounded unconvinced. He turned from the window to study Cassie, sitting alert and eager on the sofa. ‘All right, you know the Hall. Given your considerable experience, what would you think of it as a wedding venue?’

  ‘It would be perfect,’ said Cassie, ignoring his sarcasm. ‘It’s a beautiful old house with a wonderful location on the coast. It would be hard to imagine anywhere more romantic! I should think couples all over the South West would be queuing up to get married there.’

  Jake came back to sit opposite her once more. He drummed his fingers absently on the table, obviously thinking. ‘It’s encouraging that you think it would make a popular venue, anyway,’ he said at last.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Cassie eagerly, sensing that Jake might be buying her spur-of-the-moment career shift into project management.

  She leant forward persuasively. ‘I’m sure Sir Ian would approve of the idea,’ she went on. ‘He loved people, didn’t he? I bet he would have liked to see the Hall used for weddings. They’re such happy occasions.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Jake, clearly unconvinced.

  He studied Cassie with a faint frown, wondering if he was mad to even consider taking her advice. She had always been a dreamer, he remembered, and the curly hair and dimple gave her a warm, sweet but slightly dishevelled air that completely contradicted the businesslike suit and the stylish, totally impractical shoes.

  There was something chaotic about Cassie, Jake decided. Even sitting still, she gave the alarming impression that she was on the verge of knocking something over or making a mess. Good grief, the girl couldn’t even manage walking into a room without falling over her own shoes! Having spent the last few years cultivating a careful sense of order and control, Jake found the aura of unpredictability Cassie exuded faintly disturbing.

  He had a strong suspicion, too, that Cassie’s experience of managing a venue was no wider than his own. She was clearly desperate for work, and would say whatever she thought he wanted to hear.

  If he had any sense, he would close the meeting right now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ON THE other hand…

  On the other hand, Jake reminded himself, Sir Ian had been fond of her, and the fact that she knew the Hall was an undoubted advantage.

  He could at least give her the chance to convince him that she knew what she was talking about. For old times’ sake, thought Jake, looking at Cassie’s mouth.

  ‘So what would need to be done to make the Hall a venue?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Presumably we’d have to get a licence?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Cassie with more confidence than she was feeling. ‘I imagine it would need quite a bit of refurbishment, too. You can charge a substantial fee for the hire of the venue, but in return couples will expect everything to be perfect. All the major rooms would have to be completely redecorated, and anything shabby or dingy replaced.’

  Cassie was making it up as she went along, but she was banking on the fact that Jake knew less than she did about what weddings involved. Besides, how difficult could it be? She couldn’t let a little thing like not knowing what she was talking about stop her, not when the alternative was losing her job and having to admit to her family that she had failed again.

  ‘Naturally you would have to set it up so that everything is laid on,’ she went on, rather enjoying the authoritative note in her own voice. She would convince herself at this rate! ‘You need to think about catering, flowers, music; whatever a bride and groom could possibly want. They’re paying a lot of money for their big day, so you’ve got to make it very special for them.

  ‘Some people like to make all the arrangements themselves,’ she told Jake, who was listening with a kind of horrified fascination. ‘But if you want the Hall to be successful you’ll have to make it possible for them to hand over all the arrangements to the staff and not think about anything. That means being prepared to cater for every whim, as well as different kinds of weddings. It might just be a reception, or it might be the wedding itself, and that could include all sorts of different faiths, as well as civil partnerships.’

  Cassie was really getting into her stride now. ‘Then you need to think about what other facilities you’re going to provide,’ she said, impressing herself with her own fluency. Who would have thought she could come out with this stuff off the top of her head? All those weddings she had attended over the past few months must have paid off.

  ‘The bride and groom will want somewhere to change, at the very least, or they might want to take over the whole house for a wedding party. You’ll need new kitchens too. Loos, obviously. And, of course, you’ll have to think about finding staff and making contacts with local caterers, florists, photographers and so on.

  ‘There’s marketing and publicity to consider as well,’ she pointed out. ‘Eventually, you’ll be able to rely on word of mouth, but it’ll be important until you’re established.’

  Jake was looking appalled. ‘I didn’t realise it was such a business,’ he admitted. ‘You mean it’s not enough to clear the great hall for dancing and lay on a few white tablecloths?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  There was a long pause. Jake’s mouth was turned down, and Cassie could see him rethinking the whole idea.

  Oh God, what if she had put him off? She bit her lip. That was what you got for showing off.

  You always go a bit too far. How many times when she had been growing up had her mother said that to her? Cassie could practically hear her saying it now.

  Anxiously, she watched Jake’s face. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

  ‘We’re talking about a substantial investment,’ he said slowly at last, and Cassie let out a long breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

  ‘Yes, but it’ll be worth it,’ she said, trying to disguise her relief. ‘Weddings are big business. If you aim for the top end of the market, the house will more than pay for itself.’

  Jake was still not entirely convinced. ‘It’s a lot to think about.’

  ‘Not if you let us oversee everything for you,’ said Cassie, marvelling at her own nerve. ‘We could manage the whole project and set it up until it’s ready to hand over to a permanent manager.’

  It was a brilliant idea, even if she said so herself. She couldn’t think why Joss hadn’t thought of going into venue management before.

  Jake was watching her with an indecipherable expression. Cassie lifted her chin and tried to look confident, half-expecting him to accuse her-accurately-of bluffing, but in the end he just asked how they structured their fees.

  ‘I’d have to discuss that with Joss when we’ve got a clearer idea of exactly what needs to be done,’ said Cassie evasively. Joss was much harder-headed when it came to money and always dealt with the financial side of things.

  ‘OK.’ Jake made up his mind abruptly. ‘Let me have a detailed proposal and I’ll consider it.’

  ‘Great.’ Cassie’s relief was rapidly being overtaken by panic. What on earth had she committed herself to?

  ‘So, what next?’

  Yes, what next, Cassie? Cassie gulped. ‘I think I need to take another look at the Hall and draw up a list of work required,’ she improvised.

  Fortunately, this seemed to be the right thing to say. Jake nodded. ‘That makes sense. Can you come to Cornwall on Thursday? I’ve got to go back myself to see the solicitor, so we could drive down together if that suits you.’

  It didn’t, but Cassie knew
better than to say so. Having bluffed this far, she couldn’t give up now. A seven-hour car journey with Jake Trevelyan wasn’t her idea of a fun day, but if she could pull off a contract it would be worth it.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, relaxing enough to pick up her coffee at last, and promptly splashing it over her skirt. She brushed the drops away hastily, hoping that Jake hadn’t noticed. ‘I can be ready to leave whenever you are.’

  Jake watched Cassie practically fall out of the door, struggling with a weekend case on wheels, a motley collection of plastic carrier-bags and a handbag that kept slipping down her arm. With a sigh, he got out of the car to help her. He was double parked outside her office, and had hoped for a quick getaway, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen.

  He hadn’t made many mistakes in the last ten years, but Jake had a nasty feeling that appointing Cassie to manage the transformation of Portrevick Hall into a wedding venue might be one of them. He had been secretly impressed by the fluent way she had talked about weddings, and by the way she had seemed to know exactly what was involved, but at the same time her lack of experience was obvious. And yet she had fixed him with those big, brown eyes and distracted him with that mouth, and before Jake had quite known what he was doing he had agreed to give her the job.

  He must have been mad, he decided as he took the case from her. Cassie had to be the least organised organiser he had ever met. Look at her, laden with carrier bags, the wayward brown curls blowing around face, her cardigan all twisted under the weight of her handbag!

  She was a mess, Jake thought disapprovingly. She was casually dressed in a mishmash of colourful garments that appeared to be thrown together without any thought for neatness or elegance. Yes, she had grown into a surprisingly pretty girl, but she could do with some of Natasha’s poise and sophistication.

  He stashed the carrier bags in the boot with the case. ‘What on earth do you need all this stuff for?’ he demanded. ‘We’re only going for a couple of nights.’

  ‘Most of it’s Tina’s. She came to London months ago and left half her clothes behind, so I’m taking them back to her. She’s invited me to stay with her,’ Cassie added.

  Jake was sleeping at the Hall, and he’d suggested that Cassie stay there as well, but Cassie couldn’t help thinking it all seemed a bit intimate. True, the Hall had bedrooms to spare, but they would still be sleeping in the same place, bumping into each other on the way to the bathroom, wandering into the kitchen in their PJs to make tea in the morning…No; Cassie wasn’t ready to meet Jake without her make-up on yet.

  ‘I thought I might as well stay for the weekend, since I’m down there,’ she went on, talking over the roof of the car as she made her way round to the passenger door. ‘I haven’t seen Tina for ages. I might talk to some local contractors on Monday, too, and then come back on the train.’

  Cassie knew that she was talking too much, but the prospect of the long journey in Jake’s company was making her stupidly jittery. She had been fine until he’d appeared. Joss had given her unqualified approval to the plan, and Cassie had been enjoying dizzying fantasies about her new career in project management.

  It had been a strange experience, seeing Jake again, and she’d been left disorientated by the way he looked familiar but behaved like a total stranger. In some ways, that made it easier to dissassociate him from the Jake she had known in the past. This Jake was less menacing than the old one, for sure. The surliness and resentment had been replaced by steely control, but it was somehow just as intimidating.

  But at least she had the possibility of a job, Cassie reminded herself sternly as she got into the car. She had to concentrate on that, and not on the unnerving prospect of being shut up in a car with Jake Trevelyan. He had come straight from his office and was still wearing his suit, but, having slammed the boot shut, he took off his jacket, loosened his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves before getting back into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Right,’ he said briskly, switching on the ignition. ‘Let’s go.’

  It was a big, luxuriously comfortable car with swish leather seats, but Cassie felt cramped and uneasy as she pulled on the seatbelt. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Jake wasn’t just there, only inches away, filling the whole car with his dark, forceful presence, using up all the available oxygen so that she had to open the window to drag in a breath.

  ‘There’s air conditioning,’ said Jake, using the electric controls on his side to close it again.

  Air conditioning. Right. So how come it was so hard to breathe?

  ‘I was half-expecting you to turn up on a motorbike,’ she said chattily, to conceal her nervousness.

  ‘It’s just as well I didn’t, with all those bags you’ve brought along with you.’ Jake checked his mirror, indicated and pulled out into the traffic.

  ‘I always fancied the idea of riding pillion,’ said Cassie.

  ‘I don’t think you’d fancy it all the way down to Cornwall,’ Jake said, dampening her. ‘You’ll be much more comfortable in a car.’

  Under normal circumstances, maybe, but Cassie couldn’t imagine anything less comfortable than being shut up with him in a confined space for seven hours. They had barely left Fulham, but the car seemed to have shrunk already, and she was desperately aware of Jake beside her. Her eyes kept snagging on his hands, strong and competent on the steering wheel, and she would find herself remembering how they had felt on her arms as he had yanked her towards him.

  Turning her head to remove them from her vision, Cassie found herself looking awkwardly out of the side window, but that was hard on her neck. Before she knew it, her eyes were skittering back to Jake’s side of the car, to the line of his cheek, the corner of his mouth and the faint prickle of stubble under his jaw where he had wrenched impatiently at his tie to loosen it.

  She could see the pulse beating steadily in his throat, and for one bizarre moment let herself imagine what it would be like to lean across and press her lips to it. Then she imagined Jake jerking away in horror and losing control of the car, which would crash into that newsagent’s, and then the police would come and she would have to make a statement: I’m sorry, officer, I was just overcome by an uncontrollable urge to kiss Jake Trevelyan.

  It would be in all the papers, and in no time at all the news would reach the Portrevick Arms, where they would all snigger. Village memories were long. No one would have forgotten what a fool she had made of herself over Rupert, and they would shake their heads and tell each other that Cassandra Grey never had been able to keep her hands off a man…

  Cassie’s heart was thumping just at the thought of it, and she jerked her head back to the side, ignoring the protest of her neck muscles.

  Comfortable? Hah!

  ‘Besides,’ Jake went on as Cassie offered up thanks that he hadn’t spent the last ten years learning to read minds, ‘I haven’t got a motorbike any more. I’ve left my biking days behind me.’

  It would have been impossible to imagine Jake without that mean-looking bike years ago in Portrevick.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ said Cassie.

  ‘I sincerely hope so,’ said Jake.

  Why couldn’t she have changed that much? Cassie wondered enviously. If she had, she could be svelte and sophisticated, with a successful career behind her, instead of muddling along feeling most of the time much as she had at seventeen. She might look different, but deep down she felt just the same as she had done then. How had Jake done it?

  ‘What have you been doing for the past ten years?’ she asked him curiously.

  ‘I’ve been in the States for most of them. I got myself a degree, and then did an MBA at Harvard.’

  ‘Really?’ said Cassie, impressed. In all the years she had wondered where Jake Trevelyan was and what he was doing, she had never considered that he might be at university. She had imagined him surfing, perhaps, or running a bar on some beach somewhere, or possibly making shady deals astride his motorbike-but Harvard? Even her father would be impressed by that.


  ‘I had no idea,’ she said.

  Jake shrugged. ‘I was lucky. I went to work for a smallish firm in Seattle, just as it was poised for expansion. It was an exciting time, and it gave me a lot of valuable experience. That company was at the forefront of digital technology, and Primordia is in the same field, which put me in a good position when they were looking for a new Chief Executive, although it took some negotiation to get me back to London.’

  ‘Didn’t you want to come back?’

  ‘Not particularly. But they made me an offer even I couldn’t refuse.’

  ‘You were head-hunted?’ said Cassie, trying to imagine a company going out of its way to recruit her. Cassandra Grey’s just the person we want for this job, they would say. How can we tempt her?

  Nope, she couldn’t do it.

  Jake obviously took the whole business for granted. ‘That’s how it works.’ He pulled up at a red light and glanced at Cassie. ‘What about you? How long have you been with Avalon?’

  ‘Just since the beginning of the year. Before that I was a receptionist,’ she said. ‘I did a couple of stints in retail, a bit of temping, a bit of waitressing…’

  She sighed. ‘Not a very impressive career, as my father is always pointing out. I’m a huge disappointment to my parents. The others have all done really well. They all went to Cambridge. Liz is a doctor, Tom’s an architect and even Jack is a lawyer now. They’re all grown-ups, and I’m just the family problem.’

  Cassie had intended the words to sound humorous, but was uneasily aware they had come out rather flat. Rather as if she didn’t think it was such a funny joke after all. ‘They’re always ringing each other up and wondering what to do about Cassie.’

  But that was all going to change, she reminded herself. This could be the start of a whole new career. She was going to turn Portrevick Hall into a model venue. Celebrities would be queuing up to get married there. After a year or two, they wouldn’t even have to advertise. Just mentioning that a wedding would be at Portrevick Hall would mean that it would be the last word in style and elegance.