Under the Boss's Mistletoe by Jessica Hart

their daughter is telling a big fib, are they?’
    ‘No, but they might rush to tell Liz and my brothers that I’ve got myself in a stupid mess again,’ said Cassie, who could imagine the conversation all too clearly: why can Cassie never do anything properly? When is she going to grow up and get a proper job that doesn’t involve silly pretences?
    ‘I’m sick of being the family failure,’ she told Jake. ‘I wanted to show them that I could be successful too. That was why I so pleased when you gave us the contract to turn the Hall into a wedding venue. I rang my parents and told them I had a real career at last.’
    She squeezed a piece of wax between her fingers, remembering the warm glow of her parents’ approval. ‘I don’t want to tell them my great new job involves pretending to be in love with you.’
    ‘Do you want to tell them you’ve lost your great new job because you weren’t prepared to do whatever it took to make it work?’
    Cassie dropped the wax and sat back in her chair. ‘Isn’t that blackmail?’ she said dubiously, and Jake sighed impatiently.
    ‘It’s telling you to hurry up and make a decision,’ he said.‘Look, if it’s such a problem, say we really are engaged, then when we’ve finished with all the photos you can tell them you’ve changed your mind and dumped me. If they remember me at all, I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear it,’ he finished in an arid voice.
    Cassie turned it over in her mind. It might work. Of course, the best scenario would be that her family never got to hear about her supposed engagement at all, but if they did get a whiff of it she could always pretend that Jake had swept her off her feet. It was only three months to Christmas. She could easily find excuses not to take him home in that time.
    Tina might be a little harder to fool, especially as she was on the spot in Portrevick, but there was no reason why she shouldn’t tell her old friend the truth. Tina could be trusted to keep it to herself—and besides they might need her to pretend to be the bridesmaid.
    Anyway, it didn’t sound as if she had a choice. Cassie wasn’t entirely sure whether Jake was serious about making the engagement a condition of the contract, but she wasn’t prepared to push him on it. He had been hurt by Natasha, humiliated by Rupert, and was clearly in no mood to compromise.
    And really, would it be so bad? Cassie asked herself. The article had been her idea to start with, and she still believed it would be just what they needed to kick-start promotion for the Hall. Of course, she hadn’t reckoned on taking such a prominent role herself, but Jake was right. She would be able to decorate the Hall exactly as she wanted without having to take Natasha’s wishes into account. She could recreate her dream wedding for the article.
    Cassie felt a flicker of excitement at the prospect.
    It might be fun.
    It wasn’t as if they were planning on doing anything illegal or immoral, after all. A mock engagement would save Jake’s face, ensure a lucrative contract and her job at Avalon, if not a whole new career. Why was she even hesitating?
    ‘All right,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’ll do it. But, if we’re going to pretend to be engaged, we’re going to have to do it properly,’ she warned him. ‘That means that when the photographer is around you’ll have to be there and be prepared to look suitably besotted.’
    ‘Don’t you think I can do that?’
    Jake reached across the table for her hands, taking Cassie by surprise. ‘I’m sure you can,’ she said, flustered, trying to tug them free, but he tightened his grip.
    ‘I can do whatever you need me to,’ he said, turning her hands over and lifting first one palm and then the other to his mouth to kiss.
    Cassie felt the touch of his lips like a shock reverberating down to her toes, and she sucked in a shuddering breath.
    ‘See?’ Jake said softly, without letting go of her hands. ‘ I can do it. More to the