Highly Unsuitable: Mr and Mischief / The Darkest of Secrets / The Undoing of de Luca. Kate Hewitt

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СКАЧАТЬ a brisk reasonableness Emily didn’t like.

      ‘Oh, yes, very sensible,’ she agreed. ‘Hardly romantic, though.’

      ‘Romantic?’ Jason frowned. ‘Is it meant to be romantic?’

      He sounded so nonplussed that Emily almost wanted to laugh, yet something in her—some deep, hidden well of emotion—kept her from amusement. Instead, she almost felt hurt, which made no sense at all and so she pushed the thought away. ‘Well, in general, Jason,’ she said, as if explaining basic arithmetic to a slightly backward child, ‘the kind of relationship Helen was talking about with Richard is meant to be romantic rather than sensible. You’re hardly choosing a … a pair of shoes when it comes to a girlfriend or even a wife—’

      ‘I’m a great believer in sensible shoes.’

      Emily narrowed her eyes, unable to tell whether Jason was joking or not. She had a feeling he wasn’t. ‘A girl likes to be swept a little bit off her feet, you know.’

      ‘It sounds dangerous,’ Jason replied, straight-faced. ‘If you’re swept off your feet, you could lose your balance. You might even fall.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Emily replied. ‘You might fall in love, which is the whole point, isn’t it? Rather than making a go of it.’

      He eyed her thoughtfully. ‘You seem to have taken exception to that expression.’

      ‘I have,’ Emily agreed with a bit more passion than she would have preferred to show. The glass of wine must be going to her head; she’d had hardly anything to eat since breakfast. ‘I’d much rather stay single my whole life than be with someone who asks me to make a go of it,’ she finished, her voice still sounding a little too loud.

      ‘Duly noted. And are you planning to stay single, then?’

      ‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ she said, glad to see surprise flash across his features. ‘I’ve no reason to get married.’

      ‘No reason?’

      ‘I’m not lonely or unhappy or dying to have children,’ Emily replied with a shrug and a bit more conviction than she actually felt. She didn’t want to admit to Jason that she had no reason to get married because she hadn’t met anyone worth marrying. Worth taking that risk for. ‘I’m not going to wait around for Prince Charming to come and rescue me,’ she declared, her tone starting to sound strident. Jason raised his eyebrows, a small smile playing about his mouth, clearly amused. ‘I want to have fun.’

      ‘Now that I can believe.’

      She made a face at him. ‘What’s wrong with that? There’s plenty of time to settle down.’

      ‘For you, perhaps.’

      ‘Oh, yes, I forget how old you are. One foot in the grave already.’ She smiled at him, determined to stay light and teasing although for some reason she was feeling less and less so. ‘In any case,’ she said dismissively, ‘I have friends, a job I love, a niece and nephew to cuddle and a man who adores me.’

      Jason stilled. ‘A man who adores you?’ he queried in a tone of polite interest.

      Emily couldn’t help but laugh at Jason’s suspicious look. He looked as though he thought she had some sort of toyboy on retainer. ‘My father, of course.’ She eyed him mischievously. ‘Did you think I was talking about someone else?’

      ‘I wondered,’ he admitted blandly. ‘But since you’ve been wittering on about your determination to stay single, I had to assume we were not talking about a romantic interest.’

      ‘I wasn’t wittering,’ Emily said with some affront, and Jason raised his eyebrows.

      ‘I apologise. You were waxing poetically.’

      She made a face. ‘That sounds worse.’ To her surprise, she found she was enjoying this little repartee. She leaned forward, a sudden, sharp curiosity making her ask, ‘And what about you, Jason? Any plans to be swept off your feet?’

      His mouth quirked upwards, revealing that dimple. ‘I thought I was meant to do the sweeping.’

      Emily laughed ruefully in acknowledgement. ‘It sounds as if we’re talking about cleaning a house. Do you intend to marry? Fall in love?’ She’d spoken lightly, yet the question suddenly felt invasive, intimate, and she half-regretted asking it even though she wanted to know the answer. Badly.

      Jason rotated his wine glass between his strong brown fingers; the simple action was strangely mesmerising. ‘One does not necessarily require the other,’ he finally said, and Emily felt a bizarre flicker of disappointment.

      ‘And which would you prefer?’ she asked, keeping her tone light and teasing. ‘Love without marriage, or marriage without love?’

      Jason took a sip of wine, his eyes meeting hers over the rim of the glass, his gaze now flat and forbidding. ‘Love, in my opinion, is overrated.’

      ‘A rather cynical point of view,’ Emily returned after a moment. She felt that flicker of disappointment again, and suppressed it. What did it matter what Jason thought of either love or marriage? ‘What made you decide that?’

      He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘Experience, I suppose. Anyone can say they love someone. It’s just a bunch of words you can choose to believe or not. They don’t make much difference, in the end.’ He lapsed into a sudden silence, frowning, as if his own words had triggered an unpleasant thought—or memory. Then his expression cleared, as if by force of will, and he glanced up at her, smiling. ‘Much better, in my opinion, to marry and, yes, even make a go of it than witter on about love—or wax poetically, as the case may be.’ His eyes glinted with knowing humour, and Emily conceded the point with a little laugh although she wondered just what experience had made Jason so cynical … and what had made him frown quite like that.

      ‘Be that as it may,’ she said, ‘a little poetry surely can’t go amiss.’

      ‘Yet you’ve written off both marriage and love, it would seem?’

      Written off seemed a bit strong, but Emily didn’t intend to debate the point. As far as Jason was concerned, written off would do very well indeed. ‘I told you, I’m happy as I am.’

      ‘Happy to have fun.’

      ‘Yes.’ She stared at him defiantly. He made fun sound like a naughty word. She knew he thought she was a bit scatty, perhaps even a little wild, and she took a perverse pleasure in confirming his opinion. Even if she still felt that bizarre flicker of hurt.

      ‘Yet you seem to be interested in finding love and marriage for others,’ Jason noted dryly. ‘Stephanie and Tim being a case in point.’

      ‘Just because I don’t want it for me doesn’t mean it isn’t right for other people,’ Emily replied breezily. ‘I’m a great believer in love. Just not for myself. Not now, anyway.’ She took a sip of wine, averting her eyes. She wasn’t quite telling Jason the truth, but she had no intention of admitting that she wasn’t looking for love because she didn’t want to be disappointed when it proved impossible to find, or didn’t live up to her expectations. She’d witnessed a love match first-hand—or almost. Even though her mother had died before she had any real memories of her, СКАЧАТЬ