Maids Under The Mistletoe Collection. Christy McKellen

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      ‘The press—they must have found out about you being married because they’re swarming around outside like a pack of locusts trying to get pictures.’ She frowned and shook her head vigorously, as if trying to shake out the words she needed. ‘They just got one of me peering out of my bedroom window at them—make that your bedroom window. I don’t know whether they’ll be able to tell exactly who I am, but their lenses were about a foot long, so they’ll probably be pretty sharp images.’

      He watched her start to pace the floor, adrenaline humming through his veins as he took in her distress.

      Damn it! This was his fault for announcing their marriage to the whole of Fitzherbert’s party last night. He’d been a fool to think they might get away with hiding from it. There was always going to be someone in a crowd like that that could be trusted to go to the papers for a bit of a backhander or the promise of future positive exposure for themselves.

      ‘Okay. Don’t panic, it might not be as bad as we think,’ he said, reaching for his laptop, which he’d left on the table. Opening it up, he typed a web address into the browser and brought up the biggest of the English gossip sites.

      He stared at the headline two down from the top of the list, feeling his spirits plummet.

      The Earl of Redminster’s Secret Waitress Wife! the link shouted back at him from the page.

      He scanned the article, but there was no mention of Emma’s name. ‘Well, it can’t have been Fitzherbert who tipped them off because they don’t seem to know who you are. I guess he’s kept his mouth shut out of embarrassment about the way he acted last night. Despite his drunken bluster, he won’t want to get on the wrong side of the Westwood family in the cold light of day.’

      He shut the laptop with a decisive click. ‘Still, it looks like neither of us are going anywhere today. We can’t risk going out there and having more photos taken of us until we’ve spoken to our parents and briefed them about what to say if any reporters contact them.’

      She flopped into the chair opposite and raised a teasing eyebrow. ‘What exactly do you intend to tell them, Jack? Funny story, Mum and Dad. You know how you thought your son was the most eligible bachelor in England? Well, guess what...?’

      He tried and failed to stop his lips from twitching, gratified to see she wasn’t going to let this beat her. Even so, he needed to keep this conversation on a practical level because this was a serious business they were dealing with.

      ‘We can’t hide from this, Emma, it’ll only make things worse.’

      She frowned at his admonishing tone. ‘You think I don’t know that? It took years for the papers to stop rehashing the story about my father’s debts. Any time high society or bankruptcy was mentioned in a story, they always seemed to find a way to drag his name and his “misdemeanours” into it.’

      She sighed and ran a hand through her rumpled hair, wincing as her fingers caught in the tangles.

      He stared at her in shock. ‘Really? I had no idea they’d gone after your family like that,’ he said, guilt tugging at his conscience. ‘I didn’t keep up with news in the UK once I’d moved to the States.’

      What he didn’t add was that after leaving England he’d shut himself off from anything that would remind him of her and embraced his new life in America instead. It seemed that by doing that he’d missed quite a lot more than he’d realised.

      ‘Look, why don’t you take a shower and I’ll go and find you some fresh clothes to put on,’ he suggested in an attempt to relieve the self-reproach now sinking through him. ‘I’m pretty sure Clare keeps a couple of outfits here for when she visits London—they’ll fit you, right? You were always a similar shape and height.’

      The grateful smile she gave him made his stomach twist. ‘That would be great. Yes, I’m sure Clare’s stuff would fit me fine. Don’t tell her I’ve borrowed it though, will you? She always hated me stealing her stuff.’ Her eyes glazed over as she seemed to recall something from the past. ‘I really do miss her, you know. I was an idiot to let our friendship fizzle out.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘But she reminded me too much of you,’ she blurted, her eyes glinting with tears.

      The painful honesty of her statement broke through the tension in his chest and he leant forward, making sure he had her full attention before he spoke. ‘You should tell her that yourself. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you, even after all this time.’

      Emma’s gaze flicked away and she nodded down at the table, clearly embarrassed that he’d seen her flash of weakness. ‘Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.’

      Standing up quickly, she clapped her hands together as if using the momentum to move herself. ‘Right. A shower.’

      He felt a sudden urge to do something to cheer her up. There was no need for them to be at each other’s throats after all—what was done was done. In fact, thinking about it practically, it would make the divorce proceedings easier to handle if they were on amicable terms.

      ‘When you come back down I’ll make you some breakfast. Bacon and eggs okay with you?’

      ‘You cook now?’ Her expression was so incredulous he couldn’t help but smile.

      ‘I’ve been known to dabble in the culinary arts.’

      She grinned back and he felt something lift a little in his chest.

      ‘Well, in that case, I’d love some artistic bacon and eggs.’

      ‘Great,’ he said, watching her walk away, exuding her usual elegance, despite her crumpled clothes.

      Out of nowhere, an acute awareness that she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known—even with her hair a mess and a face clean of make-up—hit him right in the solar plexus, stealing his breath away.

      He thumped the table in frustration. How did she do this to him? Shake him up and make him lose his cool? No one else could, not even the bullying business people he’d battled with on a daily basis for the last few years.

      Ever since the day he’d met her she’d been able to addle his brain like this, by simply smiling in his direction. As a teenager he’d been angry with her for it at first and to his enduring shame he’d treated her appallingly, picking at her life choices, her manners, the boyfriends she chose. Particularly her boyfriends.

      The way she used to glide through life had bothered him on a visceral level. She was poised and prepossessing, and, according to his sister, the girl most likely to be voted the winner of any popularity contest at the eminent private girls’ school they’d both attended in Cambridge. She’d seemed to him at the time to accept her charmed position in life as if it was her God-given right. He, on the other hand, had always prided himself on being subversive, bucking the trends and eschewing the norm and the fact she epitomised what others considered to be the perfect woman frustrated him. He hadn’t wanted to be attracted to her. But he had been. Intensely and without reprieve.

      What would it be like to hold her in his arms again, he wondered now, to feel her soft, pliant body pressed up against his just one more time, to kiss those sultry lips and taste that distinctive sweetness he remembered so well?

      He pushed the thoughts from his mind.

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