Jake slanted a sardonic glance at her. ‘Don’t tell me you’re still holding out for Rupert Branscombe Fox?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, flushing with embarrassment at the memory of the massive crush she had had on Rupert.

Not that she could really blame herself. What seventeen-year-old girl could be expected to resist that lethal combination of good looks and glamour? And Rupert could be extraordinarily charming when he wanted to be. He wasn’t so charming when he didn’t, of course, as Cassie had discovered even before Jake had kissed her.

Whoops; she didn’t want to be thinking about that kiss, did she?

Too late.

Cassie tried the looking-out-of-the window thing again, but London was a blur, and she was back outside the Hall again, being yanked against Jake again. She could smell the leather of his jacket, feel the hardness of his body and the unforgiving steel of the motorbike.

In spite of Cassie’s increasingly desperate efforts to keep her eyes on the interminable houses lining the road, they kept sliding round to Jake’s profile. The traffic was heavy and he was concentrating on driving, so she gave in and let them skitter over the angular planes of his face to the corner of his mouth, at which point her heart started thumping and thudding alarmingly.

It was ten years later. Jake had changed completely. The leather jacket had gone, the bike had gone.

But that mouth was still exactly the same.

That mouth…She knew what it felt like. She knew how it tasted. She knew just how warm and sure those firm lips could be. Jake was an austere stranger beside her now, but she had kissed him. The memory was so vivid and so disorientating that Cassie felt quite giddy for a moment.

She swallowed. ‘I had a major crush on Rupert, but it was just a teenage thing. Remember what a gawk I was?’ she said, removing her gaze firmly back to the road. ‘I have this fantasy that if I bumped into Rupert now he wouldn’t recognise me.’

‘I recognised you,’ Jake pointed out unhelpfully.

‘Yes, well, that’s the thing about fantasies,’ Cassie retorted in a tart voice. ‘They’re not real. I’m never likely to meet Rupert again. He lives in a different world, and the closest I get to him is seeing his picture in a celebrity magazine with some incredibly beautiful woman on his arm. Even if by some remote chance I did meet him I know he wouldn’t even notice me, let along recognise me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, I’m much too ordinary for the likes of Rupert,’ said Cassie with a sigh. ‘You were right about that, anyway.’

Jake looked taken aback. ‘When did I ever say you were ordinary?’

‘You know when.’ She flashed him an accusing glance. ‘After the Allentide Ball.’ After you kissed me. ‘Before you punched Rupert on the nose. I gather you took it upon yourself to tell Rupert I wasn’t nearly sophisticated enough for him.’

It still rankled after all these years.

‘You weren’t,’ said Jake.

‘Then why were you fighting?’

‘Not because Rupert leapt to defend your sophistication and readiness to embark on a torrid affair, if that’s what you were thinking!’

‘He said you’d been offensive,’ said Cassie.

‘Did he?’ said Jake with a certain grimness.

It was typical of Rupert to have twisted the truth, he thought. He had been sitting at the bar, having a quiet drink, when Rupert had strolled in with his usual tame audience. Jake had found Rupert’s arrogance difficult to deal with at the best of times, and that night certainly hadn’t been one of those.

Jake often wondered how his life would have turned out if he hadn’t been in a particularly bad temper that night. The raw, piercing sweetness of Cassie’s kiss at the Allentide ball had caught him unawares, and it didn’t help that she had so patently been using him to attract Rupert’s attention. Jake had been left feeling edgy, and furious with himself for expecting that it could have been any different and caring one way or the other.

And then Rupert had been there, showing off as usual. He’d been boasting about having had the estate manager’s ungainly daughter, and making the others laugh. Jake’s hand had clenched around his glass. He might not have liked being used, but Cassie was very young. She hadn’t deserved to have her first experience of sex made the subject of pub banter.

Rupert had gone on and on, enjoying his audience, and Jake had finally had enough. He’d set down his glass very deliberately and risen to his feet to face Rupert. There had been a chorus of taunting, ‘Ooohs’ when he’d told him to leave Cassie alone, but he’d at least had the satisfaction of wiping the smirks off all their faces.

Especially Rupert’s. Jake smiled ferociously as he remembered how he had released years of pentup resentment. The moment his fist had connected with Rupert’s nose had been a sweet one, and worth being banned from the village pub for. If it hadn’t been for that fight, Rupert wouldn’t have talked about assault charges, news of the fight wouldn’t have reached Sir Ian’s ears, and he wouldn’t be where he was now.

Oh yes; it had definitely been worth it.

‘IT’S my word against Rupert’s, I suppose, but I can tell you, I was never offensive about you,’ he said to Cassie. ‘And being ordinary isn’t the same thing as not being sophisticated. Believe me, you’ve never struck me as ordinary!’

‘But I am,’ said Cassie glumly. ‘Or I am compared to Rupert, anyway. He’s just so glamorous. Even you’d have to admit that.’

Jake’s snort suggested he wasn’t prepared to admit anything of the kind.

Of course, he’d never had any time for Rupert. Cassie supposed she could understand it. Rupert might be handsome, but even at the height of her crush she had recognised that arrogance in him as well. At the time, she had thought that it just added to his air of glamour.

The truth was that she still had a soft spot for Rupert, so good-looking and so badly behaved. In another age, he would have been a rake, ravishing women left, right and centre. Cassie could just see him in breeches and ruffles, smiling that irresistible smile, and breaking hearts without a flicker of shame.

Not the kind of man you would want to marry, perhaps, but very attractive all the same.

Cassie sighed a little wistfully. ‘Rupert could be very charming,’ she tried to explain, not that Jake was likely to be convinced.

They had barely got going on the motorway, and already overhead gantries were flashing messages about queues ahead. Muttering in frustration, he eased his foot up from the accelerator.

‘What’s so charming about squandering an inheritance from your parents and then sponging off your uncle?’ he demanded irritably. ‘Sir Ian got tired of bailing him out in the end, but he did what he could to encourage Rupert to settle down. He left his fortune to Rupert in trust until he’s forty, in the hope that by then he’ll have come to his senses.’

‘Forty?’ Cassie gasped. Rupert was only in his early thirties, like Jake, and eight years would be an eternity to wait when you had a lifestyle like Rupert’s. ‘That’s awful,’ she said without thinking. ‘What’s he going to do?’

‘He could always try getting a job like the rest of us,’ said Jake astringently ‘Or, if he really can’t bring himself to do anything as sordid as earning his own living, he can always get married. Sir Ian specified that the trust money could be released if Rupert gets married and settles down. He can’t just marry anyone to get his hands on the money, though. He’ll have to convince me as trustee that it’s a real marriage and his wife a sensible woman before I’ll release the funds.’

‘Gosh, Rupert must have been livid when he found out!’

‘He wasn’t too happy,’ Jake agreed with masterly understatement. ‘He tried to contest the will, and when he didn’t get anywhere with that he suggested we try and discuss things in a “civilised” way—which I gather meant me ignoring Sir Ian’s wishes and handing the estate over to him to do with as he pleased.