Read Online Mr and Mischief by Kate Hewitt - Free Book Online

naive than she’d like him to believe; and most importantly, most disastrously, she had ideas about love. Romance. She might not be looking for love or marriage now, but
convenient
and
sensible
were clearly not in her vocabulary. He’d seen the stars in her eyes.
    Just as he’d seen the stars in his mother’s eyes wink slowly out. He’d lived with the resulting darkness, and it made him all the more determined to find the kind of wife his father should have had, the kind of wife he needed: convenient, sensible, practical. No romance. No love. No Emily.
    Yet still the thought of her slid into his mind with a slyly seductive whisper and he found he could picture having an affair with Emily Wood all too easily. He could quite vividly imagine the silken slide of her lips against his, the heavyweight of her hair under his hand. And more … much more
    than that. Her body fitted close to his, her legs entwined with his.
    Jason called a halt to that line of thinking, pleasurable as it was. No matter what her age now, Emily was still off-limits. He’d told her the truth when he’d said she was not on his list of candidates for a wife. He’d returned to London on
very
personal business, and that was the matter of finding someone to marry. He was thirty-seven years old and his father’s health had begun to fail. He needed an heir. Emily might think that was awful and archaic, but Jason preferred to see it as practical.
    Practical and without the kind of emotional expectations that had made his own mother miserable, and his father a widower. Love wasn’t just overrated, it was inadvisable. Fraught with disappointment and danger, which was why Jason chose to avoid it altogether … as would his wife. No meaningless words, useless gestures, nameless disappointments. Just mutual respect and affection, the most solid basis for a lasting union.
    What was not practical was envisioning Emily Wood in that role. Scatty, silly, teasing and tempting Emily Wood. Spoiled darling of the social pages, not to mention her father. Looking for love, even if she didn’t realise it. Hell, she was arranging it for other people.
    She was not remotely suitable to be his convenient, carefully chosen wife.
    And
she thought he was boring.
    He laughed aloud, the sound rueful, as he acknowledged just how much Emily’s careless remark had annoyed him. He really had thought she was still a little besotted with him, and the fact that she wasn’t made him realise the extent of his own foolish arrogance. Although she hadn’t thought he was boring when he’d touched her. He’d heard that slight indrawn breath,felt the crackle between them. Emily had definitely not been bored then.
    And he’d barely been able to keep himself from cupping her face and drawing those lush lips towards his for the kiss he’d long denied himself.
    And would continue denying himself, even if he longed to prove to Emily just how
exciting
he could be. He was in the business of finding a wife, not a lover. And despite the lust that still fired his body, he knew Emily could never be either.

CHAPTER FOUR
    E MILY woke up with a vicious headache, which did not endear her to anyone, including Jason. She still had a vague sense of unease from their dinner last night, although she could not articulate why. It had been kind of Jason to take her out and, since she could be a bit more rational about things in the cold light of morning, she was honest enough to acknowledge that it was perfectly right and fair for Jason to be checking up on her. She’d expected it, years ago, and had been surprised and even a little hurt when he’d left so abruptly after he’d hired her. So why should it bother her now?
    That
part of their conversation, Emily acknowledged, didn’t bother her. No, it was the other, hidden part, the way his eyes had glinted so knowingly and his mouth had quirked up at the corners and he’d murmured in that low hum of a voice that made her feel as if she wasn’t with