Read Online Wedding at King’s Convenience by Maureen Child - Free Book Online Page A

she’d better have a damned good reason for being so uncooperative.
    “Fine. Hurry.”
    Jefferson hung up, shouted for his assistant and grabbed his suit jacket out of the closet. He’d already scheduled a trip to Austria to meet with the owner of an ancient castle to talk about filming rights. He’d just work Ireland into the trip.
    Shouldn’t take long to fix whatever had gone wrong in Craic. He’d stay in the village, talk to everyone, then remind Maura that they had a damn deal. If she was playing games, they were going to stop.
    Women were notoriously inconsistent, he reminded himself. God knew the actresses and agents he worked with could drive a man insane. Their moods could change with a whim and any man in the vicinity was liable to be flattened.
    Besides, seeing Maura would probably be a good thing in the long run. Give him a chance to look at her without the haze of great sex as a filter. He’d see her for what she was. Just a woman he was doing business with. They could meet, talk, then part again and maybe then he’d stop being hounded by his own memories.
    His assistant, Joan, an older woman with no-nonsense green eyes and a detail-oriented personality, hustled into the office.
    “What’s going on?” she asked.
    “I’m going to need you to contact the airport. Tell thepilot we’re making a pit stop in Ireland before we head to Austria.”
    “Sure, Ireland, Austria. Practically neighbors.”
    “Funny. Something’s come up.” He was already headed for the door. “I’m going by my house to pack. Tell the pilot I’ll be there in two hours. Have the plane prepped and ready to go.”
    One of the perks of being a member of the King family was having King Jets at one’s disposal. His cousin Jackson ran the company, renting out luxury planes to those who willingly paid outrageous amounts of money for comfort while traveling. But the King family always had the pick of the jets whenever they needed them. Which made all the travel Jefferson did for work a lot easier to take.
    Because of that, he could be in the air before dinnertime and in Ireland for breakfast.
    “I’ll tell him,” Joan said as he walked past her. “The jet will be ready. Should I fax you those papers on the McClane buyout while you’re in the air or wait until you return?”
    He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. J. T. McClane was the owner of an actual ghost town just on the outskirts of the Mohave desert. Jefferson had the idea to do a modern-day western-gothic film set in what was left of that town. But the man had been dickering over the price for weeks. Wouldn’t hurt to remind the man that King Studios was going to remain in charge of the negotiations.
    “Just hang on to them until I get back,” he saidfinally. “Won’t hurt to make McClane sweat about this deal for a while.”
    Joan smiled. “Got it. And, boss…”
    “Yeah?”
    “Good luck.”
    Jefferson smiled and nodded as he left, and kept his thoughts to himself. No point in telling Joan that the only one who was going to need luck around here was Maura Donohue.

Chapter Five
    J efferson stopped in the village to book a room at the small inn that he’d stayed in on his last trip. He was jet-lagged, hungry and well past the breaking point. So when the innkeeper, Frances Boyle, was less than welcoming when she opened her bright red front door and gave him a grim glare, Jefferson’s hackles went up.
    “Well,” she said, crossing her thick arms over a prodigious chest covered by a shawl the color of mustard. “If it isn’t himself, come back to the scene of the crime.”
    “Crime?” One black eyebrow lifted. “Excuse me?”
    “Hah! A fine time to be beggin’ pardon and if it’s pardon you’re asking I’m not the one it should be aimed at.”
    He closed his eyes briefly. The older woman’s brogue was so thick, and she spoke so quickly, he’d thought for a moment she was speaking Gaelic. Then her words sunkin and he realized he was