His Christmas Virgin

It was all too easy for Jonas to see that she was more angry than alarmed by his persistence. ‘I only want the two of us to sit down and have a sensible conversation—’

‘I’m busy.’

‘I’m asking for two minutes of your time, damn it!’ Jonas exclaimed.

Mac really wasn’t being difficult when she said she was busy; she had a major exhibition at a gallery on Saturday, only two days away, and she had one more painting to finish before then. Besides, no amount of talking to Jonas Buchanan was going to make her change her mind about selling the warehouse she had so lovingly worked on to make into her home.

Her grandfather had left this property to Mac when he died five years ago. It had been one of many warehouses by the river that had fallen into disuse as the trade into the London dock had fallen foul of other, more convenient transportation. Three floors high, it had been the perfect place for Mac to make into her home as well as her working studio. From the outside it still looked like an old warehouse, but inside the ground floor consisted of a garage and utility room, the second floor was her living quarters, and the third floor made a spacious studio.

Unfortunately, the area where the warehouse stood had recently become very attractive to property developers such as Jonas Buchanan, as they bought up the rundown riverside properties to put up blocks of luxurious apartments that had the added allure of a magnificent and uninterrupted view of the river.

It was this man’s bad luck that Mac’s own warehouse home stood on one of those sites.

She sighed. ‘I’ve already given my answer to your lawyer, your personal assistant, and your builder,’ she reminded him pointedly. ‘I don’t want to sell. Not now. Not in the future. Not ever. Is that clear enough for you?’

Jonas Buchanan’s expression was one of pure exasperation as he gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘You must realise that the area around you is going to become a noisy building site over the winter months?’

She shrugged. ‘You’ve fenced off this area for that purpose.’

He frowned. ‘That isn’t going to lessen the noise of lorries arriving with supplies. Workmen constantly hammering and banging as the buildings start to go up, followed by huge cranes being erected on site. Exactly how do you expect to still be able to work with all that going on?’

Mac’s eyes narrowed. ‘The same way I’ve continued to work the last few months as you’ve systematically pulled down all the buildings around this one.’

Jonas’s mouth firmed at the implied criticism. ‘I offered several times to relocate you—’

‘I have no wish to be “relocated”, Mr Buchanan,’ Mary McGuire growled out between clenched teeth. ‘This is my home. It will remain my home still, even once you’ve built and sold your luxurious apartments.’

And, as Jonas was only too aware, be a complete eyesore to the people who lived in those exclusive multimillion-pound apartments! ‘In my experience, everyone has a price, Mary—’

‘Mac.’

He frowned. ‘Sorry?’

‘Everyone who actually knows me calls me Mac, not Mary,’ she explained. ‘And maybe the people you’re acquainted with have “a price”, Mr Buchanan,’ she said scathingly, smoky-grey eyes glittering with contempt. ‘I happen to believe that my own family and friends have more integrity than that. As do I!’

Jonas now fully understood the frustration his employees had previously encountered when trying to talk to Mary ‘Mac’ McGuire; he had never before met a more stubborn, pigheaded and unreasonable individual than this particular woman!

His mouth thinned. ‘You know where to reach me when you change your mind.’

‘If I change my mind,’ she corrected firmly. ‘Which I won’t. Now, if you will excuse me, Mr Buchanan?’ She raised ebony brows. ‘I really am very busy.’

And Jonas wasn’t? With millions of pounds invested in one building project or another all over the world, Jonas’s own time was, and always had been, at a premium. He certainly didn’t have any more of it to waste tonight on this woman.

He stepped back. ‘As I said, you know where to reach me when you’ve had enough.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Buchanan,’ she shot back with saccharin—and pointed—sweetness, before quietly closing the door in his face.

Jonas continued to scowl at that closed door for several minutes after she had carried out her threat to turn off the outside light and left him in darkness apart from the lights visible inside the warehouse itself.

He had already invested too much time and money in the building project due to begin on this site in the New Year to allow one stubborn individual to ruin it for him, or Buchanan Construction.

Obviously the money he had so far offered for this property wasn’t enough of a reason for Miss McGuire to agree to move. Which meant Jonas was going to have to come up with a more convincing reason for her to want to leave.

Chapter Two

‘CHEER up, Mac,’ Jeremy Lyndhurst teased as the first of the guests invited to this evening’s viewing began to come through the gallery. The fifty-something co-owner of the prestigious Lyndwood Gallery continued, ‘A few hours of looking good and being socially polite this evening, and tomorrow you can go back to being reclusive and dressing like a tramp!’

Mac chuckled huskily—as she knew she was meant to—at this reminder of the affront it was to Jeremy’s own impeccable dress sense whenever she turned up at his gallery in her paint-smeared working clothes. Which she had done a lot the last few weeks as she came to deliver the individual paintings due to be exhibited at this evening’s ‘invitation only’ showing of her work.

Jeremy’s partner—in more ways than one—Magnus Laywood, a tall, blond giant in his forties, was at the door to ‘meet and greet’ as more of those guests began to arrive; mainly art critics and serious collectors, but also some other individuals who were just seriously rich.

There were twenty of Mac’s paintings on show this evening, and all of them expertly displayed by Jeremy and Magnus, on walls of muted cream with their own individual lighting so that they showed to their best advantage.

It was the first individual exhibition of its kind that Mac had ever agreed to do—and now that the evening had finally arrived she was so nervous her knees were knocking together!

‘Here, drink this.’ Jeremy picked up a glass of champagne from one of the waiters who were starting to circulate amongst the guests in the rapidly filling room, and handed it to her. ‘Your face just went green!’ he explained with a chuckle.

Mac took a restorative sip of the bubbly alcohol. ‘I’ve never been so nervous in my entire life.’

‘Oh, to be twenty-seven again,’ Jeremy murmured mournfully.

Mac took another sip of the delicious champagne. ‘What if they don’t like my work?’ she wailed.

‘They can’t all be idiots, darling,’ Jeremy drawled. ‘It’s going to be a wonderful evening, Mac,’ he reassured her seriously as she still looked unconvinced. ‘I know how hard this is for you, love, but just try to enjoy it, hmm?’

The problem was that Mac had never been particularly fond of exhibiting her work. Selling it, yes. Showing it to other people, and being ‘socially polite’ to those people, no. Unfortunately, as Mac was well aware, she couldn’t make a living from her paintings if she didn’t sell them.

‘I’ll try—Oh. My. God!’ she gasped weakly as she saw, and easily recognised, the man now standing beside the door engaged in conversation with Magnus.

Jonas Buchanan!

He was as tall as Magnus, and dark and dangerous where the other man was blond and amiable, there was no mistaking that overlong dark hair and those hard and chiselled features dominated by piercing blue eyes that now swept coldly over the other guests.

Mac’s heart hammered loudly in her chest as she took in the rest of his appearance. Dressed like every other man in the room, in a tailored black evening suit and snowy white shirt with a perfectly arranged black bowtie at his throat, Jonas nevertheless somehow managed to look so much more compellingly handsome than any other man in the room.

‘What is it?’ Jeremy followed her line of vision. ‘Who is that?’ he murmured appreciatively, his longstanding relationship with Magnus not rendering him immune to the attractions of other men.

Mac dragged her gaze away from Jonas to look accusingly at the co-owner of the Lyndwood Gallery. ‘You should know—you invited him!’

‘I don’t think so.’ Jeremy’s eyes were narrowed as he continued to look across at Jonas. ‘Who is he?’

Mac swallowed hard before answering. ‘Jonas Buchanan.’

Jeremy looked impressed. ‘The Jonas Buchanan?’

As far as Mac was aware there was only one Jonas Buchanan, yes!

‘Ah, I understand now.’ Jeremy nodded his satisfaction as a puzzle was obviously solved. ‘He’s with Amy Walters.’