Wedding at King’s Convenience by Maureen Child Page A

were currently three films under production and each of them presented different headaches. Dealing with producers, directors and, worst of all to his mind, the actors, was enough to make a man wonder what he’d first enjoyed about this business. He had deals rolling with agents, a couple of smaller studios he was looking to absorb and he was in the middle of buying the rights to a bestselling romance novel to turn it into what would be, he firmly believed, a blockbuster summer hit.
    So yeah. Busy. But he preferred it that way. Busy meant his thoughts were too distracted to drift toward memories of Ireland that came only a dozen times a day now. Images of deep green fields, smoky, music-filled pubs and, mostly, thoughts of Maura Donohue.
    Which was just as well because every time a picture of that blue-eyed woman rose up in his mind, he was filled with a wild mixture of emotions that were so tangled and twisted into knots inside him it was impossible to figure out which had prominence.
    He tossed his pen onto the desktop and scowled at the wall opposite him. Of course he remembered thepassion. The chemistry between them that had built slowly and inexorably until it had finally exploded on their last night together.
    Yet he also recalled clearly the calm, cool look in her eye as she walked him to the door that last morning. He gritted his teeth as he saw her face in his mind. Clear blue eyes, luscious mouth curved in a half smile. She hadn’t cried. Hadn’t asked him to stay. Had, in fact, acted as if he were nothing more than an annoying guest keeping her from her work.
    Fresh aggravation rose inside him at the memory, so he pushed it away and grabbed his pen again. Thumb flicking madly at the pen top, he told himself it wasn’t that he really cared, it was the principle of the thing. Women didn’t walk away from Jefferson King. No matter the situation, it was he who did the walking. Always. But she’d thrown him off. Caught him off balance and kept him that way and a part of him wondered if that hadn’t been her plan all along.
    Had she been teasing him, leading him along sexually until she got the offer just the way she wanted it, and then took him to bed to seal the deal? Was she that manipulative and he simply hadn’t seen it? He’d hate to think that. Went against the grain to consider it, but why else had she been so casual about a night that had damn well hit him harder than he had expected it to?
    What kind of woman spent the night with a man and then turned him loose the next morning so easily?
    And why the hell was he still thinking about her? The deal was done; it was time to move on. “Well past time,”he muttered, since there was no one else in his office to overhear him.
    “That’s perfect,” he added under his breath, “now she’s got me talking to myself and the woman probably hasn’t given me a single thought.”
    Which really fried his ass if truth be told. Damn it, Jefferson King was not forgettable. Women usually crowded around him, clamoring for his attention. Not just the wannabe actresses who littered Hollywood’s streets every few feet, either. But women with wit and intelligence. Women who looked at him and saw a successful man, sure of himself and his own place in the world.
    Women who weren’t Maura.
    Still grumbling, Jefferson flipped through the stack of papers on his desk, and made a few scattered notes. He was buying up an independent film company, thinking of branching King Studios out into documentaries. But it was a stretch to say his mind was focused on that particular task at the moment.
    No, like it or not, he was still thinking about her.
    But why? After all, it wasn’t as if either of them had wanted or counted on a relationship. They’d had some good times together, capped by one amazing night of mind-blowing sex. So why was he so disgusted at her casual goodbye the next morning? It wasn’t as if he’d been planning to stay anyway.
    It had to be ego, pure and