The Yuletide Engagement

CHAPTER TWO

‘HOW do I look?’ She grimaced at Toby questioningly as she entered the kitchen where her brother sat eating the dinner she had prepared for him before getting ready for her evening out.

‘You look great,’ he assured her enthusiastically. ‘New dress?’ he observed teasingly.

Of course it was a new dress; she couldn’t go out with Patrick McGrath wearing the old trusty little-black-dress that she had worn to last year’s company Christmas dinner. No, as Patrick’s dinner date she wanted to wear something much more stylish. And noticeable.

She had known as soon as she saw the knee-length figure-hugging red dress in the shop that it would ensure, once and for all, that Gareth was no longer under any misapprehension concerning her having fully got over him. Especially with Patrick McGrath as her dinner partner!

‘Do you like it?’ she asked her brother uncertainly.

Trying the dress on in the shop and actually putting it on at home were two different things, she had realised a few minutes ago. Seen in this homely setting, the dress was much more revealing than anything Ellie had ever worn before, clinging to her slenderness in a bright red swathe, the low neckline and sleeveless style showing arms and throat still lightly tanned from her holiday in the summer.

Her hair was swept up loosely from the slenderness of her neck and secured with two gold combs. The change in hairstyle seemed to enlarge her eyes and the dark sweep of her lashes. Blusher highlighted her cheeks, and the bright red gloss on her lips was the same colour as the dress.

Ellie had noted all of this in her bedroom mirror a few minutes ago, sweeping out of the room and down the stairs before she had time for second thoughts and settled for the familiar black dress after all.

‘You look wonderful, sis,’ Toby told her, sitting back to look at her admiringly. ‘You’re going to knock him off his feet!’

She frowned. ‘Toby, the idea isn’t for me to attract Patrick McGrath—’

‘I was referring to Gareth,’ he murmured pointedly.

‘Oh…Gareth,’ she acknowledged weakly, feeling the colour warming her cheeks at her mistake. In all honesty she had totally forgotten about Gareth as she prepared for her evening out. Which was ridiculous when he was the reason she had gone to all this trouble in the first place.

The reason she had swallowed her pride and gone to Patrick, and told him she had changed her mind after all!

To give the man his due, he hadn’t batted an eyelid when she had turned up at his office three days ago—without an appointment—and asked him if he was still agreeable to going out with her on Friday evening.

She had acted instinctively, knowing that if she gave herself time to think about whether or not she should go and see him she would change her mind. Although she had been a little thrown by his opening comment!

‘I’ve been expecting you.’ He put his gold pen down on top of the papers on his desk before smiling across at her as she stood just inside his office, his secretary having closed the door behind her as she left.

‘You have?’ Ellie frowned; how could he possibly have been expecting her when until half an hour ago she hadn’t expected to be here herself?

‘Call it a hunch.’ He nodded. ‘You can sit down, you know, Ellie,’ he added mockingly. ‘There’s no charge!’

He seemed different today, Ellie realized, more the thirty-eight-year-old successful businessman that he was. He was dressed formally too, in a dark grey suit with a white silk shirt, a light grey tie knotted meticulously at his throat.

She made no move to sit in the chair he indicated, knowing that she had made a mistake in coming here today, that she should have taken the time to think after all, that—

‘I still have Friday evening free, if you’re interested,’ he told her huskily.

Her eyes widened. ‘You do?’

He nodded. ‘Are you interested?’

She swallowed hard, wishing she could say no but knowing that, after what she had learnt today, she badly needed this man’s presence at her side on Friday evening—for moral support if nothing else.

‘Ellie…?’ he prompted at her continued silence.

‘I’m interested,’ she admitted abruptly.

‘Has something happened?’ he asked shrewdly.

Had something happened! Gareth, that selfish, unthinking, uncaring—

‘Something’s happened,’ Patrick acknowledged ruefully, standing up to pour her a cup of coffee from the hot percolator that stood on the side. ‘I’m sorry it’s nothing stronger,’ he apologised dryly as he handed her the cup and saucer. ‘You look as if you could do with a double whisky!’

‘I don’t drink whisky,’ she said vaguely, taking a sip of the hot coffee. Not because she thought it would make her feel any better, more for something to do with her shaking hands.

Cold hands, she realised belatedly as she wrapped them about the cup; the snow that had been threatening to fall all week had finally come tumbling down this morning. And in her agitation Ellie had completely forgotten to collect her outer coat and gloves before leaving the office earlier.

‘Is it anything I should know about?’ Patrick gently urged.

‘Anything…? It isn’t Toby, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she hastened to reassure him.

‘I didn’t think for a moment that it was; as far as I’m aware Toby is in York today, with—with another of my employees,’ Patrick dismissed lightly. ‘I wish you would sit down, Ellie,’ he said softly.

Of course. He wouldn’t sit down if she didn’t. Ellie sat, the cup rattling precariously in the saucer as she did so.

Patrick moved back to sit behind his desk. ‘Take your time,’ he invited. ‘I don’t have any appointments for a couple of hours.’

‘It isn’t going to take me that long to—!’ She broke off, her face pale as she brought herself under control. ‘My ex-boyfriend intends announcing his engagement at the dinner on Friday evening,’ she bit out reluctantly.

‘Ah,’ Patrick murmured comprehendingly.

Ellie looked across at him sharply. ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ she assured him.

He raised dark brows. ‘It doesn’t?’

‘Look, Mr—Patrick,’ she amended as he raised those brows even higher. ‘I don’t know what Toby told you about the end of my relationship with Gareth, but—’

‘Nothing at all, as it happens,’ he assured her dryly. ‘Toby can be discreet when he needs to be,’ he added at her sceptical look. ‘He wouldn’t have lasted long as my assistant if he couldn’t!’

‘Yes. Well.’ Ellie grimaced. ‘I was the one to end my relationship with Gareth.’

Patrick frowned. ‘Then why—?’

‘He told everyone at the office that he was the one to end it,’ Ellie recalled disgustedly. ‘And when he was seen with someone else only a few days later…!’ She shook her head. ‘If I had tried to contradict his story then I would have just looked like “a woman scorned”,’ she reasoned heavily.

‘Hmm. Just out of interest—why did you stop seeing him?’ Patrick asked interestedly.

‘Because—’ She drew in a deep breath, shaking her head. ‘I think that also comes under the heading of “Private”,’ she told him stiffly.

‘Okay,’ he conceded reluctantly. ‘But if you aren’t bothered by his engagement…?’

‘I’m really not,’ she insisted firmly. ‘At least, only so far as… I have to work with all these people, Patrick.’ She grimaced. ‘Gareth informed me a couple of hours ago about the engagement announcement.’

‘Big of him,’ Patrick bit out scathingly.

It had been more out of spite, actually, but she was way past caring about anything Gareth did or said to her. ‘If I turn up alone on Friday evening and the announcement is made—’

‘All your work colleagues are going to end up feeling sorry for you,’ Patrick acknowledged hardly.

Her eyes flashed deeply blue. ‘Yes!’ And the pity of people she worked with on a daily basis—even misplaced pity—was something she just couldn’t bear to think about.

Even if it meant coming to this man and admitting she had made a mistake in so arbitrarily refusing his offer to act as her escort at the dinner!

‘If you agree—if you’re still willing—it will be a purely business arrangement if you consent to accompany me on Friday evening,’ she told him coolly. ‘I will, of course, be paying any expenses you may incur—including the petrol to get us there, any drinks we have to buy, the—’

‘Stop right there, Ellie,’ Patrick cut in firmly. ‘When I take a woman out for the evening I do the paying. Okay?

‘No, it is not okay,’ she came back, just as determinedly. ‘I’m taking you out. That means I pay. What do you mean, no?’ She frowned as he shook his head.

‘I’ll only agree to go if I take you. Otherwise the deal is off, Ellie,’ he added decisively.

‘But this isn’t one of your business deals—’ she broke off as she realised she had been the one to say Friday evening was to be treated on a businesslike footing.

Patrick laughed softly. ‘Ellie, isn’t the important thing here to show this Gareth that you’re more than capable of attracting a man other than him? Which, of course, you obviously are,’ he continued, his grey gaze sweeping over her with slow appreciation.

Ellie was dressed in one of the suits she wore to work, a fitted black one today, teamed with a blue blouse. Slightly damp from the snow still falling outside!

Ellie was under no illusions as regarded her looks; at best they could be called pleasant. She was neither fat nor too thin, and her hair—her one good feature as far as she was concerned—was always kept clean and well-styled. Her eyes were a clear blue, her lashes thick and dark, her skin smooth and creamy, but other than that her features were nondescript.

Which was why, when Gareth had joined the company six months ago—a blond Adonis with warm blue eyes and a charm that drew women to him like bees around honey—Ellie had been completely bowled over by his marked interest in her.

But she had definitely learnt her lesson where that sort of flattery and attention were concerned, which was why she knew that Patrick McGrath was just being polite now.

He was watching her with narrowed eyes. ‘How long is it since the two of you broke up?’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’ she came back stiffly.

Patrick shrugged. ‘I was merely wondering why you don’t already have a new boyfriend.’

She gave a humourless smile. ‘Because after my experience with Gareth I have no interest at the moment in finding myself a new boyfriend!’

‘This gets more and more intriguing by the minute,’ Patrick murmured interestedly.

Ellie shot him a reproving look. ‘Believe me, it really isn’t,’ she assured him dismissively.

‘So it’s easier to ask me, a complete stranger, to go to your company dinner with you than it is to complicate matters with a genuine new boyfriend?’ Patrick murmured consideringly. ‘It makes a certain sense, I suppose.’ He shrugged.

Ellie frowned. ‘It does?’ It sounded rather cold and contrived to her, but other than not going to the dinner at all—which was impossible now that Gareth had told her of the pending announcement of his engagement; she simply wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of just not turning up!—she couldn’t see any other way round the problem.

‘It does,’ he assured her enigmatically. ‘Well, as I’ve already said, Ellie, I still have the evening free on Friday.’

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Then you’ll go to the Delacorte dinner with me?’

He gave a sudden grin, looking years younger, his grey eyes warm. ‘I thought you would never ask!’

She wouldn’t have done ordinarily, and they both knew it. But nothing about this situation was ordinary.

Which was why she was standing here, wearing a revealing red dress and more make-up than she had ever worn before, feeling decidedly like the overdressed Christmas tree that adorned their sitting room—waiting for Patrick McGrath to arrive…

He was late.

It was already seven forty-five, and before Ellie had left his office three days ago they had agreed that he would pick her up at seven-thirty, in order for them to drive to the restaurant and arrive a polite ten or fifteen minutes late for pre-dinner drinks. At this rate they would be lucky to arrive in time for the serving of the first course!

‘Is he always this unpunctual?’ She frowned at Toby as he cleared away his dinner things, before getting ready to go out himself.

‘He’ll be here, sis,’ Toby dismissed assuredly. ‘But I have to leave now.’ He glanced up at the kitchen clock. ‘I told Tess I would pick her up just after eight,’ he added apologetically. He was going to the cinema this evening with his girlfriend of the last two months. ‘Do you want me to try reaching Patrick on his mobile before I leave? Maybe the car broke down or something.’

‘Do Mercedes break down?’ Ellie came back dryly, wondering if she was going to get to ‘the ball’, after all!

‘Mine doesn’t,’ drawled a familiar voice.

Ellie gasped, spinning round to face Patrick as he stood in the doorway. She was glad she had already gasped—otherwise she would have done so now; he looked absolutely breathtaking in a dinner suit!

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep creeping up on me like that,’ she complained, to cover up the confusion she felt at his appearance.

Was anyone supposed to be this handsome? This suavely sophisticated? This—this breathtaking? There really was no other word for Patrick’s appearance this evening.

‘Will I do?’ He arched mocking brows at her as she continued to stare at him.

Would he do as what? As a more than adequate replacement for Gareth? Certainly. As a means for making every other woman in the room jealous of her good fortune in having him as her partner for the evening? Assuredly. As a calm and soothing balm to her already battered emotions? Definitely not!

He was a one-evening-only companion—just a shield for what promised to be a very difficult evening for her. He wasn’t supposed to make her pulse flutter, her knees feel weak, her insides as if they were turning to jelly!

‘Ellie is feeling a little—tense this evening, Patrick,’ Toby excused her lightly, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair before walking over to the door. ‘Have a good evening. Want me to wait up for you, Ellie?’ he added mischievously, dark brows raised teasingly.

‘No, thank you!’ She shot him a reproving look as he ducked out of the doorway, grinning widely as he raised a hand in farewell before disappearing into the darkness.

‘We aren’t going to be late back this evening, are we, Ellie?’ Patrick looked down at her mockingly.

‘Only I’m usually in bed by ten-thirty.’

Ellie would hazard a guess that the only reason this man would be in bed by ten-thirty at night would be because he wasn’t there alone!

‘You’re late,’ she told him sharply, more flustered that she had just had such a thought about Patrick’s nocturnal habits than she actually was by his tardiness.

‘Only a few minutes,’ he dismissed unconcernedly. ‘I stopped along the way to buy you this.’

‘This’ was a corsage, a single red rose, newly in bud, made even more beautiful by the melted snowflakes clinging to the dewy petals.

Ellie blinked hard before looking up at Patrick, hastily looking down again as he returned her gaze with slightly challenging eyes. Bringing her a rose, red or otherwise, was not very businesslike. And they both knew it. But then Patrick had warned her three days ago that he intended doing this his way…

‘Thank you,’ she accepted huskily, taking the rose and the pin he held out to her.

‘Would you like me to—?’

‘No! No, thank you.’ She tried to refuse his offer of help less abruptly, at the same time giving him a sceptical glance. ‘I can manage.’ And to prove it she at tached the rose to her dress at the first try.

‘I thought you might,’ he murmured ruefully. ‘I suppose we should be on our way, then.’

‘I suppose we should,’ she echoed dryly, inwardly chiding herself for the fact that she was a little disappointed he hadn’t mentioned her new dress, or anything else about her appearance.

Not that she had mentioned how gorgeous he looked either; it simply wasn’t in keeping, she accepted, with their arrangement.

‘What a pity,’ Patrick murmured as he watched her pull on her long black winter coat. ‘You look absolutely stunning in that dress; it’s a shame to hide it beneath that coat,’ he explained as Ellie looked up at him questioningly.

‘Thank you.’ She felt an inner glow now rather than the outer warmth of the coat.

‘Hmm,’ Patrick nodded as they went out to the car, opening the door for her to get in. ‘Gareth can just eat his heart out,’ he added with satisfaction.

‘That’s what Toby said!’ She laughed to cover her flushed pleasure at his compliment.

‘And, as we both know, Toby wouldn’t tell you a lie,’ he reminded her teasingly.

No, Toby wouldn’t tell her a lie—at least, not a major one—but she had a feeling this man was more than capable of practising the subtle art of subterfuge if he thought the occasion warranted it. There was a steely edge to Patrick McGrath, a ruthlessness that obviously made him such a success in business.

But Ellie dismissed both Patrick’s compliments and thoughts of that steely edge as they neared the restaurant where all the other Delacorte, Delacorte and Delacorte staff would already be gathered. No doubt all believing, with the lateness of the hour, that she had decided not to attend after all.

‘Everything is going to be just fine, Ellie.’ Patrick reached out in the warm confines of the car and gave her restless hands a reassuring squeeze before returning his own hand to the steering wheel of his Mercedes sports car. ‘Trust me, hmm?’ he encouraged as she glanced at him with troubled eyes.

She wasn’t sure, after Gareth’s duplicity, that she would ever completely trust another man again. But Patrick wasn’t asking her to trust him in that way…

‘I don’t believe I’ve ever thanked you for agreeing to help me out like this,’ she murmured ruefully. Mainly because she had been too embarrassed by her need for him to be here to actually get around to thanking him!

‘I believe you did mention the word gratitude once,’ he drawled. ‘But that was last week—when you were turning me down.’

Before she’d had to go back and tell him the situation had indeed changed!

‘Ellie, why don’t we wait until the end of the evening and see if you still want to thank me then, hmm?’

Ellie shot him a sharp look; that sounded a little ominous.

‘Don’t look so worried, Ellie.’ He chuckled after a brief glance in her direction. ‘I promise to be the soul of discretion this evening.’

‘You do?’ She eyed him doubtfully.

After all, what did she really know about this man? Only what Toby had told her. Which, now that she thought about it, really wasn’t much. Maybe Toby could be discreet if he needed to be! At least as far as Patrick McGrath was concerned…

Thirty-eight. Extremely successful. Single—which was probably all she really needed to know. Except…For all she knew the man might be a terrible flirt, or become terribly loud after a couple of drinks. In which case having him as her escort could prove more of a liability than a plus!

‘Of course, Ellie,’ he answered blandly. ‘I’ll try very hard not to mention to anyone that you occasionally like to sunbathe topless in the back garden—weather permitting!’ He grimaced as snow slowly began to fall on the windscreen.

‘You—!’ Ellie gasped, feeling the sudden heat in her cheeks as she turned to stare at him. ‘Patrick—’

‘Ah, here we are,’ he informed her lightly, turning the Mercedes into the car park of the restaurant, parking it beside the green Rolls Royce owned by Ellie’s boss before getting out of the car and coming round to open Ellie’s door for her. ‘Was it something I said?’ he prompted innocently as she made no move to get out of the car.

He knew very well that it was!

‘Come on, Ellie. I’m getting wet out here,’ he encouraged briskly.

Of course he was; the snow was coming down in earnest now. Ellie wrapped her coat around her and pulled up the collar about her neck as they hurried over to the entrance to the restaurant.

‘We’ll leave this here, I think,’ Patrick said firmly as they entered the foyer, removing Ellie’s coat and handing it to the receptionist before Ellie even had time to realise what he was doing.

She suddenly felt self-conscious again as she looked down at the eye-catching red dress. Maybe it was too much. After all, this was only a company Christmas dinner. Instead of looking eye-catching, as she had hoped, was she going to look ridiculously overdressed?

‘Ellie, you look beautiful,’ Patrick told her firmly—before his lips came down gently on hers and his arms moved about her waist to mould her body against the hardness of his.

The kiss was so unexpected that Ellie responded, her lips parting beneath his even as her arms moved up about his shoulders.

She totally forgot where they were, why they were there—who she was, even—as those warmly sensual lips continued to explore the softness of her own. The tip of Patrick’s tongue was now moving erotically against her lower lip, turning her body to liquid fire, her legs to jelly.

His eyes were dark with query as he finally lifted his head to look into the flushed beauty of her face. ‘Better.’ He nodded, his thumb running lightly across her slightly swollen lips. ‘Now you actually look like a woman out for the evening with her lover!’ he added with satisfaction.

Of course. That was the reason Patrick had kissed her. The only reason.

‘Perhaps next time you could give me some warning of what you’re about to do,’ she bit out abruptly, covering her confusion—and her blushes!—by opening her evening bag and searching through its contents. ‘Lipstick,’ she told him abruptly, and held out a tissue for him to wipe his mouth.

‘You do it,’ Patrick encouraged huskily. ‘I can’t see what I’m doing,’ he reasoned before she protested.

She swallowed hard, willing her heart to stop pounding, her hand not to shake as she reached up to wipe the smears of lipstick that he now had on his mouth.

So engrossed was she in not betraying how shaken she felt that she didn’t even see the man walking past, a dark scowl on his handsome features as he stopped to stare at the two of them.

‘Ellie…?’ he questioned uncertainly—as if he couldn’t quite believe the woman in the red dress, a woman who had obviously just been very thoroughly kissed, was actually her.

She stiffened before looking at him. ‘Gareth,’ she greeted him distantly, feeling rather than seeing Patrick as he moved to stand beside her, his arm curving possessively about her waist. She glanced up at him, a shiver running down her spine as she saw the narrow-eyed look he was giving the younger man. ‘Patrick, this is a work colleague—Gareth Davies,’ she dismissed with deliberate lightness, glad of that lightness as she saw Gareth’s scowl deepen. ‘Gareth—Patrick McGrath,’ she added economically, still too shaken by that kiss to think how to describe him to the other man.

‘The Patrick McGrath?’ Gareth questioned abruptly as he looked frowningly at the other man.

Patrick smiled—a smile that didn’t reach the cold grey of his eyes. ‘I very much doubt there’s only one Patrick McGrath in the world,’ he answered the other man tauntingly.

‘We really should be going in, Patrick,’ Ellie put in determinedly as she saw the light of challenge that had now appeared in both men’s eyes. ‘If you’ll excuse us, Gareth?’ she added dismissively, not giving him a second glance as she turned and walked in the direction of the main restaurant, Patrick at her side, his arm still firmly about her waist.