The Yuletide Engagement

She closed her eyes now in pained disbelief. ‘Toby, please, please tell me you haven’t really asked Patrick McGrath to take me out next week,’ she groaned desperately.

Her brother paused in the act of taking another bite of his apple. ‘I haven’t?’ he said uncertainly, some of the look of triumph starting to fade from his face as he finally noticed Ellie’s marked lack of enthusiasm.

‘You haven’t!’ she repeated firmly.

She had met Toby’s boss only once, five months ago. It had been enough. There was no doubting that Patrick McGrath was very rich, very self-assured, and very eligible. In fact, the very last person Ellie would ever want to ask her out!

Toby looked puzzled. ‘But on Sunday night you said—’

‘I had drunk too much wine, for goodness’ sake,’ Ellie stood up to pace the confines of the room. ‘I wasn’t being serious—I just thought of the most unlikely person ever to—I didn’t really mean it when I said—’

‘Patrick would make the perfect escort for your dinner a week on Friday,’ Toby finished obligingly.

She winced as she remembered saying exactly that. But it was a situation that required an extreme solution for unusual circumstances. On Sunday evening she had run the gamut of them, and had suggested Patrick McGrath being the perfect escort as the most extreme of those extremes. She certainly hadn’t expected Toby to act on it!

‘Exactly,’ she confirmed weakly. ‘Toby, please tell me you didn’t—’

‘But I did,’ Toby told her impatiently. ‘I asked Patrick to accompany you. And as he said yes I can’t see what your problem is.’ He shook his head.

He couldn’t see—! The problem was that Ellie felt totally ridiculous and completely humiliated. She had no intention of—of—

‘Toby, you can just call the man right now and tell him not to come here this evening—that you made a mistake, that your sister doesn’t need an escort next Friday or any other time, and that if or when I do need an escort I’ll find one of my own, thank you very much!’ She glared her indignation at her irresponsible brother.

Blue eyes blazed at the thought of her humiliation if she should ever meet Patrick McGrath again. Her dark, shoulder-length hair seemed to crackle with the force of her anger, every inch of her five-foot-two-inch frame seeming to bristle with indignation.

‘But—’

‘Call him, Toby,’ she repeated with cold fury. ‘Call Patrick McGrath right now and tell him!’

‘But—’

‘Now, Toby!’ she ground out forcefully.

‘I think what your brother is trying to tell you—Ellie, isn’t it?—is that there’s no need for him to call and tell me anything—I’m already standing right here,’ drawled a lazily amused voice from directly behind her.

Ellie had spun round at the first sound of that drawling voice, having to arch her neck back in order to look up into the confident face of Patrick McGrath.

If ever she had wanted the ground to open and swallow her up it was right now.

Patrick McGrath!

Tall—well over six feet. Dark—hair kept deliberately short as it looked inclined to curl. Handsome—grey eyes beneath arched dark brows, an arrogant slash of a nose, chiselled lips that were curved into a smile at the moment, an out-of-season tan darkening those distinctive features. Successful—even the casual clothes he was wearing this evening—a black silk shirt and faded denims—obviously bore a designer label, and the black leather shoes were no doubt hand-made.

‘So, Ellie,’ he drawled softly. ‘What was it you wanted Toby to tell me?’

She was trying to speak, really she was; she just couldn’t seem to get any words to come out of her throat!

‘The details for next Friday, perhaps?’ Patrick McGrath prompted interestedly, grey gaze lightly mocking.

How Ellie remembered that mocking gaze. How could she ever forget it? Toby still had no idea what had actually happened at her one and only other meeting with this man; Ellie hadn’t told him, and as the days and weeks had passed, without Toby making any reference to it, it had eventually become obvious that Patrick McGrath wasn’t going to tell her brother all the details of that meeting, either.

But Ellie was unlikely to ever forget them!

It had been an unusually hot summer this year, with everyone wearing the minimum of clothing, and Ellie, conscious of her impending summer holiday abroad and with a wish not to stand out like a sore thumb on the Majorcan beaches, had decided to spend one Saturday afternoon sunbathing in their secluded back garden.

Topless.

How could she have known that Patrick McGrath had been telephoning for over an hour, urgently trying to contact Toby? That he had decided to come over to the house in person when he’d received no reply? Or that he would stroll out into the garden when he found the house unlocked but seemingly deserted?

Ellie had made a mad scramble for her top when she’d realised she was no longer alone, but it hadn’t been quick enough to prevent that piercing gaze from having a full view of her naked breasts.

Damn it, she was sure she could see the knowledge of that memory now, clearly gleaming in those mocking grey eyes.

Despite what she might have said on Sunday evening, warmed by the unaccustomed wine, Patrick McGrath was the last man she wanted to accompany her anywhere!

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Toby has— He was mistaken when he asked—I’m sorry you’ve been troubled, Mr McGrath.’ She spoke dismissively, her gaze fixed on the second button of his black silk shirt. ‘I never meant—’

‘Toby, why don’t you make us all some coffee?’ Patrick McGrath turned to the younger man authoritatively. ‘While Ellie and I sort out whether or not I’m being stood up a week on Friday,’ he added derisively.

Toby set about making the pot of coffee and Ellie looked up at Patrick McGrath reprovingly. He might find all this funny, but she certainly didn’t. As if any woman would ever stand this man up!

But they did need to sort this mess out, and she would rather do it out of earshot of her well-meaning but unthinking younger brother.

‘Let’s go through to the sitting room, Mr McGrath,’ she suggested briskly, some of her normal self confidence returning as she led the way down the hallway to their lounge.

She was twenty-seven years old, had cared for Toby since their parents were killed in a car crash eight years ago, taking over the running of the family home as well as continuing her full-time job as secretary, eventually to one of the senior partners in a prestigious law firm. She was more than up to dealing with this situation.

Well…ordinarily she could be up to dealing with it, she conceded as Patrick McGrath stood in the middle of the sitting-room, looking at her with his laughing steely eyes.

How on earth did Toby cope with working for this man every day? she wondered frowningly. He had such presence, such confidence, that just being in the same room with him was a little overpowering. But she knew Toby thought the other man was wonderful, that her brother thoroughly enjoyed his job as this man’s personal assistant.

Maybe it was only women who found Patrick McGrath overpowering…?

Well…one woman, Ellie conceded self-derisively. Maybe if she weren’t so completely aware of the fact that this man had seen her sunbathing topless—

Stop that right now, Ellie, she told herself firmly. If she was going to sort this situation out at all then she had to put that embarrassing memory completely from her mind. Although it would help if Patrick McGrath were to do the same…

His next words didn’t seem to imply that was the case!

‘I don’t believe the two of us have ever been formally introduced,’ he drawled softly, with an emphasis on the ‘formally’, it seemed to a slightly flustered Ellie. How could she possibly have formally introduced herself while at the same time clutching a top in front of her naked breasts?

‘Probably not,’ she conceded abruptly. ‘But I’m sure you’re aware that I’m Ellie Fairfax, Toby’s older sister, and I am aware you’re Patrick T. McGrath—Toby’s boss.’

He gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘The T stands for Timothy, by the way. And Ellie is short for…?’

‘Elizabeth,’ she supplied dismissively. ‘Although what—?’

‘It may come up in conversation a week on Friday.’ He shrugged broad shoulders.