The Yuletide Engagement

‘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.