Carole Mortimer - The Yuletide Engagement

‘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.