For Christmas, Forever: The Yuletide Engagement / The Doctor's Christmas Bride / Snowbound Reunion. Barbara McMahonЧитать онлайн книгу.
shook her head, desperately blinking back the tears; she didn’t want to make a complete fool of herself—and Patrick—in front of his family. ‘I bumped into Gareth in the hallway—’
‘That’s how you hurt your arm?’ he ground out suspiciously, eyes narrowed to steely slits.
‘Not exactly,’ she conceded awkwardly. ‘You see, I still have bruises there from last night, when he grabbed me, and—’
‘Davies hurt you?’ Patrick bit out, dangerously soft.
‘I don’t suppose he meant to,’ she lied—knowing from the expression on Gareth’s face earlier that he would greatly enjoy strangling her for what he saw as her interference! ‘You see—’
‘Yes, I do see, Ellie,’ Patrick ground out harshly, his narrowed gaze searching as he looked across the room towards the door. ‘Here’s Toby,’ he rasped. ‘I want you to stay here with him—while I go and have a few words with my so-called future cousin-in-law!’
‘Patrick, no—’ But she was too late. He had already left her side, muttering a few words to her brother in passing before going out into the hallway himself.
This was awful! She deplored Sarah’s choice of future husband, knew Gareth for exactly what he was, but the last thing Ellie wanted was to cause trouble at Sarah’s engagement party. And she was pretty sure, from the grim expression on Patrick’s face as he’d left her side, that there was going to be trouble!
Toby smiled as he reached her. ‘Patrick wants me to take you in to the buffet; he’s going to join us in a few minutes.’
Maybe this was the reason Toby had accompanied them to the party—this way Patrick had ensured that she was never left alone. Except she had been…
‘Toby, Patrick is going to find Gareth and, from the looks of him, hit him,’ she said agitatedly, staring anxiously towards the direction in which Patrick had so recently disappeared.
‘So?’ Toby prompted unconcernedly.
‘Toby—’
‘Ellie,’ he cut in firmly. ‘I would have hit the man myself if I hadn’t thought the bruises might show, but I had to settle for a few choice words instead. And talking of bruises…’ He looked down at her searchingly. ‘Patrick said something about Gareth having hurt you just now?’
She sighed her impatience, wishing she hadn’t given away the fact that her arm was bruised beneath the sleeve of her dress. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she dismissed. ‘What matters is that Patrick is going to make a scene.’ Her eyes were wide with distress at the thought.
Toby gave a confident shake of his head. ‘Patrick never makes a scene,’ her brother assured her dryly.
No, he probably didn’t—could probably get his point over by talking in that softly dangerous voice she had heard him use just now. But, nevertheless, she doubted Gareth would just meekly stand there and take whatever Patrick had to say to him.
‘Come on, sis,’ Toby encouraged lightly. ‘Let’s go through to the other room and get some food.’
The last thing Ellie felt like doing was eating! How could she even think about food when Patrick and Gareth might even now be at each other’s throats?
She hung back. ‘I just want to go home, Toby.’ She sighed. ‘In fact, after tonight I need to rethink my whole life,’ she added frowningly.
After tonight she wasn’t even sure she could go on working in the same building with Gareth, let alone anything else. If Gareth could be this threatening in the midst of his future in-laws, what possible chance did she stand of avoiding his wrath at the office?
She had worked for Delacorte, Delacorte and Delacorte since leaving school at eighteen, had been steadily promoted through the firm, until she’d become George’s personal secretary four years ago. It was a job she greatly enjoyed. At least, she had. The last couple of months, with the chance of bumping into Gareth around every corner, hadn’t been quite so much fun. And after this evening it promised to get worse!
Toby frowned. ‘I don’t think you need to do anything drastic just yet, Ellie,’ he cautioned. ‘Give Patrick a bit more time to resolve the situation, hmm?’
She gave a wry smile. ‘You have great confidence in your employer!’
Her brother gave a rueful shrug. ‘I’ve never seen Patrick at the losing end of a fight yet.’
No, she could believe that; Patrick had the air of a man completely confident in his own abilities. But this situation was too personal, too close to home, to be dealt with like the business deals he was usually involved with.
‘Hello, Ellie,’ Sarah greeted her brightly, looking exceptionally beautiful in the green dress she had bought earlier that afternoon. ‘You don’t happen to have seen my fiancé about anywhere, do you?’ she added ruefully.
Ellie felt the colour drain from her cheeks. ‘Er—’
‘He was outside talking to Patrick when I last saw him.’ Toby was the one to answer. ‘I’m Ellie’s brother Toby, by the way,’ he added lightly, holding out his hand in friendly greeting.
‘Sarah Delacorte.’ She gave Toby a considering look as she shook his hand. ‘Yes, I can see the likeness.’ She smiled warmly. ‘You work with Patrick, don’t you?’
‘For him, actually,’ Toby corrected dryly.
Sarah’s smile widened. ‘Of course. Well, it’s very nice to meet you,’ she added sincerely. ‘I hope you’ll both excuse me while I go and find Gareth?’
Ellie looked up impatiently at Toby once they were alone. ‘Shouldn’t you go and warn Patrick?’
Her brother shrugged unconcernedly. ‘One thing I’ve learnt from working for Patrick—he’s quite capable of taking care of himself. Now, let’s go and get some food; I’m starving!’ With his hand under her elbow he guided her through to the dining room.
Toby had learnt something else from working for Patrick, Ellie realized: how to take charge of a situation with the same arrogance!
Somewhere along the way, she realised dazedly as she put food on her plate without even noticing what she had chosen, her little brother had grown up…
She had spent so long thinking of him as her younger brother, that she just hadn’t noticed him grow into a man almost as confident as the one he worked for.
He was a handsome man too, Ellie had to acknowledge as a girl of about twenty who stood helping herself to the buffet—probably yet another relative of Patrick’s—gave him more than a cursory glance from beneath lowered dark lashes.
At twenty-six and over six feet tall, with short dark hair, laughing blue eyes, a pleasantly handsome face and a healthily fit body from his visits to the gym several times a week, her brother wasn’t the boy she had always thought him; he was a man who was obviously attractive to women.
When had that happened? She—
‘You aren’t eating, Ellie.’
She turned sharply to find Patrick standing at her side, and quickly checked his face for signs of a fight. Thankfully she didn’t find any.
‘How was I supposed to eat when for all I knew you might have been lying unconscious in the hallway?’ she came back, her sharpness due to her worry concerning his welfare.
Like a mother when her child came back to her unharmed after doing something she considered dangerous? Or like a woman worried about the man she loved…?
Patrick’s reply didn’t exactly calm her impatient anger. ‘Not very likely,’ he drawled confidently.
Ellie’s eyes sparkled angrily. ‘That’s okay for you to say, but—’
‘Ellie!’