The Yuletide Engagement & A Yuletide Seduction by Carole Mortimer Page B

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 alwaysthought him; he was a man who was obviously attractive to women.
    When had that happened? She—
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œHow 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—”
    â€œEllie!” Toby cut in laughingly. “I told you that Patrick is more than capable of taking care of himself.”
    She glared at them both—Toby laughing, Patrick amused, one dark brow raised mockingly. “Men!” she finally muttered frustratedly, turning away to pile more food haphazardly onto her plate.
    â€œAre you sure you’re going to eat all that?” Patrick murmured close beside her. “Maybe we should just share the plate,” he added teasingly.
    Ellie turned to find that she and Patrick were alone. Toby had wandered off, was now standing across the dining room chatting to the dark-haired girl who had given him such an admiring look a few minutes ago. He hadn’t wasted much time!
    She looked up at Patrick, some of her anger abatingin the face of his teasing look. “I had visions of a brawl in the hallway,” she admitted ruefully.
    He shrugged. “I very rarely resort to violence, Ellie. Although in Davies’s case,” he added hardly, his expression becoming grim, “I could be willing to make an exception. As it is, I’ve made it very clear what I will do to him if he so much as comes near you again, let alone touches you.”
    Ellie raised dark brows. “Oh?”
    Patrick nodded abruptly. “I think we need to discuss your continued involvement in all this.”
    Ellie felt her heart stop for a moment. What did he mean? Was he suggesting that it was no longer necessary for her to be involved?
    She might have decided minutes ago that she needed to rethink her life, to perhaps consider giving up her position at Delacorte, Delacorte and Delacorte as a way of avoiding accidentally bumping into Gareth any more. But she hadn’t included not seeing Patrick any more in that