An Affair To Remember: A Ludlow Hall Christmas Read online

"If I were you, I'd take her advice. Take it from me, son, she's not a woman to tussle with."

  Three weeks later Marc found himself in the Jones' large family home on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. And instead of taking off when he was healed, he'd found himself staying. Then, when six months later John and Mary had taken in his baby half-sister, too, Marc Atelier had found himself a family.

  Now his father was dead, and at thirty-four Marc grieved deeply for the man who'd relentlessly pushed him through school, university, the marines and then in the police force as a senior SWAT officer. And John had celebrated when Marc had accepted a career boost from Nico Ferranti. A man who'd immediately recognised a reformed bad-boy just like himself. No one from Marc's old world would recognise the boy in the smooth, sophisticated man who wore designer threads, silk tie, smart shoes of the finest Italian leather. A boy who'd been a gang member, opportunistic thief and drug dealer.

  Marc knew John Jones had been fiercely proud of him. A fist of grief rose up into his throat as he remembered the day his father died. John had been sitting in a chair after walking the dog. He'd fallen asleep and never woken up. And just to compound the tragedy, the dog had died in its sleep two days later. Together the family had wept, at times they still did. Nina had told her brother in words of one syllable that she would not return to university until her mother was back on her feet. Pride rose through the grief. His sister was a beautiful looking girl, but more importantly, she had a great big heart. Family, she said, came first.

  Now Marc was the man of the house. He'd come back to England for his mother. He'd come back for his sister, and he'd come back for Nico Ferranti, another man who'd changed his life.

  Marc narrowed his eyes as he left grief behind. He focused now on the wall screens and the job at hand.

  Someone was trying to cause mischief for the Ferranti's. And they'd gone to a great deal of trouble to set things up. Marc was good at his job. He had the skills, but more importantly the way to get inside the head of a criminal and to ask the right questions. And the first question to which he needed the answer was why? Why would a trusted member of staff betray a man like Nico? Money was the biggie. Next came revenge. So now Marc's fingers danced across the keyboard as he dug deep into the financial circumstances of the people closest to Nico Ferranti and then the people closest to them, moving out into a wider and more complex circle. It would take time. Something would turn up. It always did.

  And all the while, Marc kept one eye on the wall screens.

  Chapter Two

  "You're a nice girl, Elena. But this relationship isn't working for me."

  Elena stared at Tom and couldn't think of a single thing to say.

  A voice was screaming in her head, he's dumping you. He's dumping you right in the middle of your workplace. How embarrassing was this?

  And he's dumping you two weeks before Christmas.

  Who does that sort of thing to a person?

  And right on the heels of that thought came, why the hell hadn't she dumped him first?

  To be honest, she'd only gone out with Tom in the first place to keep her brother Liam happy. Tom worked with Liam and her brother had told her in an earnest voice that Tom was a, "Lovely guy."

  But Tom, Elena knew after their first date four weeks ago, wasn't her type.

  Now she couldn't believe that she'd actually felt sorry for him.

  Because here she was being dumped.

  That'll teach her to pity date.

  Tom was... boring.

  There was no getting away from it.

  Elena took a gulp of the vintage Chianti he'd ordered without asking her, nothing but the best for Tom, and tuned back into what he was saying.

  "You can be amusing occasionally, too," he wittered on, oblivious to anyone and anything except the sound of his own voice. "To be honest." He took a deep breath. "I can't live with the no sex rule..."

  Elena's thoughts screeched to an emergency stop.

  Whoa.

  Just hang on there a minute, Tonto.

  No sex rule?

  What no sex rule?

  Elena opened her mouth to discuss at length a rule that was, to put it mildly, news to her, when a disturbance at the entrance to the restaurant caught her attention.

  Her eyes bugged in her head.

  Omigod.

  Quickly she dipped her head and focused on her blackened sea-bass.

  "There she is!" a man's excited voice cried. "Elena! Elena!"

  Tom turned to watch a wild-eyed young man dressed in jeans, paint splashed work boots, and a puffa jacket stride through the smartly-dressed diners and come to a halt at their table.

  Face burning, Elena kept her head down.

  But even she couldn't ignore the sound of heavy-breathing for ever.

  Slowly, she raised her head and stared into the flushed face (yep, he was off his meds) of a man who was slowly becoming her worst nightmare.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the restaurant manager and general manager, Alexander Ludlow, watching the scene.

  Crap.

  "What are you doing here, David?"

  David dropped to his knees with a thud, his eyes beseeching her.

  Hell, no.

  "I love you, Elena. You know I adore you. You know I'll do anything if you would please, please take me back."

  The whole room had gone utterly silent.

  Tom spluttered something incomprehensible.

  Elena ignored Tom.

  She turned in her seat to face David.

  "Have you taken your medication today, David?" she asked in a soft voice.

  The confused flutter of his eyes confirmed it, no he hadn't.

  Taking care to move slow and easy, Elena reached for her purse, took out her cell, scrolled down and pressed call.

  In the meantime, David had burst into tears and was rocking on his heels.

  "Hey, Charlotte. One of your patients is missing? Yep. He's here at The Hall." Elena listened to the senior nurse of the local psychiatric twenty-four hour care unit issue instructions. "In the restaurant. We'll do our best to keep him calm. Yep."

  Alexander Ludlow was making his way towards them. Elena caught his eye and shook her head. He nodded and took a seat at an empty table and whipped out his cell phone.

  Elena studied the very sick young man staring up at her as if she was his world.

  And her heart broke for him.

  "David?"

  David stared adoringly at Elena.

  "Yes, my darling?"

  "Would you like to have a seat? Maybe have a lemonade?"

  His eyes glittered strangely and Elena prayed that the hospital team put their foot down.

  "I'm not a child, Elena," he said in a totally different voice as his personality morphed from a sobbing adolescent into a dominant adult male. Elena felt the room grow warm. Fear unfurled in her belly. David stood, hands fisted at his side. And she noticed there was no love for her in those strange eyes now. The poor man was, literally, foaming at the mouth. "I'm an adult. I'll join you in a glass of wine."

  "You most certainly will not," Tom said, utterly oblivious to Elena's sharp kick under the table.

  David whipped around to face Tom.

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm Elena's boyfriend," Tom said, conveniently forgetting he'd just dumped her.

  Now David was breathing heavily through his nose as he very slowly turned back to Elena and got to his feet. There was more than madness in those eyes now and Elena's heart kicked.

  Oh God.

  "Did you give him a blow job, Elena?" David asked. His hand went for the button of his jeans and slid down the zip. "Give me a blow job."

  Tom opened his mouth, caught the blistering look Elena sent him and snapped it shut.

  Out of the corner of her eye Elena saw Alexander Ludlow and Marc Atelier now approaching David from behind.

  David whipped out a very limp dick.

  A woman shrieked.

  Could this night get
any worse?

  Elena soon discovered that, yes, it could get worse.

  A lot worse.

  Now David's groin was in her face.

  "Suck it."

  Two seconds later David dropped like a stone to the plush carpet.

  Marc quickly tucked David's flaccid manhood away and zipped up his jeans.

  Torn between relief for herself and anxiety for the man on the floor, she turned to Marc.

  "What did you do to him?"

  Deep blue eyes stared straight into hers.

  Her whole body tingled in a way that made her blink.

  "Old ninja trick. Two fingers to pressure points behind the ear. He'll be fine." Marc turned his head to watch four men in white coats arriving. "And here comes the cavalry, too late as usual."

  Elena held her head in her hands and breathed through her nose in a world that had gone a little grey round the edges. This was the third time in as many months that David had managed to get out of a secure unit. She'd crossed David's path six months ago as part of the volunteer out-reach team who assisted mental health experts working in the community.

  Now she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  And she knew without looking up who that hand belonged to, Marc Atelier.

  The scent of his cologne spun around her, all lovely and woodsy and her still racing heart did a weird thumpity-thump.

  The hand squeezed.

  "Hey, are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," she said, mortified that she'd unwittingly caused a scene in one of the top restaurants in the county.

  "It's my fault she's upset," Tom said. "We broke up tonight."

  Elena closed her eyes.

  And thank you very much, Tom.

  For the first time in Elena's life she wanted to smack the face of a man who wasn't one of her six brothers.

  Marc cleared his throat.

  Most women who worked at Ludlow Hall and had working ovaries, had the hots for Marc Atelier. Elena was no exception, and no wonder.

  He was one of those men that saying he was good-looking just didn't cut it because Marc was tall, a really tall, six foot four or five. Elena knew this because she was five ten herself and her father and brothers were all over six foot. If a miracle happened and she and Marc went on a date, the guy was the perfect height for her, she could even wear heels. Woo hoo! Now Marc simply stared at her with a bemused look in those deep blue eyes. His hair was dark brown, with reddish highlights, and beautifully cut. His face had the bone structure of a Roman Centurion. Yep, Marc Atelier was drop-your-panties-girls gorgeous.

  "You're sure you're okay?" Marc asked her.

  Elena looked up, met his eyes and noticed his gaze had now moved across the table to her date, with an expression in his eyes that let Tom know Mr. Atelier was less than impressed.

  How embarrassing was this?

  The heat of mortification prickled up Elena's neck, into her cheeks.

  "I'm fine," she said in a cheery voice. "Thanks, Marc."

  He turned to study her face for an unremitting moment, before nodding and walking away.

  Why couldn't a real man like Marc ask her out on a date?

  He was so tall, so gorgeous and so... capable.

  Elena sighed into her napkin, ignoring the prickling behind her eyes and heroically blew her nose. A man like Marc was way, like in a galaxy far far away, out of her league.

  "Who the hell is he?" Tom asked, as if he had the right, after dumping her, to query her.

  Elena was asking herself why she'd let her brother Liam set her up with Tom in the first place?

  "He's head of Ferranti Security."

  Tom made a face.

  "I thought he looked like a goon."

  Goon?

  Outrage on Marc's behalf rose in her gut.

  He might be over six foot four, well built and look like a man who could take care of himself in a tricky situation, but the last thing she'd ever call Marc was a goon.

  Elena just looked at the supercilious little man sitting opposite her and wondered what on earth she'd seen in him. If anyone should be doing the dumping tonight it should have been her.

  "Didn't you notice that David was ill and not in his right mind, Tom? Don't the police give you basic training in how to deal with people who are, through no fault of their own, unstable?"

  Tom blushed.

  It was not a good look on him. It made his pale skin blotch.

  "I'm in human resources, Elena. I'm not on the front line like Liam. How do you know a crazy person anyway?"

  Elena simply stared hard at him in a way that made him blink and shuffle around in his chair.

  "I'm a volunteer assistant to the community out-reach team specialising in mental health to help people re-integrate back into society. I was one of the support team allocated to David. When he's on his meds, he's a very nice man."

  "I'm surprised your father and brothers are happy to let you do such dangerous work."

  Because he'd unerringly hit a sore spot, Elena's chin rose.

  "I don't consider it dangerous. What I do in my spare time is my business, Tom."

  The frosty tone her voice, Elena realised, was absolutely wasted on him.

  He ignored her empty glass, poured himself another glass of Chianti.

  "I thought you were upset we broke up," he said.

  "Well, I am upset to be dumped in the hotel where I work, thank you for that by the way, Tom, two weeks before Christmas," Elena said in a sharp voice, recovering her fighting spirit fast.

  "Here we go," Tom muttered under his breath. He took a sip of wine and spoke to a point above Elena's head, "I just knew you'd be the type of pitiful woman who likes to make a scene when a man changes his mind."

  Make a scene?

  It was no secret in the Kennedy clan that, when pushed, Elena Margaret Mary had a hair-trigger temper. A genetic strain of temper descended from a long line of hard drinking, hard fighting, Scottish and Irish warriors.

  It cost her but Elena managed to rise above the misogynistic little dig, to send him a glittering but very dangerous smile.

  "Before you pay the bill and leave, Tom," she said. "I'm somewhat bewildered by the no sex comment."

  Tom's face was a picture of sincere bafflement.

  She frowned.

  "I respect your sacred promise," Tom said.

  "What promise is that, Tom?"

  "The promise you made to Jesus."

  When Elena simply gave him a blank look, Tom rolled his eyes.

  "No sex before marriage."

  Chapter Three

  Elena felt like she'd been whacked on the head by an iron mallet.

  She knew her jaw was on the floor.

  Her eyes filled.

  "Who on earth told you that?" she asked even though in her heart of hearts, she knew the answer.

  What she wanted from Tom was verbal confirmation.

  "Liam," Tom said. Then he went too pale. "For God's sake don't tell him I told you, Elena."

  Liam Kennedy was built like an armoured SUV and was six foot five inches tall. Tom wouldn't come out of a scuffle with her brother in one piece, so Elena simply nodded.

  Then she wondered why the hell she was so upset to have a niggling suspicion confirmed. After all, her brothers, especially Liam, had put the men she'd dated under pressure for years.

  Years.

  She'd either dated men she'd known as boys from school, or friends of her brothers. For years she'd wondered why those men had treated her like nothing more than a good pal. For years she'd wondered what was wrong with her that those men had done nothing more than kiss her good night or tentatively hold her hand.

  And right there Elena Kennedy promised to kill her big brother Liam.

  Kill him.

  It was her heavy cross to bear that Elena was the youngest of seven siblings. Her brothers ranged in age from thirty-seven right through to twenty-eight. Elena herself had been a long awaited daughter after six lively boys. A daughter whose birth had
killed her mother (something for which Elena would forever carry the heavy burden of guilt). She'd been brought up in a male dominated household under the too watchful eye of her retired police sergeant father, two brothers who were policemen, one who was an E.R. doctor, and three in the military, one of whom was a Special Forces commander.

  Yes, the Kennedy's firmly believed in three things.

  God.

  And to serve their community and their country.

  Actually there were four things.

  The fourth was to make sure that at twenty-six Elena Margaret Mary Kennedy remained the oldest virgin in town.

  Of course Elena wasn't a virgin, anything but.

  However, she was perfectly happy to let her family live under collective mass delusion.

  She'd had to be smart about having sex, sneaky even.

  It had been great deal easier to be sneaky about sex when she'd attended Manchester University, three hundred miles away from the watchful eyes of her family. Not that she was a slapper or anything like that. Elena Kennedy might have a very healthy libido, but she was... choosy.

  Except for Tom, her standards had dropped a bit with him.

  Looking at him now, Elena supposed Tom was nice enough, but he certainly hadn't lit much of a hormonal spark. Now she mulled over the reasons why she'd been prepared to sleep with him? Probably because it had been a while since she'd had any... intimacy.

  Her work, ruling the reception team with a fluffy duster, at Ludlow Hall kept her pretty busy. And now she'd been promoted, she lived on site in one of the beautifully fitted out old coach houses, work had taken over her life. Not that that was a problem, because Elena adored her job. Adored working for the gorgeous Nico Ferranti and Alexander Ludlow. She adored Nico and Alexander's wives, their children and the whole family vibe that surrounded Ludlow Hall. The problem was that she didn't date staff. She definitely didn't date guests, because if a relationship went wrong things would become very sticky work-wise. And those self-imposed rules meant she'd had very slim pickings over the last year.

  Now Elena wondered, looking over the table at a very embarrassed Tom, if she'd become simply desperate to have sex, to feel that intimacy, with just anyone?