A Countess For Christmas

‘I can’t help either, Ashleigh, I’m afraid,’ Emma said. ‘My mother’s staying with me on and off at the minute while her place in France is being damp proofed and redecorated and I don’t think her nerves would take having someone she doesn’t know kipping on the sofa. She’s a little highly strung like that.’

‘No worries,’ Ashleigh said, batting a hand even though her shoulders remained tense, ‘I’m sure something will turn up.’

One of the other waitresses came banging into the kitchen then, looking harassed.

‘Emma, the guests are starting to complain about running out of drinks out there.’

‘On it,’ Emma said, picking up a tray filled with the drinks that Grace had been diligently pouring throughout their conversation and backing out through the swinging kitchen door with it.

‘Later, babes.’

Turning round to face the party, readying herself to put on her best and most professional smile again, her gaze alighted on a tall male figure that she’d not noticed before on the other side of the room. There was an intense familiarity about him that shot an unsettling feeling straight to her stomach.

It was something about the breadth of his back and the way his hair curled a little at his nape that set her senses on high alert. The perfect triangle of his body, which led her gaze down to long, long legs, was her idea of the perfect male body shape.

A shape she knew as well as her own and a body she’d once loved very, very much.

Blood began to pump wildly through her veins.

The shape and body of Jack Westwood, Earl of Redminster.

The man in question turned to speak to someone next to him, revealing his profile and confirming her instincts.

It was him.

Prickly heat cascaded over her skin as she stared with a mixture of shock and nervous excitement at the man she’d not set eyes on for six years.

Ever since her life had fallen apart around her.

Taking a step backwards, she looked wildly around her for some kind of cover to give her a moment to pull herself together, but other than dashing back to the kitchen, which she couldn’t do without drawing attention to herself, there wasn’t any.

What was he doing here? He was supposed to be living in the States heading up the billion-dollar global electronics empire he’d left England to set up six years ago.

At the age of twenty-one he’d been dead set on making a name for himself outside the aristocratic life he’d been born into and had been determined not to trade on the family name but to make a success of himself through hard work and being the best in his field. From what she’d read in the press it seemed he’d been very successful at it too. But then she’d always known he would be. The man positively exuded power and intelligence from every pore.

After reading in the papers that his grandfather had died recently she’d wondered whether he’d come back to England.

It looked as if she had her answer.

He was surrounded, as ever, by a gaggle of beautiful women, all looking at him as if he was the most desirable man on earth. It had always been that way with him; he drew women to him like bees to a honeypot. The first time she’d ever laid eyes on him, at the tender age of twelve, he’d been surrounded by girls desperate for his attention. His sister, Clare—her best friend from her exclusive day school—had laughed and rolled her eyes about it, but Emma knew she loved her brother deeply and was in awe of his charisma.

Emma, on the other hand, had spent years feeling rattled and annoyed by his unjustified judgemental sniping at her and for a long time she’d thought he truly disliked her. Her greatest frustration at that point in her life was not being able to work out why.

As she watched, still frozen to the spot, one of the women in his group leaned towards him, laying a possessive hand on his arm as she murmured something into his ear, and Emma’s heart gave an extra-hard squeeze.

Was he with her?

The thought made her stomach roll with nausea.

Feeling as though she’d stepped into the middle of one of her nightmares, she took a tentative pace sideways, hoping to goodness he wouldn’t choose that exact moment to turn around and see her standing there wearing her Maids in Chelsea apron, holding a tray of drinks.

‘Hey, you, don’t just stand there gawping, missy, bring me one of those drinks. I’m parched!’ one of Jolyon’s most obstreperous acquaintances shouted over to her.

Face flaming, Emma sidestepped towards him, keeping Jack’s broad back in her peripheral vision, hoping, praying, he wouldn’t spot her.

Unfortunately, because she wasn’t paying full attention to where she was stepping, she managed to stand on the toe of the woman talking with Mr Shouty, who then gave out a loud squeal of protest, flinging her arms out and catching the underside of the tray Emma was holding. Before she had a chance to save it, the entire tray filled with fine crystal glasses and their lurid contents flipped up into the air, then rained down onto the beige carpet that Jolyon had had laid only the week before.

Gaudy-coloured alcohol splattered the legs of the man standing nearby and a deathly silence fell, swiftly followed by a wave of amused chatter and tittering in its wake.

Emma dropped to her knees, desperately trying to save the fine crystal glasses from being trampled underfoot, feeling the sticky drinks that now coated the carpet soak into her skirt and tights.

All she needed now was for Jolyon to start shouting at her in front of Jack and her humiliation would be complete.

Glancing up through the sea of legs, desperate to catch the eye of a friendly face so she could escape quickly, her stomach flipped as her gaze connected with a pair of the most striking eyes she’d ever known.

Jack Westwood was staring at her, his brow creased into a deep frown and the expression on his face as shocked as she suspected hers had been to see him only moments ago.

Heart thumping, she tore her gaze away from his, somehow managing to pile the glasses haphazardly back onto the tray with shaking hands, then stand up and push her way through the agitated crowd, back to the safety of the kitchen.

‘Sorry! Sorry!’ she muttered as she shuffled past people. ‘I’ll be back in a moment to clean up the mess. Please mind your feet in case there’s any broken glass.’

Her voice shook so much she wouldn’t have been surprised if nobody had understood a word she’d said.

Please let him think he just imagined it was me. Please, please!

As she stumbled into the kitchen the first person she saw was Grace.

‘Oh, my goodness, Emma! What happened?’

Her friend darted towards her, relieving her of the drinks tray with its precariously balanced glasses.

Grabbing the worktop for support, Emma took a couple of deep breaths before turning to face her friend’s worried expression.

‘Emma? Are you okay? You’re as white as a sheet,’ Sophie gasped, also alerted by her dramatic entrance. ‘Did someone say something to you? Did they hurt you?’ From the mixture of fear and anger on Sophie’s face, Emma suspected her friend had some experience in that domain.

‘No, no, it’s nothing like that.’ She swallowed hard, desperately grasping for some semblance of cool, but all her carefully crafted control seemed to have deserted her the moment she’d spotted Jack.

‘There’s someone here—someone I haven’t seen for a very long time,’ she said, her voice wobbling with emotion.

He’d always had this effect on her, turning her brain to jelly and her heart to goo, and after six long years without hearing the deep rumble of his voice or catching sight of his breathtaking smile or breathing in his heady, utterly beguiling scent her body seemed to have gone into a frenzy of longing for him.

‘I wasn’t expecting to see him, that’s all. It took me by surprise,’ she finished, forcing a smile onto her face.

The girls didn’t look convinced by her attempt at upbeat nonchalance, which wasn’t surprising considering she was still visibly trembling.

‘So when you say “him”,’ Ashleigh said, with a shrewd look in her eye, ‘I’m guessing we’re talking about an ex here?’

Emma nodded and looked away, not wanting to be drawn into giving them the painful details about what had happened between her and Jack. She needed to be able to do her job here tonight, or risk being fired, and if she talked about him now there was a good chance she’d lose her grip on her very last thread of calm.