Christmas With Her Bodyguard

The pain on his face had got to her. But it was nothing like the expression she was looking at right now on Myles’ face. Fifteen years ago she would have ached to steal that pain away for him. But not now, she told herself firmly. Not now.

Rae wasn’t sure she believed herself or why the words sounded so hollow in her head.

But still, she would do what Rafe had asked her to do. Not just because it was her half-brother asking, but because, deep down, they both knew she liked to fix people. She couldn’t fix her own life so she concentrated on others’. It was probably one of the reasons why being an OBGYN suited her so well. There were always dark moments but in this field the outcome was more often positive, especially when it entailed bringing a new life into the world, and into the arms of an ecstatic mother.

If that couldn’t shine some light into whatever dark pit Myles was in, then surely nothing could?

And the fact that she was the one helping him—that maybe she could prove to him she was a skilled, professional OBGYN and that the incident with Justin, for which she’d become infamous, was nothing more than a brief, shameful moment in her past—had nothing to do with it.

‘You know you can talk to me, Myles,’ she began impulsively. ‘I’m a good listener...whatever you’re going through.’

She knew immediately it had been the wrong thing to say.

‘Did you manage to sleep on the flight?’ he asked abruptly.

How she wished she could take her words back. Swallow them. Instead, she tried to regulate her breathing enough to answer.

‘Yes.’

Seven hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep in the company jet’s bedroom suite had inarguably been more comfortable than the doctor’s accommodation at the New York clinic where she’d snatched the odd hour or so whilst pulling her second thirty-six-hour shift of the week.

‘Clearly it wasn’t enough—you still look tired.’ He peered at her, concerned.

It was hard to ooze the nonchalance for which she was so ironically well known when her whole body was going into overdrive at the mere suggestion of solicitude from him.

‘Gosh, thanks for the compliment.’

She even managed to keep her voice from shaking, but Myles ignored her dry tone.

‘You should look after yourself more.’ He apparently felt the need to hammer home the point.

Rae chastised herself for hoping for something more praiseworthy from him.

‘Says the man who, if you’re anything like my brother, exists on four hours’ sleep a night.’ She kept her laugh deliberately light.

He shrugged as though it was okay for him.

Her chest cracked.

So much for Myles being her bodyguard, meant to protect her, to ensure she didn’t get hurt. As far as Rae was concerned, he was the one person who could wound her more deeply than anyone else ever could.

Just as he had done before.

Clearly fifteen years had taught her absolutely nothing.

CHAPTER THREE

‘CASE C CONCERNS emergency foetal intervention at twenty-five weeks and four days into the pregnancy, for a sacrococcygeal teratoma. That is, a congenital tumour growing at the base of the foetus’ spine. It is one of the most common tumours amongst neonatals, occurring in approximately one in every forty thousand babies. But because it arises from stem cells it can be made up of any kind of tissue from anywhere around the body.’

It took a while for Myles to realise that he was as caught up in her lecture, her enthusiasm for her subject matter, as everyone else in the ballroom.

She looked magnificent up there on the stage and holding the entire conference in silent rapture. He had hugely underestimated her. Underestimated the residual feelings that still ran between them, and now he was here. Paying the price.

He tuned back in, unable to help himself.

‘Ultrasound. And because the teratoma has a blood supply, the baby’s heart was pumping much harder. It was as if they were in competition and the tumour was winning, resulting in a significant risk of the baby going into cardiac arrest.’

Myles shifted his position.

He’d been a battlefield trauma surgeon for so long. He’d never imagined doing anything else. Never wanted to.

But that was before.

In seventeen years, nothing had quite got to him like that day with Mikey, and what had happened in that village. And, suddenly, he’d found himself never wanting to pick up another scalpel for the rest of his life. Not because he was afraid of what he might do. But more he was afraid of what he might no longer be able to do.

Ever.

PTSD. Not uncommon after so many back-to-back tours, and so many atrocities, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. It didn’t make the idea of going back to operating any more appealing. Which was why accepting Rafe’s suggestion of clinical observation—a sort of halfway house—had made sense, even if he hadn’t actually liked the idea.

He had his qualifications. And it wasn’t as though he was doing anything else. The death threats to Rafe’s family had been the proverbial added bonus. The tie-in with Rae almost like fate. He focussed back on Rae.

‘The de-bulking of the tumour on the actual foetus usually takes less than half an hour,’ she was telling them. ‘The majority of the five-hour operation is spent opening up the uterus in the first instance, and then stitching it closed again. Our biggest concern is to avoid compromising the health of the mother, and we have to make sure the uterus is sealed and watertight.’

Fascinated, he allowed himself to be absorbed by her presentation. Her care for her patients shone through her excitement for the skilled procedure. She handled the questions well, informing without patronising, always happy to elaborate or explain.

For a moment, Myles forgot everything. Who he was. Where. Why. And just let his old enthusiasm for medicine begin to slowly unfurl. Then the ballroom erupted into applause, and Myles made his way backstage to meet her.

It hit him even before he turned around. The shift in the atmosphere, the way the air seemed to close in on him. When he turned around, she almost stole the breath from his lungs.

It wasn’t Rae’s looks that struck him, although she was certainly attractive. She’d always been attractive, and that hadn’t changed. But this was something more. A presence, an aura, for want of a better term. She carried herself better than she once had, but with none of the arrogant hauteur he’d been expecting.

Unsettled, he could only stare in silence for what was a split second but felt more like a minute; fighting the sensation that he was actually drowning in his own lungs.

When had they closed the gap between the two of them? And why did the unexpected proximity send a slew of memories cascading through his brain, all of which centred on the chemistry that had arced between them that Christmas, the hot glances and the bodies brushing against each other in the long corridors of that old house?

And now those shrewd eyes were assessing him. Judging him.

‘Good lecture. I’m glad to see that you’ve finally found something for which it’s worth being well known.’

It was a low, cruel blow, and he loathed himself for it. As though he was deliberately trying to goad her. To remind her of the girl who had leaked a sex tape, which Rafe had only found out about when some of his men had been watching it online, in the middle of a tour of duty.

To remind her of the girl who had offered him her virginity first.

What was he angrier about? That she hadn’t waited for him? Or that she’d rubbed his face in it by doing it for a sex tape for the world to see?

Or maybe he was trying to remind himself of that girl, since his body appeared to be reacting to her in a way of which his brain unquestionably disapproved.

She blinked, a faint stain spreading across her cheeks, and if he hadn’t known it to be impossible he’d have thought he saw a flash of shame and regret in those forest depths. But then it was gone and she eyed him with distaste.

‘Which is fortunate for you, since you’re to be shadowing me.’

He tried to pretend her voice didn’t tremble a little at the end. That she was still as strong as she was clearly pretending to be. Because otherwise it might make him soften all the more towards her.

And that wouldn’t be acceptable. There was clearly more wrong with his state of mind than he had feared.

Then she crossed her arms over her chest as if it could somehow provide her with some degree of armour, when all it really did was highlight the generous breasts Myles was unexpectedly having to fight to pretend he didn’t notice.

Lust barrelled through him. As shocking and unwelcome as it was unstoppable. Making his body fire up like a mark five thunder flash.

In some perverse way, he almost welcomed it. Ever since that last mission he’d been numb. Unable to feel, to want, anything. In the six months since he’d left the army he’d been existing, not living.

At least this—whatever this was—made a change from the hollow, empty nothingness that had swirled around his chest for so long now, like the dark waters moving perniciously beneath the blue marble of an ice road, ready to claim a life the moment that sheet barrier grew too thin. Ready to erupt in a blowout at the first opportunity.

It was time to open the memories on the girl he’d once known. To finally acknowledge that he might have been mistaken in what he’d thought about her all these years.

Almost against his better judgement, he found himself employing one of the skills he’d perfected so well throughout his career.

The ability to re-evaluate.

Her hair, as long, thick, and glossy brown as he remembered, was pulled back into an attractive yet practical ponytail thing. Her clothes were professional yet subtly sexy and she wore no false nails, or eyelashes, or caked-on make-up. In fact, he couldn’t be sure she was wearing any make-up at all, her face was so clear, so soft.

Horrified, he realised his fingers were actually itching to touch her, to see if she was as smooth as she looked. He balled them quickly and resisted the urge to shove them in his pockets. Yet her eyes flickered, as though she somehow knew.

His head was already a mess without the complication of attraction. He felt like that angry, desperate twenty-one-year-old all over again, not knowing where his life was heading but knowing he needed to take the only chance he had to get away from the nightmare childhood that had made nasty Ronald Rawlstone look like Father of the Year.

That Christmas with Rae had been the only time he’d ever stopped, and wondered, and wanted. Even if she’d never known it.

He needed to understand if he really had been a gullible idiot to have lain there that night and wondered if he should just walk out of his room, down that hallway, and risk it all to be with her.

‘I was with Rafe on his last tour of duty when your father died. When you leaked that ignominious sex tape,’ he said quietly. ‘I was with him when we walked in on men, soldiers under his command, watching you...frolic...on-screen.’

She blanched but he forced himself to go on. Pretending it hadn’t seared him as much as it had seared Rafe, if for very different reasons. Pretending he hadn’t harboured secret fantasies of returning to the US after his tour of duty and making good on the offer she’d presented him with on that crazy night.

If he pretended it was just about the way she’d let down Rafe, and not about his own hurt pride, then maybe it could be true.

‘Your brother...half-brother, had to command those men. Up until that moment, he’d been respected by those men. After that, things changed.’

‘I didn’t...’ She faltered, then stopped.

‘You didn’t what?’ Myles echoed.

But she didn’t answer. She simply shook her head.

And what galled him the most was that suddenly there was a small, hitherto non-existent part of him that desperately wanted to hear her say something, anything, to make it less unpalatable.

It made absolutely no sense. And yet he ached.

They were standing close. Too close. He could feel her breath on his chest, rapid and shallow. The temptation to step forward, to lift his hands to her face, to...what? Kiss her? That couldn’t happen.

He had no idea how he managed it, but, abruptly, he took a step backwards. Was the distance a blessing or a curse?

* * *

Rae stood motionless, silently willing Myles to stop moving away from her, though she couldn’t explain why.

Her eyes were still locked with his, which were the same intense colour as the most turquoise-blue waters that lapped at her favourite Caribbean island. Eyes that had plagued her darkest dreams for the last decade. He might as well have weaved some kind of spell over her at that first encounter all those years ago.

But, more than that, she’d seen the respect when he and her brother had approached each other, she’d heard the fondness, and suddenly she found herself craving it, too.

To be on the receiving end of a warm look from Major Myles Garrington, instead of a look that suggested he considered her on a par with the dirt on the sole of his shoe.

He’d changed so much in the last fifteen years. He was now so solid, so unyielding, so authoritative. And yet, in some way she couldn’t put her finger on, he hadn’t changed a bit.

It left her feeling strangely rattled. Undone.

‘You didn’t what?’ Myles pressed again.

She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t the woman the press made her out to be. That the only man she’d ever been intimate with had been Justin. That she’d thought herself in love. That he’d assured her he had been in love.

She could almost taste the words on her tongue, sweet syllables that could free her.

Or condemn her.

Because she knew what her reputation with the salivating press was. Knew what the public thought of her. And even if none of that were true, hadn’t she thrown herself at Myles that New Year’s Eve? Of course he was going to believe she was capable of doing exactly the same thing with Justin only months later.

He would never believe that wasn’t at all how it had happened that night.

The best thing she could do would be to forget any history with Myles. But surely it was impossible not to notice the man now looming in front of her? The man who had always been good-looking but who now made that term seem flimsy and two-dimensional.

His handsome qualities had long since segued into something more brooding, more weathered. His strong features now had character. They told a story. She was already spellbound, and it frightened her. Just like the lines etched softly onto his skin, which suggested he’d been places, seen things, done things. He was a hard, autocratic, lethal kind of handsome.

‘I didn’t frolic,’ she bit out abruptly.

His mouth curled ever so slightly, his antipathy surely evident. Yet inexplicably it only made her traitorous fingers twitch to reach out and touch those unusually bow-shaped lips; the dimple gave him the most glorious cleft chin.

Would it still feel the same as it once did beneath her fingertips?

Before, when she’d said she’d been expecting someone...more, it struck her that what she’d really meant was someone less. Someone who didn’t affect her anywhere near the way this one man affected her. Someone who didn’t make her feel as though she were searing from the inside out. Cauterised by his every mocking look, desiccating from his indifferent tone.

Just as she always had been.

‘Of course not,’ he replied silkily. ‘Because you’re the steadfast, quiet Rawlstone sister, with no press reputation at all. Forgive me but I forgot.’

She flashed her brightest smile.

The one that she had long ago learned best concealed all the hurt inside her.

She knew exactly what the press said about her, every line, every lie. Which made it a hard reputation to shake. Although, by God, she’d tried.

But whilst Rafe might appreciate how she’d struggled to distance herself from her mother and sisters all this time, the press weren’t always as understanding; the public not completely forgiving.

Neither was Myles, standing there, judging her as he was. She felt weighed and she felt measured, but what bothered her more was the shame flooding through her body at the realisation that this man...this man...found her deplorably wanting.

How was it that his opinion of her mattered so much more than that of hundreds, even thousands, of other people? The way he’d got under her skin with barely a word was shocking. Frightening. Not least because of last time. What was the matter with her? She wrinkled her nose in self-castigation, blurting words out before her brain had the chance to engage.

‘Why are you doing this, Myles? Just so you can taunt me?’ Her pitch was rising but she couldn’t seem to control it. ‘Just so you can remind me of the fool I made of myself when I crept into your room practically naked, stupidly—so stupidly—imagining that the kiss we’d shared earlier that evening meant you wanted me?’

‘This isn’t about that night,’ he rasped, his voice so unrecognisable that it took a moment for her to realise it really was him.

‘It isn’t?’ she whispered.

‘No, Raevenne, it’s definitely not about that night.’ There was no mistaking the look of utter disgust that contorted his features now.

She tried to rearm herself but it was too late, and his loathing smashed over her with deadly force.

‘I try not to remember that night. It isn’t difficult. It isn’t something I ever care to think about. I thought you were different, Rae, I thought you were someone else, someone worth being honourable for.’

‘Yeah, well, having a door slammed in my face certainly didn’t feel honourable.’

She didn’t know why she was fighting back. What she was hoping to achieve.

‘You offered me your virginity.’

‘I know what I did.’ Her whole body felt as though it were on fire. ‘And I know you practically laughed me out your room.’

‘I believed I was doing the right thing. I thought...’ He paused as if having to catch himself. ‘I thought your innocence meant more to you than it obviously did. I was leaving, as soon as that Christmas break was up and Rafe felt as though he’d done his duty. I felt you deserved more than someone who slept with you once or twice and then cut out, never to be seen again.’

‘It did mean something to me—’ she began.

A brash, humourless laugh, which she barely even recognised, cut her off.

‘Of course it did. So much so, in fact, that you not only slept with the next guy you dated-and I use that term very loosely-but you filmed the whole thing and leaked it on the Internet all in the name of fame.’

Nausea crashed over her and it was all she could do to fight it back. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

‘I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know he was filming me. I certainly didn’t leak it. My God, is that really how little you think of me?’

‘That’s bull,’ Myles growled, ignoring her question. ‘If you hadn’t known anything about it then he would have been filming a sex act without consent. That’s a criminal offence. You would have said something. He would have been convicted. He should have been convicted. But instead you stayed quiet. You protected him. Why do that unless you were in on it, too?’

She wanted to tell him. She’d imagined this moment so very many times over the years. But the words wouldn’t come. Something seemed to be stopping her.

‘I was pathetic, naïve, desperate and I didn’t want to look any more of an idiot than I already did.’ The words tumbled out inelegantly.

The harsh bark was about as far from a laugh as it was possible to get.

‘Oh, come on, Rae. You can’t seriously expect anyone to believe that. You weren’t protecting yourself, you were protecting him.’

She shook her head, hating the very idea of that.

‘I wasn’t. I never protected him. I hate him. I...’ She bit her lip and then decided she had nothing left to lose. ‘I was protecting you.’

The silence that descended on them was so instant, so heavy, that for a moment she thought her eardrums had burst and all she could sense was a ringing in her head. For long, long moments they stood, eyes locked, perfectly still, and then Myles spoke.

‘Say again?’ Dark, forbidding. It wasn’t exactly the response she’d been hoping for.

Rae drew in a deep breath, her voice quaking unrecognisably.

‘I was protecting you,’ she practically whispered. ‘Just like you protected me that night when we were kids. You were so principled even though you were only three years older than me. Telling me I was too innocent, too young emotionally, that I might hate myself when you left, that I was Rafe’s sister.’

Not that it had made her feel any better, and less rejected, at the time. Even now she couldn’t shake the knowledge that if she’d been sexy and worldly like her sisters, even at seventeen, he couldn’t have walked away from her however principled he was.

But that was a truth she would always hug to herself. A truth too embarrassing to voice aloud to anyone. Ever.

He didn’t answer, but the locked jaw told her that he was barely containing his fury. She hurried on before he could say any words she didn’t want to hear.

‘If I had told people that I hadn’t consented then there would have had to have been an investigation. It would have been my word against his. They would have looked at my sexual history. And they might have found out about you.’

‘We didn’t do anything,’ Myles growled, his obvious contempt slicing through her more deeply than she could have thought imaginable.

In all her scenarios over the years, she’d never once considered that he wouldn’t believe her. How foolish that seemed now.

‘But they might not have believed we didn’t do anything,’ she cried. ‘And you know what they say about mud sticking. Your name would have been dragged into it whether we liked it or not. The press would have loved any whiff of scandal concerning a supposedly principled British army officer. The truth wouldn’t have mattered. Your reputation would have been tainted for ever.’

‘You really want me to believe you let people think and say everything they did about you to protect me?’

Disgust, and what looked terrifyingly like hatred, clouded his face. It was all Rae could do not to shrink away, even as something tore at her heart.

‘It’s the truth.’ She had no idea how she held her ground. ‘But it wasn’t just about you. Like I said, it was about me, too. Whatever I said wouldn’t have undone what had happened. That video would always be out there...will always be out there. And there would have been no guarantee they’d have believed me over Justin. So I tried to make the best out of it. I figured it would die down when the next scandal came along.’

She could never have imagined what a miscalculation that would be.

Probably about as gigantic a blunder as blurting out the truth now and allowing herself to think, even for a moment, that Myles would believe her.

Even forgive her.

Instead she found herself staring into the glacial depths.

‘Myles—’

‘I don’t want to hear any more.’ He cut her pleading off abruptly.

‘I really—’

‘I said enough, Raevenne.’

She bit her tongue. She could refuse to be cowed by him but what good would it do to force the issue? It would only make him shut down all the more.

If that was even possible.

So instead she stood still, too afraid even to shift her weight from one foot to the other, as if they were teetering on the edge of some abyss and the slightest movement could send them plummeting down.