Christmas With Her Bodyguard

CHAPTER TWO

HE HADN’T INTENDED the emphasis on now. Hadn’t meant to sound so disparaging. But the storm raging in his head wasn’t letting him think straight.

‘I am. Obstetrics and gynaecology.’ She lifted her head proudly and something kicked in his chest. ‘And I’m a good one, too. I’m also a maternal and foetal medicine specialist.’

She was actually sparkling. That moss-green edging in her eyes seemed more like a deeper navy blue right now, which had always meant her emotions were running high. He’d learned to read Rae through her eyes long, long ago.

‘So Rafe said.’ He wrenched himself back to the present.

‘Right.’ She bit her lip and it did something to his gut that it had no business doing.

‘He also told me you were giving a keynote speech at the World Precision Medicine Conference tonight.’

Her cheeks flushed again.

‘I am. And I heard you gave a brilliant lecture there a few years ago. I was meant to attend but...there was a medical emergency and I missed my plane.’

She offered a rueful grin and suddenly it occurred to him that whatever stories the media told—however they touched on her medical career but focussed on her personal life—Rae was utterly invested in her career as a doctor.

This, Myles realised with a start, was more like the Raevenne he remembered from all those years ago.

The rest of the world might know her as the girl who had catapulted her despicable side of the Rawlstone family onto the reality scene with a sex tape of her eighteen-year-old self and her twenty-eight-year-old bodyguard.

But that wasn’t the girl that he’d known. At least, not back then.

It wasn’t the sweet, blushing seventeen-year-old with whom he’d felt an attraction from the moment Rafe had introduced them. He’d tried to fight it, of course—Rafe had been his best mate, but even at seventeen she’d seemed far older, far more mature, than her years. The three years between them had melted away and, cooped up in that house trying to stay away from the rest of Rafe’s god-awful half-family—from the self-serving mother to the callous father so wretchedly similar to his own—he and Rae had forged a bond.

And then, despite his best intentions, the heady glances had evolved to fleeting touches, stolen kisses, and something so much more intense. He’d wanted her with such a ferocity, as he’d wanted no other woman before.

Probably as he’d wanted no other woman since, either.

It had taken a supreme effort to eject her from his room that night, even as he’d been physically aching to do something altogether different. It might have been legally acceptable, but it was still wrong in Myles’ mind. She’d been too young besides being Rafe’s sister. Neither argument had gone down well with Rae that night.

And all the while she’d been standing there in the flimsiest scraps of lace and his body had been under no illusions about how much he’d wanted her.

Even now, at the mere memory, his body tensed, coiled, like steel bands cinched tight on machinery, barely harnessing hundreds of pounds of pressure. The chemistry between him and Rae had been instantaneous. He’d tried to fight it, but it had been like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Its intensity had rocked him and it had only been the fact that she was his best friend’s half-sister that had enabled Myles to walk away from her that last night when she’d offered herself to him completely. When she’d offered him the precious gift of her virginity.

That and the fact that he’d thought she deserved better than someone like him who might sleep with her once or twice and then would be gone. He’d thought she thought more of herself than to want someone like that.

And then she’d gone and not only thrown her virginity away on some wide boy like that bouncer, but she’d filmed it and leaked it to the press, as well.

Instantly he shut down the quiet doubt that had always nagged in the back of his mind.

Rafe had always claimed his half-sister had been innocent, but if that were true Rae herself would have told her side of it a long time ago.

He’d fallen for that innocent act once before. Surely he wasn’t stupid enough to let himself be taken in by it a second time?

‘I’m here because your brother asked for my help.’ He injected a deliberately harder tone into his voice, reminding himself that nowadays he was immune to that look of hurt that skittered across her face. ‘Not to blow smoke up each other’s backsides.’

She blanched, but he had to admire the way she jutted her chin out that little bit more.

‘I was merely complimenting a colleague. I had no idea it was so offensive to you.’

Her self-assurance was heady. He hadn’t been prepared for quite how much of a woman Rae had grown into. But he could resist her, he’d proven it that night when the temptation had been immense.

So why, after all these years, did something still scrape away inside him making him feel raw and...edgy?

‘I’m not here for you.’ Was he repeating it for her benefit, or for his own? ‘I’m here because Rafe asked me to be.’

‘The same way you came to our home all those Christmases ago, because Rafe hadn’t wanted to spend the holidays alone with his new stepfamily after his mother had just died?’ she challenged.

‘Rafe and I were recruits together. We did officers’ training together.’ Myles shrugged. ‘They break down the individual and build up a team.’

‘Is that why you tried to talk Rafe out of leaving when the stipulations in my father’s will forced him to leave the British army and move to America to take over the Rawlstone Group instead?’

‘Being an officer in the army was the one thing your old man knew Rafe truly loved. It was a power play from the grave.’

‘Obviously.’ She let out a humourless laugh. ‘But why did you care so much?’

For a moment, Myles almost didn’t answer.

‘Because when I was on a medical mission that went south, Rafe’s infantry unit was there. I owe my life to your brother.’

‘Which is why you couldn’t refuse his request to play at being my bodyguard.’

Something skittered over her features, too fast for him to read.

‘Yes,’ he bit out, instead.

He just hadn’t banked on that old attraction roaring into life at the mere sound of her voice through a door. A chemistry like a volcano that had lain dormant for so long that it had fooled even himself into thinking it was extinct, but which now rumbled and heated and swelled within him.

And she was looking at him as though she felt exactly the same way.

‘I’m glad it’s you,’ she whispered suddenly. ‘I don’t think I could have gone through with this if Rafe had found anyone else to play the part.’

Dammit, she was creeping under his skin and he didn’t think she even knew it.

He couldn’t allow her to know he still looked at her like that. That he still thought of her the way he had done fifteen years ago. That he still thought of her at all.

He tried reminding himself that his career as an army surgeon was all he’d ever needed.

But then he remembered that was gone, now—blown apart in an instant—and he had nothing.

Nothing to be proud of any more. Nothing to offer. Not to any woman, but certainly not to Rae. So, if he couldn’t keep his tone even, controlled, neutral, then he was going to have to go the other way.

He was going to have to ensure that the last thing Rae wanted to do was revisit old haunts best left to rest.

‘I owe Rafe. And if that means taking on the role of discreet bodyguard to his half-sister—’ the words were deliberate, as if to wedge even more distance between them ‘—then I will. But believe me, Rae, as soon as it’s over I’ll be back out of your life faster than you can even turn around.’

* * *

Rae couldn’t move, could barely even breathe, and she had no idea how she’d managed to answer him. Caught in a fist so tight that it felt as though it was crushing her soul right out of her chest.

She swallowed hard and plunged in.

‘Fine. Then...we keep it strictly professional.’

‘That would be best.’

He didn’t blink, didn’t even move. There was no trace at all that he even remembered the kisses they’d shared. The way he’d made her body come to life as no man ever had before.

Or since.

‘Rafe mentioned that you’ve already completed the necessary qualifications and that you and he have been discussing a clinical observation role for some months already?’

‘I’m weighing my options,’ Myles confirmed curtly.

A coldness crept over her skin; the sense that he was trying to shut her out as much as possible. It shouldn’t hurt. But it did.

She fought to peel her eyes off the man who stood, more imposing and mouth-watering than ever, in front of her. She failed.

He looked well.

Actually, he looked more than well. She wasn’t sure when they’d closed the gap between them again, but he was so close now she had to tilt her head right up to maintain eye contact. To prove she wasn’t really as intimidated as she felt. To pretend her heart wasn’t doing odd...flippy things.

Myles was tall. She’d forgotten quite how tall. She wasn’t exactly short to start with, but even wearing heels as she was, he still towered above her. Six feet three with shoulders wide enough to block out the view from even the expansive picture window behind him, but then a V-shaped chest tapered to a narrower waist, more athletic-fit than body-builder-fit, and powerful thighs encased in dark trousers. Familiar, and yet at the same time different.

His body itself looked like a weapon—precisely honed and utterly lethal, but it was more than that. He’d grown up, she realised with a start, and now he was more honed, more powerful, more...dangerous.

He positively exuded dominance, strength, control. As they stood there glowering at each other it was as though the last decade and a half toppled away without warning.

‘I’m sorry.’

The apology was out before she even knew the words were on her tongue. But his scowl only deepened.

‘What for?’

Rae hesitated. What had she meant? That night? Justin? Whatever had happened to Myles’ distinguished army career?

Ultimately she shook her head, unable to articulate the thoughts that lurked in the fog of her mind, and the fringe that she’d been growing out, which was too long to be bangs but too short to tie back into her trademark ponytail, fell forward from behind her ear.

For a split second she thought his hand moved, as though about to tuck the hair back into place. And then she realised he was merely lifting his arms to fold across his chest, even as he took a step back. Putting more space between them, leaving her inexplicably bereft.

Had she imagined that instinctive, smouldering gaze from Myles? She must have, because the look he was casting her right now was, at best, one of distaste. At worst...

God, she still wanted him.

Realisation crashed over her like an icy wave on a scorching day. Because if she still wanted him, after everything, then she was as much in danger of making a fool of herself in front of the man as she had ever been.

And that simply couldn’t happen.

Heat scorched her cheeks as Rae remembered the way she’d crept into Myles’ room practically naked that last night and offered herself to him in the most intimate way she possibly could. He’d responded so urgently, so demandingly, so loaded with intent, she’d been lost in the moment and totally unprepared when he’d wrenched himself away, bundled her up into the quilt from the end of his guest suite bed, and pushed her unceremoniously back out into the corridor, slamming his bedroom door in her face.

He’d rejected her. Without a word of explanation. And she’d felt as though her world had crashed around her. The fact that he and Rafe had left the next day for some army exercise had meant that there had been no chance for her to get answers, and so for months she’d shut herself away wondering what was wrong with her. If she wasn’t pretty enough, or sexy enough, or experienced enough.

Nonetheless, a bruised self-confidence didn’t excuse the fact that she’d been stupid enough to fall for lies from a piece of trash like Justin. How had she ever thought that he could make her feel like an attractive woman again?

‘You’re sorry for what, Rae?’ he repeated, his voice harsher than ever.

But if she couldn’t explain it to herself, how could she explain it to Myles?

In all these years she’d never once explained herself to the press. Never once tried to put forward her side of that story. Not least because she knew no one would listen. Or if they did, they would spin it so that somehow she ended up coming out even worse.

Stupid, as well as scandalous.

More than that, if she’d told the truth, said that she’d known nothing about the camera, then it would have been a criminal offence and there would have had to have been a legal case.

Inevitably there would have been a character assassination of her, and even back then Rae had known that if the police and press had delved into her, then they might have found out about Myles.

She would have ruined his friendship with her half-brother, dragged his reputation through the mud, and even harmed his army career. All because she hadn’t seen Justin for what he really was...a lying, scheming lowlife who just thought he could use her connection to Life in the Rawl to get his own fifteen minutes of fame.

Plus, she’d figured the less drama, the quicker it would all die down.

She’d been wrong. It had been too juicy for the press to let go of. It was only in the last few years of her becoming a fully-fledged doctor and OBGYN that they had finally begun to leave her alone and stop trying to connect her to any decent-looking male with a healthy pulse.

The silver lining, if she could call it that, was that she’d long since learned to own her mistakes. Own the woman those awful experiences had moulded her into. It had become her armour, her best emotional defence. And right now, with her head swirling wildly and thoughts jostling impatiently, she needed some way to buy herself time before she blurted everything out to him without first preparing the ground, and inevitably ruining her one opportunity to make him understand.

She needed something familiar. She needed some kind of anchor.

Even if a part of her knew that anchor was actually a tub of cement shoes ready to drown her at any moment.

She tipped her head almost coquettishly and pulled her shoulders back in the kind of deliberately provocative move her sisters executed to devastating effect on practically a daily basis, but which she hadn’t used in years.

‘Forget it.’ She even managed to force the beginnings of a wicked little smile, even if her cheeks did feel tight and unwilling. ‘I wasn’t really thinking.’

Myles locked his jaw and she could practically see the tiny pulse flickering away.

‘Of course not,’ he ground out. ‘Because why change the habit of a lifetime?’

‘Why indeed?’

She didn’t care that he was staring at her as though she were a fleck of contemptible mud on the toe of one of his polished army boots. Really she didn’t.

Not, she imagined, that he would ever tolerate any form of dirt on his parade boots.

And it didn’t twist inside her to know that he, like pretty much the rest of the world, actually believed that she had ever had any part in that vile sex tape. There was no reason for this shameful heat that spread over her cheeks. She’d long since mastered the art of pretending that it didn’t get to her. If she could fool the press, the public, then she could certainly fool Myles.

Tilting her head that little bit higher, Rae forced herself—however many knives stabbed into the dark hollow where her soul had once been—to meet his glower.

As if she were simply playing the game he evidently thought she was playing, although her voice damn near cracked when she answered him.

Myles narrowed his eyes but she ignored it.

‘Well, now we have those pleasantries out of the way—’ she rolled her eyes to make her point ‘—I think it’s time for me to go. I have a lecture to get ready for. Doctor or not, I find the press prefer glamorous photos to dowdy shots.’

‘Is that so?’ Myles pursed his lips and she knew he was thinking of the sex tape.

Just as she’d intended, she told herself.

It was the only way.

Other than Rafe, Myles was the only other man alive who she’d ever wanted to impress. She couldn’t explain it, but in some perverse way she would prefer he hated her for the choices he thought she had made, than know she was so pathetic that she’d let someone like Justin play her.

She scowled at him, and in that moment something crossed his face, pulling his features and making her look again.

She realised abruptly that he didn’t look as well as she’d initially thought. Or, more accurately, he looked physically incredible, but non-physically...?

Her heart kicked before she could stop it and it was all she could do not to reach out and touch his tense, strained face. His eyes were darker than she remembered. Bleaker. Grim and laced with pain.

Her head swam with echoes of her half-brother’s words outside the doors just before they’d entered the room. That Myles needed their help.

She had known that Myles had spent most of his career as a battlefield trauma surgeon with a specialty in plastic surgery—specifically with burns from bombs, IEDs and mines. But hearing that Myles had been caught up in it, injured so badly that he’d chosen to leave the army altogether rather than fly a desk, was sickening.

It had been awful hearing Rafe tell her that Myles, having been authorised to return to operating, had turned down lucrative job offers with hospitals up and down the UK, as well as opportunities in multiple top US hospitals.

It had taken her a while to understand what Rafe had been suggesting.

‘I think that right now Myles needs to see other specialties of medicine.’ Rafe’s caginess had snagged her attention. ‘I need you to help him, Rae.’

It was the closest she’d ever heard her half-brother get to a plea.

‘Let him see a different side to being a surgeon. One which doesn’t involve suicide bombers, and maimed kids, and putting your closest buddies in a body bag.’

She’d felt sick on Myles’ behalf.

She could have told her brother that being an OBGYN wasn’t all hearts and flowers; that death touched this area of medicine, too. But somehow it didn’t seem the same. Especially when she remembered the look on Rafe’s face when he’d told her that a lance corporal, a mere kid, had taken his own life that day, and that he feared Myles blamed himself.

‘Is he right to?’ Rae had asked abruptly.

She hadn’t meant to, but she’d suddenly found that she was shaking and this was the only way she could stop it.

‘Of course not.’ Rafe had looked momentarily annoyed, before making a clear effort to soften his tone. ‘Please, Rae? You’d be solving two problems for me. You would be getting a bodyguard we can both trust. And you would potentially be helping the man who showed me how to be the best leader and soldier I could possibly be.’