Charlotte Hawkes – Christmas With Her Bodyguard (страница 7)

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.