Kitabı oku: «Christmas With Her Bodyguard»

CHAPTER ONE

‘REALLY, RAFE.’ GRITTING her teeth to stay calm, Rae hurried behind her half-brother’s long strides as he burned through the Rawlstone Group’s UK headquarters. ‘I appreciate you’re only looking out for me, but I really don’t need a bodyguard. Especially around Christmas.’

Her stomach roiled at the mere thought of another bodyguard. Even after all these years.

‘I’m sorry, Rae.’ He sounded genuinely regretful. ‘If there were any other way...’

‘There has to be,’ she pleaded. ‘Please, Rafe, you know the press will take any excuse to rake up the past. They never believed in my innocence as it was, and I couldn’t bear it. Not again.’

Another stomach lurch. It was hard enough putting up with paparazzi dogging her daily life, pretending she didn’t care what lies they wrote about her, or how little the public thought of her. She certainly didn’t need to give them a reason to rerun all those stories of her utterly spectacular plummet into shame almost fourteen years ago.

No matter what she’d done to try to redeem herself, they had refused to believe that she’d known nothing about the sex tape, let alone leaked it. It had taken her ten years and a career in medicine to get them to finally stop linking her—usually scandalously—to every Hollywood A-lister, every rock musician, or every trust-fund kid in whose presence she was spotted.

It hadn’t mattered that she’d barely even exchanged a word with some of them, let alone dated them. Sex sold. Scandal sold. That was all that mattered to them for so, so long. Only in the last four years had they finally, reluctantly, begun to come around to her side.

A bodyguard would undo all that good work. She could just read the headlines now.

Scarlet woman Raevenne Rawlstone finally takes a new bodyguard. Will he be as undercover as the last one?

And that would be one of the tamer offerings.

Hot shame flooded her body as X-rated images, intimate moments that never had been anything but private, filled her brain.

‘I can’t have another bodyguard,’ she choked out. ‘I won’t.’

Abruptly, her legs gave out and she just about made it to the wall for support, the old stonework rough beneath her hands. She’d trailed her fingers over their cool surface many times in the past, but tonight they seemed colder than usual, sapping her body heat as unseen edges cut into her skin. Rae withdrew her hand abruptly.

She usually loved visiting Rafe here. The offices might be as super high-tech as every other square millimetre of real estate in the company’s portfolio, but Rafe’s flair for restoring vast, old buildings, with their inspiring architecture, always had her gasping with admiration.

Today, however, she barely noticed the glorious stonework or vaulted ceilings. December was in a matter of weeks and yet she couldn’t envisage the festive lights and decorations that would go transform this place into something infinitely magical. She didn’t even think about the fact that, when the offices closed their proverbial business doors for the Christmas shutdown, Rafe would open the physical doors to the house and feed the homeless, the way he always did for those ten days.

Her half-brother was moving back to her, reaching out to cup her shoulder, the closest he came to a hug. None of the Rawlstone clan found it easy to show emotion—an overhang from their mutual father, the cold and remote Ronald Rawlstone—but she and Rafe both knew they cared about each other.

‘We’ll deal with the press if we need to. You won’t be alone, Rae. But I told you, I received a death threat the other day.’

‘We always receive death threats.’ She waved her hands desperately. ‘We’re Rawlstones.’

Or at least her side of the Rawlstone family always received death threats. Her limelight-loving sisters and mother had made it their mission with their Life in the Rawl reality show.

By contrast their half-brother, Rafe, CEO of the Rawlstone Group and former British army officer, was generally universally adored. At least by the press and public.

‘This one is credible,’ he replied simply. ‘So, it’s precisely because it is Christmas that I need to know you’re safe. Especially with all the festive fundraisers and seasonal socials you’ll no doubt be compelled to attend. Your sisters already have bigger personal protection details than even they need, as does your mother. It’s you I worry about.’

She stared miserably at some fixed point on the stonework that her eyes didn’t even see. ‘They’ll bring it all back up...what happened with Justin.’

The images flashed up again and she squeezed her eyes shut. It didn’t help. She could still see it. The moment she’d lost her virginity played out on social media for the world to see.

She might have gagged, she couldn’t be sure, but suddenly she was wrapped in a tight, if awkward, embrace.

‘The guy was a piece of scum.’ Controlled fury laced his voice along with a thread of guilt, and she hated that her half-brother felt even slightly responsible for the mistakes she’d made so many years ago. ‘I’ll never let anything like that happen to you again.’

‘You can’t promise that.’ Her voice sounded more strained than she would have preferred.

‘I can.’ Releasing her slightly, Rafe took a step back. ‘I personally requested the guy I’ve chosen to be our bodyguard. I trust him. He’s a major from my army days.’

Her heart actually stopped beating for a moment.

And another.

It took everything she had to tell herself not to be so foolish. That it couldn’t possibly be. And still her throat was thick, constricted, her tongue too big for her mouth, when she replied.

‘He’s some major or other from your army days?’

‘Not some major,’ Rafe disapproved. ‘Myles is one of the best officers I had the pleasure to serve with.

Everything receded. Went black.

She had no idea how long she stood there but when she came back, squeezing her eyes closed, she was eternally grateful that Rafe was too busy marching along to have turned around to look at her.

There seemed little point in trying to soothe and corral her skittering heart but she made a valiant effort nonetheless.

‘Myles.’

As if, perhaps, it could possibly be a different Myles.

‘That’s right, Major Myles Garrington.’ She could practically hear Rafe’s eye-roll. ‘I mentioned it was him before. Keep up, Rae.’

‘You didn’t,’ she managed feebly.

Myles. Numbness crept over her, but she had to hold herself together. Especially in front of Rafe. Her half-brother’s opinion was the only one that mattered to her these days; she certainly couldn’t let him know how she’d thrown herself at his best friend all those years ago.

She managed to stumble after him.

‘Oh, well, no matter.’ Rafe was oblivious. ‘Myles is a decent bloke—you’ll like him. You might not remember but you even met him once. He came with me the one and only Christmas holiday I spent with your family...oh, probably fifteen years ago now.’

Actually, fifteen years and two months ago. Not that she was counting. Much.

It was the only Christmas that Rafe had come to his half-family’s home. It had been at their mutual father’s insistence. As though the shocking death of his first wife had made Ronald Rawlstone suddenly remember the son he’d had little contact with—other than sending monthly financial support—for the best part of two decades.

She still didn’t know why Rafe had agreed—duty, probably, her half-brother had a strong sense of duty—she only knew that he’d brought his best friend, a fellow junior army officer, with him.

Myles Garrington.

He had changed her life in so many ways. Not all of them good.

And how humiliating that the numbness was only now beginning to recede because her traitorous body was already tingling at the memories of Myles that began to lace their way into her brain. Memories she’d spent fifteen years trying to bury.

The attraction between her and Myles when he’d walked into the Rawlstone family home with Rafe had been instantaneous. Its intensity had side-swiped her, and at seventeen—barely a few months off eighteen—it had been long overdue. Myles had just turned twenty-one, a medical student at uni, and already a junior officer in the British army. He’d seemed so much wiser and more mature than the American boys from her high school, and she’d fallen so very hard, so very fast. She’d genuinely believed him to be her first love. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, she recognised it for what it had really been...her first intense crush. Nothing more.

But still, when she looked back over that Christmas holiday she knew she’d acted wantonly. Then again, he hadn’t exactly beaten her off him.

Except for that last night.

‘Anyway,’ the usually astute Rafe continued, his pace unrelenting, ‘Myles was one of the best officers the British army had.’

‘Had?’

A sense of foreboding crept over her. Being an army trauma doctor had been Myles’ sole focus in life. She couldn’t imagine him ever leaving of his own volition.

‘He left six months ago.’

‘Why?’

To most other people it would have been indiscernible, but Rae didn’t miss Rafe’s uncharacteristic beat of hesitation.

‘There was a village. A fire. One of the riflemen protecting Myles’ medical team...died. Myles was injured badly, too... His hand. He couldn’t operate for a while but he couldn’t stand the idea of getting stuck behind a desk. Possibly there was a degree of survivor’s guilt, too. He’d been going through the process of coming to the States anyway so taking a clinical observation post under your supervision means he can still do that whilst also protecting you around the clock.’

‘Round the clock?’ She gasped. ‘He can’t live with me.’

‘Do you want to stay safe, or would you prefer to pander to your sensibilities?’

‘Rafe—’

‘Relax.’ He cut her off with a half-smile. ‘I don’t mean to needle you. For the moment it seems this threat is UK-based, so he’ll accompany you to your lecture tonight and on the private jet back to the States tomorrow. But he won’t need to live with you... I’ve purchased the property next door.’

There was no reason for her to feel so panicked. No reason at all. And if there was, she told herself firmly, it was at the idea that people had been hurt. Not at the thought of being in Myles’ company twenty-four seven.

‘Wait, you said Myles was hurt?’

Clearly there was more to it than that but it was little comfort to know her instincts had been correct. Still, since Rafe hadn’t stopped pounding along the corridors leaving Rae’s legs burning as she tried to keep up, this wasn’t going to be the ideal time to press him on it.

‘Wind your neck in, Rae. I didn’t say that.’

It was so far from Rafe’s usual lexicon that there was no missing his agitation. Which perhaps helped to explain why he apparently hadn’t noticed she’d gone from pretending not to remember Myles to showing fear he had been hurt.

Ironically, that only stirred her up all the more. Still, she needed to be more careful. More blasé.

‘Wind my neck in?’ She fought back her agitation to teasing him, shedding her American accent in order to imitate his vaguely plummy English pitch. ‘My dear brother, I do believe you’re the one who had me practically frogmarched from my thirty-six-hour shift at the hospital onto your private jet and flown across the Atlantic. Yet I’m the one who needs to “wind my neck in”?’

‘Funny, Rae.’ She could almost hear him roll his eyes at her. ‘Your impersonation leaves a lot to be desired. You could take the Dick Van Dyke award for abysmal cockney accents. I’ll warn Myles.’

She forced a laugh and told herself she wasn’t getting anxious. She had to pretend that his existence meant absolutely nothing to her.

Which, of course, it did.

It was only galling that she didn’t find herself remotely convincing.

‘Fine.’ She forced a dazzling grin even though her half-brother couldn’t see her. ‘You try my accent. I bet you can’t sound like a New Yorker.’

‘Rae,’ he cautioned.

‘Seriously, give it a try.’

‘Raevenne.’ He stopped at last, turning around to face her, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Stop panicking.’

Her stomach somersaulted again. Her half-brother knew? Surely that was impossible.

She was only relieved she’d slept most of the plane journey and her shift at the hospital had been so busy that she hadn’t eaten more than a biscuit for the last eighteen hours. At least it meant there was nothing to regurgitate.

‘Who said I’m panicking?’ Her shrill voice didn’t help and she stopped abruptly.

The silence was practically pressing in on her as she nonetheless followed Rafe up the stairs to his office in the panoramic suite on the tenth floor. He never took an elevator if he could take the stairs. One of the few overhangs he couldn’t conceal from his years in conflict zones as a frontline officer in the British army. Thank goodness for her own daily cardio sessions at the exclusive gym uptown.

And for the fact that they weren’t in the Manhattan office with its sixty-five storeys.

Then, all too soon, they were standing in the anteroom to Rafe’s office, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest at any moment.

Myles was on the other side of the door and she wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready to face him. To see even a shadow of disgust or condemnation in his expression.

Rafe’s hand reached for the door handle.

‘I can’t...’ she choked out, stumbling backwards.

‘Well, if you can’t do it for yourself, or even for me, then do it for Myles, Rae. He’d never say it but I think he needs us. The firefight was bad, Rae, it took Myles out for months whilst he wasn’t able to operate.’

A surgeon who couldn’t operate? Myles unable to operate? It didn’t bear thinking about.

She’d been ready for Rafe’s cajoling, even for him to order her in. But she hadn’t been prepared for him to lay such a perfect trap. It was her Achilles heel. If someone needed her help, she could never deny them. Rafe had known it, and he’d baited her shamelessly.

‘What’s going on, Rafe?’ She glowered at him even as she was compelled to ask the question, but Rafe simply shook his head.

‘It isn’t my story to tell.’

Frustration rushed her, but she was determined to hold her nerve. At least, outwardly.

‘If you want me to agree to this—’ she was amazed she managed to make it sound as if she were actually in control—as though her body hadn’t been turning itself inside out, caught between longing and sheer terror, from the moment she’d discovered that Myles was even in the building ‘—then you’ll tell me exactly what’s going on. Now.’

* * *

Myles could hear them, out in the corridor. Talking quietly.

He couldn’t make out the words but the context was unmistakeable. The higher, female voice, clearly Rae’s, was demanding. Rafe’s deeper voice was firm but uncharacteristically urgent. Myles gripped the sides of the plush chair and shifted awkwardly.

Why the hell had he ever agreed to this?

An image of Raevenne hovered in the back of his mind but he pushed it easily aside.

Ridiculous.

He wasn’t here for her. He was here because he had no other choice. Because he needed a job that took him away from battlefields and death, and Rafe, his former best friend, had offered him exactly that. And because his painstakingly constructed life had unravelled so incalculably these past six months.

Almost seventeen years in the British army—where he’d thought he would stay his whole life—over. Just like that.

Guilt pressed in on him.

Heavy.

Suffocating.

He blocked out the images—the smell of burning flesh, the village burned to the ground, young Lance Corporal Mike McCoy—which threatened to overwhelm him. Blackness closed over him and for a dangerous moment he swayed on the spot.

Only his subconscious fighting to lock on the familiar, feminine voice, muffled as it was through the door, provided him an anchor to the present.

He grasped at it gratefully.

One day at a time. Wasn’t that the advice he’d given out, time and again over the years, to soldiers in his position? Never imagining that one day it would be him standing there, his life having imploded and now lying in tatters around him.

But this wasn’t the army. Or what had happened out there. This was simple, uncomplicated, repaying an old debt to a good friend. Playing bodyguard whilst Rafe tracked down exactly who was threatening his family.

And right now, being a bodyguard beat being a surgeon hands down. True, part of Rafe’s plan included clinical observation but he could handle that. Observation was one thing. It was staying an active surgeon right now that certainly wasn’t an option.

An operating room with a body on the table in front of him and a scalpel in his hand was no place for a man who suspected he was on the edge of mild PTSD. His heart hammered angrily at the mere thought of it. At such an obvious sign of his own weakness. But those tours of duty had taken so many men and women he knew, so many innocent kids, so many helpless civilians, particularly that last week. And especially that last mission.

When perhaps he could have...should have...made different choices.

All those women, those kids. Mikey. It had taken them all.

Did it have to have taken part of his soul, too?

The sounds in the hallway provided a sudden, welcome distraction from his uncharacteristic moment of self-pity.

Ten operational tours in the past twelve years alone, sometimes back-to-back, and never once had he allowed himself to look back and dwell. Everybody knew that was the road to self-destruction because it wouldn’t bring anybody back and it was a waste of time.

Galvanised, he pushed himself out of the seat and stalked across the floor just as the door swung open and the familiar form of his former army buddy strode in. But it was the figure slinking in behind Rafe—her head resolutely down—that arrested his gaze.

Raevenne Rawlstone.

He hadn’t thought about her in years.

Liar.

He ignored the silent accusation.

But he had shoved memories of her, of that one Christmas together, to the back of his mind. Yet now, having heard Rae’s muffled yet nevertheless unmistakeable voice through the door, he found he couldn’t stuff her back into whatever cold corner of his mind in which she’d been lurking all these years.

It was insane. Objectionable. Unacceptable. And yet, it seemed, here he was.

He wasn’t aware that he’d crossed the room towards her until she lifted her head—those unmistakeable laurel-green eyes with their perfect, moss-green edging that had haunted him far more than he had ever cared to admit—and finally met his stare full-on.

His breath lodged, as though he were winded, as though seeing her for the first time in fifteen years. Innocent and fragile. So far removed from those gossip columns, those entertainment channels, that awful Life in the Rawl reality show.

He’d tried to escape them but it hadn’t been easy. When you were out in a conflict zone it was amazing what light escapism soldiers found entertaining. And still, it made him grit his teeth so hard he was surprised his jaw didn’t break.

‘Ma’am,’ he ground out stiffly before his brain got into gear.

It was ridiculous given how they’d once known each other, and he wasn’t surprised she hesitated before sliding her smaller palm against his and managing a stiff handshake.

‘Major.’

Was that a jolt of...something...surging through him?

Impossible.

So why was he having to fight himself not to snatch his hand away?

Myles glanced back at her.

He had no words to articulate why he felt so upended. Or even what it was. Which was when she opened her mouth and bit out, ‘I don’t want you as my bodyguard.’

Not quite that fragile, then.

Something else tipped sideways within him and suddenly, bizarrely, he found himself fighting a faint smile that toyed on his lips.

He thrust the odd sensation aside, reaching instead for his more familiar cloak of dispassion and finding something slightly less reassuring. It was all he could do to school his features.

‘Something wrong?’

She cocked her head to the side as if actually contemplating it.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t had anyone evaluate him like this in a long, long time. Ever since he’d been a desperate recruit, prepared to leopard crawl from Fort William to Cape Wrath if it meant winning an army bursary to study medicine.

‘I think I might prefer someone who looks like they could handle a shoving, unruly crowd. Someone more...’

Belatedly, he realised she was deliberately trying to insult him.

‘More?’ He arched one eyebrow as though indulging a silly, petulant child, which, he reminded himself, was exactly how he saw her.

‘Yes, you know, more...’ She waved her hand airily. ‘Bigger, more intimidating.’

‘Is that so?’

‘That’s....so.’ She flicked out her tongue and the movement snagged his gaze. Inexplicably he couldn’t seem to draw his eyes away.

‘Indeed? Well, if you’re worried that you aren’t going to be...safe enough with me, I can assure you that I have no intention of letting anyone go near you.’

Including himself, he concluded haughtily, and it felt like an odd kind of triumph. Almost as if they were sparring again, the way they had done all those Christmases ago.

What the hell was going on, here?

‘That aside,’ she stated primly, ‘are you always this high-handed and condescending? Or is it just because it’s me?’

The flashes of the Raevenne he used to know weren’t doing much to help his sense of self-control. Oddly, it was as if a light were suddenly glinting through him, casting tiny spots of illumination and colour on a darkness that had been growing for too long.

A part of him wanted to lean towards that light.

A bigger part of him wanted to extinguish it.

‘Not usually. Then again, I don’t often come across someone so infamously flippant and disparaging.’

She glowered at him, and instead of it confirming every last, negative rumour he’d ever heard, he found himself oddly drawn to her. Still, he held his ground.

He wasn’t sure who was more startled when Rafe cut in, clearly amused.

‘Glad you still remember how to handle my sister’s prickly side.’

It was testament to how much his old friend thought of his half-sister that he dispensed with the half part of the title.

Interesting.

‘Seems so.’ Myles forced a lightness into his tone. He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t allow Rafe to see there was any issue between him and Rae.

‘Good, then there’s an urgent business call I really need to make. I’ll see you both tonight at the conference. Good luck, Rae. I know your lecture will be incredible.’

Then Rafe was gone, leaving the two of them alone in the plush office suite.

For several long moments neither of them spoke.

‘So,’ Myles finally broke the silence, fighting the urge to clear his throat, ‘you’re a doctor now?’