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.’