Christmas with Her Bodyguard

She stared down, as if she couldn’t remember how the garment had got into her hand in the first place. Then she jerked her head in some semblance of a nod and, muttering something he couldn’t catch, hurried out of the repository as quickly as she could.

Which was a good thing, he repeated. Over and over. As if somehow he thought that might make it all the more believable.

He certainly wasn’t prepared for her to walk back into the place minutes later, trouser-free.

‘Raevenne,’ he cautioned, but this time there was no hesitation.

She strode up to him, so close he could smell her unique scent. Whatever objections he’d been about to make erased themselves from his brain.

‘Everything is at the hospital where it needs to be, so now I’m back here and you have no more excuses to push me away.’

‘Then how about I’m more direct?’ he growled, but she stood her ground.

‘Please, Myles. I need you to know that I’m not the woman you think I am.’

‘You said that once before. I was even ready to believe you, even to believe that maybe your refusal to defend yourself all these years really was out of some kind of misguided loyalty. And then you turned around the other night with that...stunt, and proved to me you were exactly the woman I’d thought you were.’

He tried to sound hostile. He hadn’t thought he’d succeeded but then she swallowed once, twice, squeezing her eyes closed as if to summon up all her courage.

‘What happened the other night...my reaction...was in part down to the mistake I made all those years ago, with Justin.’

Some unidentifiable emotion surged through him.

‘We’ve already been through this, Rae. I don’t want to hear it again.’

‘And I don’t particularly want to have to say it.’ Anger flared in her unexpectedly. ‘But I can’t seem not to because, frankly, I’m sick of you treating me like I’m some kind of nineteenth-century fallen woman whilst you’re completely blame-free.’

‘I don’t believe either of those things,’ he said through what felt like a mouth full of gravel. ‘But need I remind you that you were the one who reacted to intimacy between us by telling me that you’d had better?’

‘Like I just admitted, I reacted badly, for which I’ve spent the last few days trying to apologise,’ she bit out. ‘Which you’d know if you stopped ignoring me for one moment. So I’m just going to keep making these ugly little scenes, which are embarrassing the both of us, until you shut up and listen.’

He eyed her curiously, telling himself that it wasn’t hope that made his heart thud in his chest. It wasn’t desire that whispered down his spine.

He believed in loyalty and principles, and discretion. She believed in living larger than life, and in letting every last detail of her life be played out in full view of the press and the public. There wasn’t a thing about her that the entire world didn’t already know.

And yet he couldn’t help it. Despite every fibre of his being bellowing at him not to show any weakness, not to cave, the whisper of need infiltrated his head, scraping around in there, like metal on dry ice.

A traitorous part of him wanted to listen to her.

‘Fine, you have my full attention.’

She inclined her head a fraction, all elegant grace. Only the red stain creeping up her neck betrayed her.

‘I panicked, pure and simple. What happened between us the other night happened so fast and I was embarrassed, because the truth is that I haven’t actually slept with anyone since Justin.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE WASN’T SURE how long they stood in silence. He only knew that he could barely get a word out for the jumble of questions tripping over themselves on his tongue, and that his heart seemed to hang in his chest. Whether it had forgotten how to beat, or simply didn’t have the strength to in that moment, Myles couldn’t be sure.

‘Say that again?’ he managed at last.

‘I think you heard me the first time.’

Her soft voice electrified him. He had to take another few moments to get his head around what she was saying.

‘You’re telling me,’ he began huskily, ‘that aside from the other night, the only time you’ve been...intimate with a man was the night you made the sex tape with your sleaze of a bodyguard.’

His needling was deliberate. He couldn’t seem to help himself. But when she flinched he felt like a heel. Still, she held her head up.