Christmas with Her Bodyguard

She could practically feel the fury rolling off Myles’ body, his muscles tense and bunched. She prayed no reporters came too close. But Myles restrained himself, his focus on getting them both to the vehicle.

In a daze, she allowed herself to be bundled inside, pushed across the soft leather seats, her bergens taken off her and the door slammed on the baying pack outside. In slow motion she turned around, watching Myles throw the luggage into the boot of the car and stalk around to climb in the other side.

And then the car was pulling away and the silence might as well have been hemming her in.

She ran her tongue around her mouth. My God, she was so stupid.

‘Myles—’

‘Forget it.’

It was an icy warning, which she should have heeded. But she couldn’t. Desperation clawed inside her.

‘You can’t really be blaming me for this?’

‘I’ve never told anyone else that information about Mikey’s family. Only you.’

‘This is the press.’ She flung her hands up. ‘They unearth all kinds of stuff if they’re so inclined.’

His stark look was excruciating.

‘No, Rae. You did this.’

‘No.’

Her shoulders slumped but she refused to look away from that glare; she would not let him think she was guilty.

‘Yes. You engineered it.’

‘You can’t really believe that.’ Pain and disappointment lanced through her.

‘You wanted the press to know. All this time you’ve been acting like you moved away from your reality life, but what was the truth, Raevenne? That you got pushed out for not repeating that bit of TV gold and you’ve been looking for a way back in ever since?’

‘Of course not.’ Horror spread through her like wildfire. ‘I don’t care what they think. Not any more. I only cared what Rafe knew. What I knew. What you knew.’

‘And yet you couldn’t let it go. You had to release the story. And now they’re running stories about my career, about my missions, about Mikey.’

He didn’t mention little Kelly. He didn’t need to. She felt sick with the knowledge.

‘I didn’t say anything, Myles. I never would.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Every word, every accusation, was like a lashing to her already broken soul. But still, she made herself lift her chin. She forced herself to meet his eye.

‘I can’t make you believe me. But I know the truth. Just as I know that part of the reason you want to hate me now is because you don’t know what else to do with the emotions you stuff inside you and never allow to come out. Emotions which are eating you from the inside, Myles.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I do. And I didn’t do this, but I can’t say I’m unhappy the press have found out. Because it’s time you stopped blaming yourself for what happened. Being an army trauma surgeon has been your life for so long that somewhere along the line it became what defined you, and when you lost that part of who you were, you lost yourself.’

The words shouldn’t have penetrated his fury or his misery. Nothing should have.

And yet they did.

Suddenly, he saw the hurt and misery in her expression. He realised he was the one who had put them there. Even as the knowledge snatched his breath away, it wasn’t enough to change what she’d done.

The signs for the railway station couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous moment.