Cold Comfort (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 5)

Emmeline nodded and offered him a brave smile that wasn’t at all convincing seeing as it didn’t enter her eyes. She watched him almost sadly as he made his way out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Once out in the hallway, Oliver didn’t immediately go downstairs to find out what the local Star Elite wanted. Instead, he rested his shoulders against the wall beside her door and allowed himself a blessed moment of silence to contemplate what he was going to do about the major shock his morning had just brought him. He almost succeeded in convincing himself that he could walk away from her, until he heard her crying. He closed his eyes and tried to block that very faint plaintive weeping. It made him protective yet at the same time want to punch something because he knew he was the cause of it. He felt an eel for having indulged in a few moments of passionate pleasure with an innocent young woman who was already struggling to adapt to the world she had been forced into. Emmeline wasn’t a wayward young miss like her sister had been. She wasn’t loose in morals, or poor in judgement, or even wearing rose-tinted glasses that made her see him, quite wrongly, as some sort of romantic hero. She was just Emmeline, an individual young woman who had been buffeted about by life’s catastrophes and the plight of other people, and who battled through the world around her with a resilience that was far stronger than most people Oliver knew.

But I have hurt her. I have made her cry.

It was enough to make him quite melancholy as he left the silence of the hallway to go downstairs and join his colleagues.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What in the Hell is wrong with you?” Callum demanded when Oliver entered the room and began to poke fiercely at the fire with sharp, violent motions.

“Woman troubles,” Harry replied dryly.

Callum nodded sagely but threw a worried look at Oliver. “Are you sure?” he asked of Harry without taking his eyes off a very troubled Oliver.

“Well, either he has woman trouble or Miss Emmeline Elkins, our new guest, has something in the back of her throat that he felt he had to search for. At least, I think that was why he was mauling her. Sorry, giving her self-defense lessons,” Harry teased, despite the dark look Oliver threw him.

“Maybe he was showing her how to thwart off unwanted lechery?” Rhys snorted with a grin.

“Must have been a very interesting lesson seeing as she needed some very serious restoration,” Harry coughed.

“Shut up,” Oliver growled although his lips twitched. He shook his head in warning but, unsurprisingly, neither of his colleagues paid him any attention. They merely exchanged a teasing grin and continued their assault.

“I didn’t realise the Star Elite were giving our guests lessons in love now,” Rhys sighed.

“Looks like I will have to brush off my damned wedding outfit again then,” Callum grumbled.

“No. You do not,” Oliver snapped. “I am not marrying the chit.”

“Just dallying with her then?” Harry’s brows shot up in surprise.

All jocularity vanished in that instant because the last thing any of them ever did was dabble with the local ladies and risk ruining anybody’s reputation.

“No.” Oliver refused to explain himself. He couldn’t because he had no idea what the Hell had just happened himself yet and wouldn’t until he had some time to think about it. He almost wished it was nightfall so he could go for another walk alone, but the stark memories of what had happened to him the last time he had ventured out all alone at night teased him with the dangers associated with such a risky adventure, and he knew it wouldn’t bring him the answers he needed. In fact, given what had happened last time, taking another midnight walk would probably bring him yet more problems. “That’s the last thing I need.”

“Then you shouldn’t dabble with her, should you?” Rhys warned.

Oliver looked at him, and only then realised he had just spoken his words allowed. “I wasn’t dabbling with her.”

“What would you call it?” Harry challenged.

“Look, just what in the Hell does my love life have to do with any of you?”

“Is it your love life? God, you have really fallen fast if it is,” Rhys snorted. “If this isn’t your love life then keep your hands off her. She is here to be protected. All you were supposed to do was show her some defensive moves.”

The men grinned suddenly. A few guffawed.

“Oh, he showed her a few moves, all right,” Ronan teased.

Harry threw an apple at him, but it was caught by Daniel who was standing beside him. “You aren’t helping,” Harry warned.

Daniel smirked at Ronan who rolled his eyes at his friend.

Oliver shook his head. In a desperate attempt to get his colleagues’ attention off his relationship with Emmeline, he lifted his brows at the latest arrivals.

“Just what are you lot doing here anyway? Don’t tell me you have come here for some expert advice because you don’t know what to do with yourselves. What’s wrong, is life in the counties boring?” Oliver grumbled.

Daniel threw him a rueful look before he crunched noisily on his apple.