200 Harley Street: The Tortured Hero

‘I’ll follow you down, shall I?’ she enquired calmly.

Ethan pressed his closed fists into the hard wood of the desktop and prayed for patience. He didn’t need her judgement—he could do that plenty on his own.

‘I think you can bring me up to speed in the morning,’ he said through clenched teeth. He was too tired for this crap. ‘I’m going home. See yourself out.’

At least going home was his plan, but by the time he’d taken a few paces the adrenaline from his surge of anger had worn off and the message from his quad muscles that they were too fatigued to hold him upright had finally broken through the righteous indignation swamping his brain.

His legs buckled.

Olivia leapt forward in alarm as Ethan wobbled and then toppled sideways, reaching out for the desk wildly in an attempt to stop himself from falling on his butt. She grabbed hold of his arm and between her and the desk they saved him from being a rather inelegant crumpled heap on the expensive Turkish rug.

‘What the hell, Ethan?’ she said as he leaned heavily against her, struggling for balance. ‘How much have you had to drink?’ she asked.

Ethan sucked air in and out between his teeth as his muscles protested. ‘Not the booze,’ he choked out, one hand reaching for a screaming thigh muscle. ‘It’s my damn legs.’

Olivia believed him. He definitely wasn’t drunk. His words weren’t slurred and he didn’t stink of alcohol. In fact, with her nose damn near the vicinity of his throat, she could say for sure that he smelled the way he always had—of utter hedonism. Total crack for the olfactory system. It swamped over her now in a sweet pheromone cloud, and her body responded accordingly.

Honestly, the man was waging chemical warfare on her body and he didn’t even know it, thanks to whatever was going on with his legs.

‘Here, come on,’ she said, staggering under the weight of him a little as she slung his arm over her shoulder. ‘Over to the lounge.’

Ethan didn’t have much of a choice. His thighs were trembling now from the effort of just standing and he felt as weak as a kitten. She led and he followed, and he felt about as potent and virile as a postage stamp.

‘I’m fine,’ he said as soon as they were near enough to the couch to reach for it. ‘Let go.’

Olivia eased away as he flopped down onto the firm leather of the elegant Chesterfield and gave a relieved groan, his hands automatically reaching for his thigh muscles, his eyes shutting, his head flopping back as he kneaded up and down their length. She knelt down in front of him, his knees either side of her shoulders, resting back on her haunches, and waited for him to recover.

It took a few minutes for the creases in his face to start to iron out a little. ‘What happened?’ she asked quietly.

His hands stopped their massaging briefly before starting up again.

‘Is it from when you were injured during your last tour?’ she prompted, when it didn’t look as if he was about to answer her any time soon.

His eyes flicked open and Olivia was struck again by how dull and lifeless they looked. No spark. No glitter.

‘How did you know?’

She gave him a half-smile, trying to lighten the mood. ‘We do have newspapers in Australia, you know. And this new-fangled thing called the worldwide web—which, you know, even goes all the way to Australia.’ Her smile died on her lips when it was apparent he wasn’t going to join her. ‘You’ll be amazed at what you can find on it,’ she murmured.

Ethan pulled his head off the cushioned comfort of the lounge and pierced her with his gaze. Her honey-brown hair fell in wavy disorder around her face and he remembered vividly how it had felt spread out across his chest.

‘You kept tabs on me?’

Olivia sucked in a breath as his low, gravelly voice swept hot fingers along the muscles deep inside her. And was that a flare bursting to life in those golden flecks?

‘No,’ she said, annoyed that even tired and in pain he could think such a thing.

Clearly his ego hadn’t been injured.

‘I haven’t spent the past decade pining over you, Ethan Hunter, if that’s what you think,’ she clarified, her voice snippy even to her own ears. ‘I researched the clinic online when I was looking at partnering with you guys. The newspaper articles about how you evacuated an entire hospital that was being heavily shelled showed up in the search.’

Ethan dropped his head back again and shut his eyes against the annoyance in hers and the echo of memories. He’d been meaning to check up on her over the years, but military life had been full-on and there’d always been an excuse not to.

And then he’d met Aaliyah.

Olivia watched him a little longer, the kneading of his long fingers hypnotic. Part of her wanted to take over—the Olivia of ten years ago would have.

This Olivia curled her hands into fists by her sides and said, ‘What are your injuries?’

Ethan sighed, lifting his head off the lounge again. ‘Legs shot to hell. Right knee and ankle torn up by shrapnel.’

‘Have they been reconstructed?’

He nodded. ‘As best they could. They’re never going to be the same again, though.’

‘Do you have some kind of physio regime, because your legs don’t seem to be very strong. I’d have thought you’d need some kind of a walking aid—a stick or something?’ She frowned, thinking back to the articles she’d read. ‘It’s been about a year, right?’

Ethan grunted. ‘Yes,’ he said tersely. ‘And, yes, I have a regime.’

It took Olivia a second or two to realise she’d asked the wrong question. ‘Do you follow it?’ She folded her arms. ‘Religiously?’

Ethan glared at her. God, she sounded like Lizzie. And Leo. And a lot of well-meaning other people who didn’t have a freaking clue about the realities of his injuries.

‘It’s none of your damn business,’ he growled.

‘It is my damn business if you’re going to collapse on the floor in the middle of operating on Ama.’

Ethan bristled at the implication, and at the unflinching demand he saw in her eyes. She was calling him on his professionalism and leaving him in no doubt that she was holding him to account. It rankled. But still, it was preferable to the pity he usually saw reflected in other people’s eyes.

The poor you look that got under his skin like an army of marching ants.

She didn’t seem to give a damn about the fact of his injuries or even how he’d got them—just that he could do his job. She was being a doctor. And it was in equal parts satisfying and irritating

‘I’m not going to be collapsing on anyone,’ he snapped. ‘I just stood for an extraordinary amount of time today.’

‘Which shouldn’t matter if you’d been diligent with your physio,’ Olivia said.

She knew Ethan. She knew he wouldn’t respond to her empathy. God knew, the empathy and protection Leo had tried to force upon him all those years ago had driven a huge wedge between the brothers and she’d been just one of the casualties.

She knew he wouldn’t let her massage his legs or talk about what had happened. But, having worked out in the field herself, in places no one should have to live, she did know that military men responded best to tough love.

‘I’ve been a little busy trying to establish the humanitarian side of the clinic,’ he snapped. ‘I do what I can when I can.’

Olivia drummed her fingers against her biceps. ‘Well, it looks like it’s not enough. You should be stronger than this by now.’

Ethan knew she was right, but … it had been an unusual day. He let his head flop back again.

He needed to make time to get stronger in his legs. He’d gone from two months in hospital and multiple surgeries to home and feeling sorry for himself to throwing everything he had into his new role at the Hunter Clinic—none of which had been conducive to the hard yards he needed to do.