200 Harley Street: The Tortured Hero

‘You look like hell,’ Leo said cheerfully.

‘Gee … thanks.’ Compared to last night he felt like a million dollars.

‘You going to head home or shower here?’

Ethan ran his hands through his hair. ‘I’ll use your bathroom.’ He always kept spare clothes in his office, and a private bathroom was one of the perks of being the director—or related to him anyway.

Ethan owned the clinic jointly with his brother, but had gladly ceded control to him when he’d decided to leave everything tainted with the Hunter name behind and put his medical degree to good use in the army. Leo had been angry that he was skipping out on his family responsibilities, especially with the clinic in such trouble after his father’s scandal, and had spent the next ten years trying to involve his younger brother in the day-to-day running of the clinic.

But Ethan hadn’t cared. He’d not wanted any part of lipo and boob jobs on a bunch of movie stars. He’d been doing real work and Leo could do whatever the hell he liked to salvage the professional and financial reputation of the once renowned Hunter Clinic.

And then he’d been blown all to hell and Leo had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. An offer he’d desperately needed to stop him from sliding into an abyss of self-pity.

Leo pushed up off the arm. ‘When you’re done I’ll buy you breakfast.’

Three quarters of an hour later they were sitting inside a nearby café, tucking into a traditional English breakfast. They were both on their second cup of coffee.

‘So. You saw Olivia last night, I take it?’

Ethan looked up from his plate. ‘Yes. Nicely orchestrated,’ he said with derision.

Completely unabashed, Leo said, ‘How did that go?’

‘How do you think it went?’

‘Not as well as I’d hoped, by the sounds of it.’

‘Let’s just say I wasn’t in the best shape when she arrived. She pretty much accused me of being one step away from the old man and then chewed my ear off about not doing my physio.’

Leo laughed. ‘Still the same blunt old Olivia, huh?’

Ethan grunted, then took a sip of his coffee. ‘She is and she isn’t. There’s a … reserve about her … she’s not her usual vivacious self.’

‘Maybe that’s just being around you?’

Ethan contemplated his brother’s observation. Maybe it was. Anyway … it didn’t go well. She has your decanter of whisky too, by the way.’

Leo laughed harder. ‘Did you discuss the case at all?’

Ethan shook his head. ‘She’s coming to your office at nine to brief us both.’

Leo quirked an eyebrow at his brother. ‘Am I to be an intermediary?’

Ethan looked at his older brother. His tone was light but their history with Olivia Fairchild was complex. And, apart from one aborted attempt on the day of Leo’s wedding, Ethan had never really apologised for his behaviour where that was concerned. He’d not only hurt Olivia but he’d also hurt Leo—deliberately.

Because he could.

He put his coffee cup down in its saucer. ‘No. Of course not. About that … about Olivia … about what happened between all of us—’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Leo interrupted. ‘Water under the bridge.’

‘No.’ Ethan shook his head. ‘I was out of line.’

‘Yes, you were.’ Leo grinned. ‘But … I knew deep down she never really liked me—not in that way. She certainly never gave me any reason to think there was anything other than friendship on her behalf. But … she was so gorgeous … my ego got in the way.’

Gorgeous. Yes, Leo was right. Olivia had been vivacious, sparkling, witty. Quick with a laugh and a snappy one-liner.

And utterly gorgeous.

‘That doesn’t make my behaviour any less reprehensible. You were right. I was using her to get at you and I’m sorry. I was pretty self-destructive there for a while, huh?’

Leo shrugged. ‘Losing Mum was hard on you.’

‘And not on you?’

‘Ethan … we’ve made our peace. We both did things wrong and I don’t expect you to spend the rest of your life apologising for something that happened a long time ago which we’ve put behind us.’

He paused and pierced his brother with a look that Ethan had come to know as his clinic director look.

‘And I’m not the one you need to apologise to. That’s what you were supposed to be doing last night.’

Ethan grimaced. ‘Yeah. That didn’t happen.’ He glanced at his brother, who held his gaze with unwavering intensity. ‘She refused to accept my apology last time. What makes you think she will now?’

‘It’s been a long time,’ Leo said. ‘And she’s never struck me as being someone to hold a grudge.’

‘It was pretty unforgivable.’

Leo nodded in agreement. ‘You need to make it right, though. You’ll be working with her again over the next few months. You have to clear the air.’

Ethan knew Leo was right. Once upon a time that would have rankled, as everything about his brother’s authority and over-protectiveness had rankled. But he’d done a lot of growing up and recognised good advice when he heard it. ‘I know.’

There was silence for the next few minutes as they finished their breakfast. Leo put his utensils down on his plate and looked at his brother. ‘I thought you and her might …’

Ethan glanced up from his breakfast. The possibility of he and Olivia glimmered for a moment. Her touch on his leg last night was almost tangible again, the way they’d been together settling around him in a fine mist he could almost taste.

But then memories of another woman—a woman he’d loved, a woman he’d left to die—pushed into the possibilities, beating them back, drowning them in a tide of guilt.

Aaliyah.

Ethan threw his napkin on his plate. ‘Let’s go.’

CHAPTER THREE (#u97c79ebd-bfc4-52d4-ac64-625ed1dda7b1)

RUNNING EARLY THIS time, Olivia smiled at Leo as she walked into his office an hour later. She’d always had a soft spot for the incredibly hard-working elder Hunter brother and it hadn’t been killed by time, distance or past wrongs. Yes, she’d told them their relationship was toxic but that hadn’t really been Leo’s fault.

Leo had been caught in the middle between his father and his brother and had practically killed himself to do right by both of them.

It was Ethan’s bitterness that had been the true destructive force.