Christmas With Her Bodyguard

If that couldn’t shine some light into whatever dark pit Myles was in, then surely nothing could?

And the fact that she was the one helping him—that maybe she could prove to him she was a skilled, professional OBGYN and that the incident with Justin, for which she’d become infamous, was nothing more than a brief, shameful moment in her past—had nothing to do with it.

‘You know you can talk to me, Myles,’ she began impulsively. ‘I’m a good listener...whatever you’re going through.’

She knew immediately it had been the wrong thing to say.

‘Did you manage to sleep on the flight?’ he asked abruptly.

How she wished she could take her words back. Swallow them. Instead, she tried to regulate her breathing enough to answer.

‘Yes.’

Seven hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep in the company jet’s bedroom suite had inarguably been more comfortable than the doctor’s accommodation at the New York clinic where she’d snatched the odd hour or so whilst pulling her second thirty-six-hour shift of the week.

‘Clearly it wasn’t enough—you still look tired.’ He peered at her, concerned.

It was hard to ooze the nonchalance for which she was so ironically well known when her whole body was going into overdrive at the mere suggestion of solicitude from him.

‘Gosh, thanks for the compliment.’

She even managed to keep her voice from shaking, but Myles ignored her dry tone.

‘You should look after yourself more.’ He apparently felt the need to hammer home the point.

Rae chastised herself for hoping for something more praiseworthy from him.

‘Says the man who, if you’re anything like my brother, exists on four hours’ sleep a night.’ She kept her laugh deliberately light.

He shrugged as though it was okay for him.

Her chest cracked.

So much for Myles being her bodyguard, meant to protect her, to ensure she didn’t get hurt. As far as Rae was concerned, he was the one person who could wound her more deeply than anyone else ever could.

Just as he had done before.

Clearly fifteen years had taught her absolutely nothing.

CHAPTER THREE (#ueeeab427-4172-5225-adf9-a6c342c9f71d)

‘CASE C CONCERNS emergency foetal intervention at twenty-five weeks and four days into the pregnancy, for a sacrococcygeal teratoma. That is, a congenital tumour growing at the base of the foetus’ spine. It is one of the most common tumours amongst neonatals, occurring in approximately one in every forty thousand babies. But because it arises from stem cells it can be made up of any kind of tissue from anywhere around the body.’

It took a while for Myles to realise that he was as caught up in her lecture, her enthusiasm for her subject matter, as everyone else in the ballroom.

She looked magnificent up there on the stage and holding the entire conference in silent rapture. He had hugely underestimated her. Underestimated the residual feelings that still ran between them, and now he was here. Paying the price.

He tuned back in, unable to help himself.

‘Ultrasound. And because the teratoma has a blood supply, the baby’s heart was pumping much harder. It was as if they were in competition and the tumour was winning, resulting in a significant risk of the baby going into cardiac arrest.’

Myles shifted his position.

He’d been a battlefield trauma surgeon for so long. He’d never imagined doing anything else. Never wanted to.

But that was before.

In seventeen years, nothing had quite got to him like that day with Mikey, and what had happened in that village. And, suddenly, he’d found himself never wanting to pick up another scalpel for the rest of his life. Not because he was afraid of what he might do. But more he was afraid of what he might no longer be able to do.

Ever.

PTSD. Not uncommon after so many back-to-back tours, and so many atrocities, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. It didn’t make the idea of going back to operating any more appealing. Which was why accepting Rafe’s suggestion of clinical observation—a sort of halfway house—had made sense, even if he hadn’t actually liked the idea.

He had his qualifications. And it wasn’t as though he was doing anything else. The death threats to Rafe’s family had been the proverbial added bonus. The tie-in with Rae almost like fate. He focussed back on Rae.

‘The de-bulking of the tumour on the actual foetus usually takes less than half an hour,’ she was telling them. ‘The majority of the five-hour operation is spent opening up the uterus in the first instance, and then stitching it closed again. Our biggest concern is to avoid compromising the health of the mother, and we have to make sure the uterus is sealed and watertight.’

Fascinated, he allowed himself to be absorbed by her presentation. Her care for her patients shone through her excitement for the skilled procedure. She handled the questions well, informing without patronising, always happy to elaborate or explain.

For a moment, Myles forgot everything. Who he was. Where. Why. And just let his old enthusiasm for medicine begin to slowly unfurl. Then the ballroom erupted into applause, and Myles made his way backstage to meet her.

It hit him even before he turned around. The shift in the atmosphere, the way the air seemed to close in on him. When he turned around, she almost stole the breath from his lungs.

It wasn’t Rae’s looks that struck him, although she was certainly attractive. She’d always been attractive, and that hadn’t changed. But this was something more. A presence, an aura, for want of a better term. She carried herself better than she once had, but with none of the arrogant hauteur he’d been expecting.

Unsettled, he could only stare in silence for what was a split second but felt more like a minute; fighting the sensation that he was actually drowning in his own lungs.

When had they closed the gap between the two of them? And why did the unexpected proximity send a slew of memories cascading through his brain, all of which centred on the chemistry that had arced between them that Christmas, the hot glances and the bodies brushing against each other in the long corridors of that old house?

And now those shrewd eyes were assessing him. Judging him.

‘Good lecture. I’m glad to see that you’ve finally found something for which it’s worth being well known.’

It was a low, cruel blow, and he loathed himself for it. As though he was deliberately trying to goad her. To remind her of the girl who had leaked a sex tape, which Rafe had only found out about when some of his men had been watching it online, in the middle of a tour of duty.

To remind her of the girl who had offered him her virginity first.

What was he angrier about? That she hadn’t waited for him? Or that she’d rubbed his face in it by doing it for a sex tape for the world to see?

Or maybe he was trying to remind himself of that girl, since his body appeared to be reacting to her in a way of which his brain unquestionably disapproved.

She blinked, a faint stain spreading across her cheeks, and if he hadn’t known it to be impossible he’d have thought he saw a flash of shame and regret in those forest depths. But then it was gone and she eyed him with distaste.

‘Which is fortunate for you, since you’re to be shadowing me.’

He tried to pretend her voice didn’t tremble a little at the end. That she was still as strong as she was clearly pretending to be. Because otherwise it might make him soften all the more towards her.

And that wouldn’t be acceptable. There was clearly more wrong with his state of mind than he had feared.