Christmas With Her Bodyguard. Charlotte Hawkes

laughed me out your room.’

      ‘I believed I was doing the right thing. I thought...’ He paused as if having to catch himself. ‘I thought your innocence meant more to you than it obviously did. I was leaving, as soon as that Christmas break was up and Rafe felt as though he’d done his duty. I felt you deserved more than someone who slept with you once or twice and then cut out, never to be seen again.’

      ‘It did mean something to me—’ she began.

      A brash, humourless laugh, which she barely even recognised, cut her off.

      ‘Of course it did. So much so, in fact, that you not only slept with the next guy you dated-and I use that term very loosely-but you filmed the whole thing and leaked it on the Internet all in the name of fame.’

      Nausea crashed over her and it was all she could do to fight it back. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

      ‘I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know he was filming me. I certainly didn’t leak it. My God, is that really how little you think of me?’

      ‘That’s bull,’ Myles growled, ignoring her question. ‘If you hadn’t known anything about it then he would have been filming a sex act without consent. That’s a criminal offence. You would have said something. He would have been convicted. He should have been convicted. But instead you stayed quiet. You protected him. Why do that unless you were in on it, too?’

      She wanted to tell him. She’d imagined this moment so very many times over the years. But the words wouldn’t come. Something seemed to be stopping her.

      ‘I was pathetic, naïve, desperate and I didn’t want to look any more of an idiot than I already did.’ The words tumbled out inelegantly.

      The harsh bark was about as far from a laugh as it was possible to get.

      ‘Oh, come on, Rae. You can’t seriously expect anyone to believe that. You weren’t protecting yourself, you were protecting him.’

      She shook her head, hating the very idea of that.

      ‘I wasn’t. I never protected him. I hate him. I...’ She bit her lip and then decided she had nothing left to lose. ‘I was protecting you.’

      The silence that descended on them was so instant, so heavy, that for a moment she thought her eardrums had burst and all she could sense was a ringing in her head. For long, long moments they stood, eyes locked, perfectly still, and then Myles spoke.

      ‘Say again?’ Dark, forbidding. It wasn’t exactly the response she’d been hoping for.

      Rae drew in a deep breath, her voice quaking unrecognisably.

      ‘I was protecting you,’ she practically whispered. ‘Just like you protected me that night when we were kids. You were so principled even though you were only three years older than me. Telling me I was too innocent, too young emotionally, that I might hate myself when you left, that I was Rafe’s sister.’

      Not that it had made her feel any better, and less rejected, at the time. Even now she couldn’t shake the knowledge that if she’d been sexy and worldly like her sisters, even at seventeen, he couldn’t have walked away from her however principled he was.

      But that was a truth she would always hug to herself. A truth too embarrassing to voice aloud to anyone. Ever.

      He didn’t answer, but the locked jaw told her that he was barely containing his fury. She hurried on before he could say any words she didn’t want to hear.

      ‘If I had told people that I hadn’t consented then there would have had to have been an investigation. It would have been my word against his. They would have looked at my sexual history. And they might have found out about you.’

      ‘We didn’t do anything,’ Myles growled, his obvious contempt slicing through her more deeply than she could have thought imaginable.

      In all her scenarios over the years, she’d never once considered that he wouldn’t believe her. How foolish that seemed now.

      ‘But they might not have believed we didn’t do anything,’ she cried. ‘And you know what they say about mud sticking. Your name would have been dragged into it whether we liked it or not. The press would have loved any whiff of scandal concerning a supposedly principled British army officer. The truth wouldn’t have mattered. Your reputation would have been tainted for ever.’

      ‘You really want me to believe you let people think and say everything they did about you to protect me?’

      Disgust, and what looked terrifyingly like hatred, clouded his face. It was all Rae could do not to shrink away, even as something tore at her heart.

      ‘It’s the truth.’ She had no idea how she held her ground. ‘But it wasn’t just about you. Like I said, it was about me, too. Whatever I said wouldn’t have undone what had happened. That video would always be out there...will always be out there. And there would have been no guarantee they’d have believed me over Justin. So I tried to make the best out of it. I figured it would die down when the next scandal came along.’

      She could never have imagined what a miscalculation that would be.

      Probably about as gigantic a blunder as blurting out the truth now and allowing herself to think, even for a moment, that Myles would believe her.

      Even forgive her.

      Instead she found herself staring into the glacial depths.

      ‘Myles—’

      ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’ He cut her pleading off abruptly.

      ‘I really—’

      ‘I said enough, Raevenne.’

      She bit her tongue. She could refuse to be cowed by him but what good would it do to force the issue? It would only make him shut down all the more.

      If that was even possible.

      So instead she stood still, too afraid even to shift her weight from one foot to the other, as if they were teetering on the edge of some abyss and the slightest movement could send them plummeting down.

      She wasn’t even sure if she remembered to keep breathing.