‘REALLY, RAFE.’ GRITTING her teeth to stay calm, Rae hurried behind her half-brother’s long strides as he burned through the Rawlstone Group’s UK headquarters. ‘I appreciate you’re only looking out for me, but I really don’t need a bodyguard. Especially around Christmas.’
Her stomach roiled at the mere thought of another bodyguard. Even after all these years.
‘I’m sorry, Rae.’ He sounded genuinely regretful. ‘If there were any other way...’
‘There has to be,’ she pleaded. ‘Please, Rafe, you know the press will take any excuse to rake up the past. They never believed in my innocence as it was, and I couldn’t bear it. Not again.’
Another stomach lurch. It was hard enough putting up with paparazzi dogging her daily life, pretending she didn’t care what lies they wrote about her, or how little the public thought of her. She certainly didn’t need to give them a reason to rerun all those stories of her utterly spectacular plummet into shame almost fourteen years ago.
No matter what she’d done to try to redeem herself, they had refused to believe that she’d known nothing about the sex tape, let alone leaked it. It had taken her ten years and a career in medicine to get them to finally stop linking her—usually scandalously—to every Hollywood A-lister, every rock musician, or every trust-fund kid in whose presence she was spotted.
It hadn’t mattered that she’d barely even exchanged a word with some of them, let alone dated them. Sex sold. Scandal sold. That was all that mattered to them for so, so long. Only in the last four years had they finally, reluctantly, begun to come around to her side.
A bodyguard would undo all that good work. She could just read the headlines now.
Scarlet woman Raevenne Rawlstone finally takes a new bodyguard. Will he be as undercover as the last one?
And that would be one of the tamer offerings.
Hot shame flooded her body as X-rated images, intimate moments that never had been anything but private, filled her brain.
‘I can’t have another bodyguard,’ she choked out. ‘I won’t.’
Abruptly, her legs gave out and she just about made it to the wall for support, the old stonework rough beneath her hands. She’d trailed her fingers over their cool surface many times in the past, but tonight they seemed colder than usual, sapping her body heat as unseen edges cut into her skin. Rae withdrew her hand abruptly.
She usually loved visiting Rafe here. The offices might be as super high-tech as every other square millimetre of real estate in the company’s portfolio, but Rafe’s flair for restoring vast, old buildings, with their inspiring architecture, always had her gasping with admiration.
Today, however, she barely noticed the glorious stonework or vaulted ceilings. December was in a matter of weeks and yet she couldn’t envisage the festive lights and decorations that would go transform this place into something infinitely magical. She didn’t even think about the fact that, when the offices closed their proverbial business doors for the Christmas shutdown, Rafe would open the physical doors to the house and feed the homeless, the way he always did for those ten days.
Her half-brother was moving back to her, reaching out to cup her shoulder, the closest he came to a hug. None of the Rawlstone clan found it easy to show emotion—an overhang from their mutual father, the cold and remote Ronald Rawlstone—but she and Rafe both knew they cared about each other.
‘We’ll deal with the press if we need to. You won’t be alone, Rae. But I told you, I received a death threat the other day.’
‘We always receive death threats.’ She waved her hands desperately. ‘We’re Rawlstones.’
Or at least her side of the Rawlstone family always received death threats. Her limelight-loving sisters and mother had made it their mission with their Life in the Rawl reality show.
By contrast their half-brother, Rafe, CEO of the Rawlstone Group and former British army officer, was generally universally adored. At least by the press and public.
‘This one is credible,’ he replied simply. ‘So, it’s precisely because it is Christmas that I need to know you’re safe. Especially with all the festive fundraisers and seasonal socials you’ll no doubt be compelled to attend. Your sisters already have bigger personal protection details than even they need, as does your mother. It’s you I worry about.’
She stared miserably at some fixed point on the stonework that her eyes didn’t even see. ‘They’ll bring it all back up...what happened with Justin.’
The images flashed up again and she squeezed her eyes shut. It didn’t help. She could still see it. The moment she’d lost her virginity played out on social media for the world to see.
She might have gagged, she couldn’t be sure, but suddenly she was wrapped in a tight, if awkward, embrace.
‘The guy was a piece of scum.’ Controlled fury laced his voice along with a thread of guilt, and she hated that her half-brother felt even slightly responsible for the mistakes she’d made so many years ago. ‘I’ll never let anything like that happen to you again.’
‘You can’t promise that.’ Her voice sounded more strained than she would have preferred.
‘I can.’ Releasing her slightly, Rafe took a step back. ‘I personally requested the guy I’ve chosen to be our bodyguard. I trust him. He’s a major from my army days.’
Her heart actually stopped beating for a moment.
And another.
It took everything she had to tell herself not to be so foolish. That it couldn’t possibly be. And still her throat was thick, constricted, her tongue too big for her mouth, when she replied.
‘He’s some major or other from your army days?’
‘Not some major,’ Rafe disapproved. ‘Myles is one of the best officers I had the pleasure to serve with.
Everything receded. Went black.
She had no idea how long she stood there but when she came back, squeezing her eyes closed, she was eternally grateful that Rafe was too busy marching along to have turned around to look at her.
There seemed little point in trying to soothe and corral her skittering heart but she made a valiant effort nonetheless.
‘Myles.’
As if, perhaps, it could possibly be a different Myles.
‘That’s right, Major Myles Garrington.’ She could practically hear Rafe’s eye-roll. ‘I mentioned it was him before. Keep up, Rae.’
‘You didn’t,’ she managed feebly.
Myles. Numbness crept over her, but she had to hold herself together. Especially in front of Rafe. Her half-brother’s opinion was the only one that mattered to her these days; she certainly couldn’t let him know how she’d thrown herself at his best friend all those years ago.
She managed to stumble after him.
‘Oh, well, no matter.’ Rafe was oblivious. ‘Myles is a decent bloke—you’ll like him. You might not remember but you even met him once. He came with me the one and only Christmas holiday I spent with your family...oh, probably fifteen years ago now.’
Actually, fifteen years and two months ago. Not that she was counting. Much.
It was the only Christmas that Rafe had come to his half-family’s home. It had been at their mutual father’s insistence. As though the shocking death of his first wife had made Ronald Rawlstone suddenly remember the son he’d had little contact with—other than sending monthly financial support—for the best part of two decades.
She still didn’t know why Rafe had