His head was already a mess without the complication of attraction. He felt like that angry, desperate twenty-one-year-old all over again, not knowing where his life was heading but knowing he needed to take the only chance he had to get away from the nightmare childhood that had made nasty Ronald Rawlstone look like Father of the Year.
That Christmas with Rae had been the only time he’d ever stopped, and wondered, and wanted. Even if she’d never known it.
He needed to understand if he really had been a gullible idiot to have lain there that night and wondered if he should just walk out of his room, down that hallway, and risk it all to be with her.
‘I was with Rafe on his last tour of duty when your father died. When you leaked that ignominious sex tape,’ he said quietly. ‘I was with him when we walked in on men, soldiers under his command, watching you...frolic...on-screen.’
She blanched but he forced himself to go on. Pretending it hadn’t seared him as much as it had seared Rafe, if for very different reasons. Pretending he hadn’t harboured secret fantasies of returning to the US after his tour of duty and making good on the offer she’d presented him with on that crazy night.
If he pretended it was just about the way she’d let down Rafe, and not about his own hurt pride, then maybe it could be true.
‘Your brother...half-brother, had to command those men. Up until that moment, he’d been respected by those men. After that, things changed.’
‘I didn’t...’ She faltered, then stopped.
‘You didn’t what?’ Myles echoed.
But she didn’t answer. She simply shook her head.
And what galled him the most was that suddenly there was a small, hitherto non-existent part of him that desperately wanted to hear her say something, anything, to make it less unpalatable.
It made absolutely no sense. And yet he ached.
They were standing close. Too close. He could feel her breath on his chest, rapid and shallow. The temptation to step forward, to lift his hands to her face, to...what? Kiss her? That couldn’t happen.
He had no idea how he managed it, but, abruptly, he took a step backwards. Was the distance a blessing or a curse?
* * *
Rae stood motionless, silently willing Myles to stop moving away from her, though she couldn’t explain why.
Her eyes were still locked with his, which were the same intense colour as the most turquoise-blue waters that lapped at her favourite Caribbean island. Eyes that had plagued her darkest dreams for the last decade. He might as well have weaved some kind of spell over her at that first encounter all those years ago.
But, more than that, she’d seen the respect when he and her brother had approached each other, she’d heard the fondness, and suddenly she found herself craving it, too.
To be on the receiving end of a warm look from Major Myles Garrington, instead of a look that suggested he considered her on a par with the dirt on the sole of his shoe.
He’d changed so much in the last fifteen years. He was now so solid, so unyielding, so authoritative. And yet, in some way she couldn’t put her finger on, he hadn’t changed a bit.
It left her feeling strangely rattled. Undone.
‘You didn’t what?’ Myles pressed again.
She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t the woman the press made her out to be. That the only man she’d ever been intimate with had been Justin. That she’d thought herself in love. That he’d assured her he had been in love.
She could almost taste the words on her tongue, sweet syllables that could free her.
Or condemn her.
Because she knew what her reputation with the salivating press was. Knew what the public thought of her. And even if none of that were true, hadn’t she thrown herself at Myles that New Year’s Eve? Of course he was going to believe she was capable of doing exactly the same thing with Justin only months later.
He would never believe that wasn’t at all how it had happened that night.
The best thing she could do would be to forget any history with Myles. But surely it was impossible not to notice the man now looming in front of her? The man who had always been good-looking but who now made that term seem flimsy and two-dimensional.
His handsome qualities had long since segued into something more brooding, more weathered. His strong features now had character. They told a story. She was already spellbound, and it frightened her. Just like the lines etched softly onto his skin, which suggested he’d been places, seen things, done things. He was a hard, autocratic, lethal kind of handsome.
‘I didn’t frolic,’ she bit out abruptly.
His mouth curled ever so slightly, his antipathy surely evident. Yet inexplicably it only made her traitorous fingers twitch to reach out and touch those unusually bow-shaped lips; the dimple gave him the most glorious cleft chin.
Would it still feel the same as it once did beneath her fingertips?
Before, when she’d said she’d been expecting someone...more, it struck her that what she’d really meant was someone less. Someone who didn’t affect her anywhere near the way this one man affected her. Someone who didn’t make her feel as though she were searing from the inside out. Cauterised by his every mocking look, desiccating from his indifferent tone.
Just as she always had been.
‘Of course not,’ he replied silkily. ‘Because you’re the steadfast, quiet Rawlstone sister, with no press reputation at all. Forgive me but I forgot.’
She flashed her brightest smile.
The one that she had long ago learned best concealed all the hurt inside her.
She knew exactly what the press said about her, every line, every lie. Which made it a hard reputation to shake. Although, by God, she’d tried.
But whilst Rafe might appreciate how she’d struggled to distance herself from her mother and sisters all this time, the press weren’t always as understanding; the public not completely forgiving.
Neither was Myles, standing there, judging her as he was. She felt weighed and she felt measured, but what bothered her more was the shame flooding through her body at the realisation that this man...this man...found her deplorably wanting.
How was it that his opinion of her mattered so much more than that of hundreds, even thousands, of other people? The way he’d got under her skin with barely a word was shocking. Frightening. Not least because of last time. What was the matter with her? She wrinkled her nose in self-castigation, blurting words out before her brain had the chance to engage.
‘Why are you doing this, Myles? Just so you can taunt me?’ Her pitch was rising but she couldn’t seem to control it. ‘Just so you can remind me of the fool I made of myself when I crept into your room practically naked, stupidly—so stupidly—imagining that the kiss we’d shared earlier that evening meant you wanted me?’
‘This isn’t about that night,’ he rasped, his voice so unrecognisable that it took a moment for her to realise it really was him.
‘It isn’t?’ she whispered.
‘No, Raevenne, it’s definitely not about that night.’ There was no mistaking the look of utter disgust that contorted his features now.
She tried to rearm herself but it was too late, and his loathing smashed over her with deadly force.
‘I try not to remember that night. It isn’t difficult. It isn’t something I ever care to think about. I thought you were different, Rae, I thought you were someone else, someone worth being honourable for.’