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But that wasn’t the girl that he’d known. At least, not back then.
It wasn’t the sweet, blushing seventeen-year-old with whom he’d felt an attraction from the moment Rafe had introduced them. He’d tried to fight it, of course—Rafe had been his best mate, but even at seventeen she’d seemed far older, far more mature, than her years. The three years between them had melted away and, cooped up in that house trying to stay away from the rest of Rafe’s god-awful half-family—from the self-serving mother to the callous father so wretchedly similar to his own—he and Rae had forged a bond.
And then, despite his best intentions, the heady glances had evolved to fleeting touches, stolen kisses, and something so much more intense. He’d wanted her with such a ferocity, as he’d wanted no other woman before.
Probably as he’d wanted no other woman since, either.
It had taken a supreme effort to eject her from his room that night, even as he’d been physically aching to do something altogether different. It might have been legally acceptable, but it was still wrong in Myles’ mind. She’d been too young besides being Rafe’s sister. Neither argument had gone down well with Rae that night.
And all the while she’d been standing there in the flimsiest scraps of lace and his body had been under no illusions about how much he’d wanted her.
Even now, at the mere memory, his body tensed, coiled, like steel bands cinched tight on machinery, barely harnessing hundreds of pounds of pressure. The chemistry between him and Rae had been instantaneous. He’d tried to fight it, but it had been like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Its intensity had rocked him and it had only been the fact that she was his best friend’s half-sister that had enabled Myles to walk away from her that last night when she’d offered herself to him completely. When she’d offered him the precious gift of her virginity.
That and the fact that he’d thought she deserved better than someone like him who might sleep with her once or twice and then would be gone. He’d thought she thought more of herself than to want someone like that.
And then she’d gone and not only thrown her virginity away on some wide boy like that bouncer, but she’d filmed it and leaked it to the press, as well.
Instantly he shut down the quiet doubt that had always nagged in the back of his mind.
Rafe had always claimed his half-sister had been innocent, but if that were true Rae herself would have told her side of it a long time ago.
He’d fallen for that innocent act once before. Surely he wasn’t stupid enough to let himself be taken in by it a second time?
‘I’m here because your brother asked for my help.’ He injected a deliberately harder tone into his voice, reminding himself that nowadays he was immune to that look of hurt that skittered across her face. ‘Not to blow smoke up each other’s backsides.’
She blanched, but he had to admire the way she jutted her chin out that little bit more.
‘I was merely complimenting a colleague. I had no idea it was so offensive to you.’
Her self-assurance was heady. He hadn’t been prepared for quite how much of a woman Rae had grown into. But he could resist her, he’d proven it that night when the temptation had been immense.
So why, after all these years, did something still scrape away inside him ma
king him feel raw and...edgy?
‘I’m not here for you.’ Was he repeating it for her benefit, or for his own? ‘I’m here because Rafe asked me to be.’
‘The same way you came to our home all those Christmases ago, because Rafe hadn’t wanted to spend the holidays alone with his new stepfamily after his mother had just died?’ she challenged.
‘Rafe and I were recruits together. We did officers’ training together.’ Myles shrugged. ‘They break down the individual and build up a team.’
‘Is that why you tried to talk Rafe out of leaving when the stipulations in my father’s will forced him to leave the British army and move to America to take over the Rawlstone Group instead?’
‘Being an officer in the army was the one thing your old man knew Rafe truly loved. It was a power play from the grave.’
‘Obviously.’ She let out a humourless laugh. ‘But why did you care so much?’
For a moment, Myles almost didn’t answer.
‘Because when I was on a medical mission that went south, Rafe’s infantry unit was there. I owe my life to your brother.’
‘Which is why you couldn’t refuse his request to play at being my bodyguard.’
Something skittered over her features, too fast for him to read.
‘Yes,’ he bit out, instead.
He just hadn’t banked on that old attraction roaring into life at the mere sound of her voice through a door. A chemistry like a volcano that had lain dormant for so long that it had fooled even himself into thinking it was extinct, but which now rumbled and heated and swelled within him.
