200 Harley Street: The Tortured Hero

CHAPTER TWO

ETHAN’S HEART POUNDED a furious tattoo in his chest. Having his father shoved in his face was always a red rag to a bull, but pure overproof rage surged through his system at her matter-of-fact taunt. If anyone knew the location of his soft underbelly it was Olivia. And she’d never been afraid to call him on his crap.

It was the Australian way, she’d assured him all those years ago.

He gripped the edge of the desk and lurched to his feet, too angry even to register the limp protest of gelatinous muscles. ‘Go to hell, Olivia,’ he snapped.

Her words stung. They stung hard. Because they’d found their mark so accurately. After he’d been discharged from the hospital in Germany and returned to the UK to recuperate from his injuries he had drunk way too much.

Trying to block out the pain and the dreams and the guilt.

Leo’s email had saved him. The offer to come back to the clinic and head up its humanitarian programme had been just the right bait to wave in front of him and he’d reached for it like a drowning man, knowing that he was treading the same slippery slope his father had trod before he’d slipped away altogether.

But he wasn’t that guy any more. And it infuriated him to be pigeonholed after a few minutes’ reacquaintance.

She had no freaking idea what he’d been through.

Olivia stood too, refusing to have him standing over her, trying to intimidate her with his height and breadth and sheer masculine presence—which he still had in spades despite his more mature looks.

So, she’d annoyed him—good!

Maybe it would make him realise that sitting alone in an office at nine o’clock at night with a decanter full of whisky wasn’t the answer to whatever was eating him.

‘I’ll follow you down, shall I?’ she enquired calmly.

Ethan pressed his closed fists into the hard wood of the desktop and prayed for patience. He didn’t need her judgement—he could do that plenty on his own.

‘I think you can bring me up to speed in the morning,’ he said through clenched teeth. He was too tired for this crap. ‘I’m going home. See yourself out.’

At least going home was his plan, but by the time he’d taken a few paces the adrenaline from his surge of anger had worn off and the message from his quad muscles that they were too fatigued to hold him upright had finally broken through the righteous indignation swamping his brain.

His legs buckled.

Olivia leapt forward in alarm as Ethan wobbled and then toppled sideways, reaching out for the desk wildly in an attempt to stop himself from falling on his butt. She grabbed hold of his arm and between her and the desk they saved him from being a rather inelegant crumpled heap on the expensive Turkish rug.

‘What the hell, Ethan?’ she said as he leaned heavily against her, struggling for balance. ‘How much have you had to drink?’ she asked.

Ethan sucked air in and out between his teeth as his muscles protested. ‘Not the booze,’ he choked out, one hand reaching for a screaming thigh muscle. ‘It’s my damn legs.’

Olivia believed him. He definitely wasn’t drunk. His words weren’t slurred and he didn’t stink of alcohol. In fact, with her nose damn near the vicinity of his throat, she could say for sure that he smelled the way he always had—of utter hedonism. Total crack for the olfactory system. It swamped over her now in a sweet pheromone cloud, and her body responded accordingly.

Honestly, the man was waging chemical warfare on her body and he didn’t even know it, thanks to whatever was going on with his legs.

‘Here, come on,’ she said, staggering under the weight of him a little as she slung his arm over her shoulder. ‘Over to the lounge.’

Ethan didn’t have much of a choice. His thighs were trembling now from the effort of just standing and he felt as weak as a kitten. She led and he followed, and he felt about as potent and virile as a postage stamp.

‘I’m fine,’ he said as soon as they were near enough to the couch to reach for it. ‘Let go.’

Olivia eased away as he flopped down onto the firm leather of the elegant Chesterfield and gave a relieved groan, his hands automatically reaching for his thigh muscles, his eyes shutting, his head flopping back as he kneaded up and down their length. She knelt down in front of him, his knees either side of her shoulders, resting back on her haunches, and waited for him to recover.

It took a few minutes for the creases in his face to start to iron out a little. ‘What happened?’ she asked quietly.

His hands stopped their massaging briefly before starting up again.

‘Is it from when you were injured during your last tour?’ she prompted, when it didn’t look as if he was about to answer her any time soon.

His eyes flicked open and Olivia was struck again by how dull and lifeless they looked. No spark. No glitter.

‘How did you know?’

She gave him a half-smile, trying to lighten the mood. ‘We do have newspapers in Australia, you know. And this new-fangled thing called the worldwide web—which, you know, even goes all the way to Australia.’ Her smile died on her lips when it was apparent he wasn’t going to join her. ‘You’ll be amazed at what you can find on it,’ she murmured.

Ethan pulled his head off the cushioned comfort of the lounge and pierced her with his gaze. Her honey-brown hair fell in wavy disorder around her face and he remembered vividly how it had felt spread out across his chest.

‘You kept tabs on me?’

Olivia sucked in a breath as his low, gravelly voice swept hot fingers along the muscles deep inside her. And was that a flare bursting to life in those golden flecks?

‘No,’ she said, annoyed that even tired and in pain he could think such a thing.

Clearly his ego hadn’t been injured.

‘I haven’t spent the past decade pining over you, Ethan Hunter, if that’s what you think,’ she clarified, her voice snippy even to her own ears. ‘I researched the clinic online when I was looking at partnering with you guys. The newspaper articles about how you evacuated an entire hospital that was being heavily shelled showed up in the search.’

Ethan dropped his head back again and shut his eyes against the annoyance in hers and the echo of memories. He’d been meaning to check up on her over the years, but military life had been full-on and there’d always been an excuse not to.

And then he’d met Aaliyah.

Olivia watched him a little longer, the kneading of his long fingers hypnotic. Part of her wanted to take over—the Olivia of ten years ago would have.

This Olivia curled her hands into fists by her sides and said, ‘What are your injuries?’

Ethan sighed, lifting his head off the lounge again. ‘Legs shot to hell. Right knee and ankle torn up by shrapnel.’

‘Have they been reconstructed?’

He nodded. ‘As best they could. They’re never going to be the same again, though.’

‘Do you have some kind of physio regime, because your legs don’t seem to be very strong. I’d have thought you’d need some kind of a walking aid—a stick or something?’ She frowned, thinking back to the articles she’d read. ‘It’s been about a year, right?’

Ethan grunted. ‘Yes,’ he said tersely. ‘And, yes, I have a regime.’

It took Olivia a second or two to realise she’d asked the wrong question. ‘Do you follow it?’ She folded her arms. ‘Religiously?’

Ethan glared at her. God, she sounded like Lizzie. And Leo. And a lot of well-meaning other people who didn’t have a freaking clue about the realities of his injuries.

‘It’s none of your damn business,’ he growled.

‘It is my damn business if you’re going to collapse on the floor in the middle of operating on Ama.’

Ethan bristled at the implication, and at the unflinching demand he saw in her eyes. She was calling him on his professionalism and leaving him in no doubt that she was holding him to account. It rankled. But still, it was preferable to the pity he usually saw reflected in other people’s eyes.

The poor you look that got under his skin like an army of marching ants.

She didn’t seem to give a damn about the fact of his injuries or even how he’d got them—just that he could do his job. She was being a doctor. And it was in equal parts satisfying and irritating

‘I’m not going to be collapsing on anyone,’ he snapped. ‘I just stood for an extraordinary amount of time today.’

‘Which shouldn’t matter if you’d been diligent with your physio,’ Olivia said.

She knew Ethan. She knew he wouldn’t respond to her empathy. God knew, the empathy and protection Leo had tried to force upon him all those years ago had driven a huge wedge between the brothers and she’d been just one of the casualties.

She knew he wouldn’t let her massage his legs or talk about what had happened. But, having worked out in the field herself, in places no one should have to live, she did know that military men responded best to tough love.

‘I’ve been a little busy trying to establish the humanitarian side of the clinic,’ he snapped. ‘I do what I can when I can.’

Olivia drummed her fingers against her biceps. ‘Well, it looks like it’s not enough. You should be stronger than this by now.’

Ethan knew she was right, but … it had been an unusual day. He let his head flop back again.

He needed to make time to get stronger in his legs. He’d gone from two months in hospital and multiple surgeries to home and feeling sorry for himself to throwing everything he had into his new role at the Hunter Clinic—none of which had been conducive to the hard yards he needed to do.

As Olivia watched he seemed to melt into the couch, exhaustion in every line of his body, and part of her wanted to lay her cheek on his nearby knee and just sit with him in silence. She was surprised to feel such tenderness for him after what had happened. But then the heat in her belly had been a surprise too, after all these years.

She nudged his knee with her shoulder. ‘Have you got a stick you should be using?’

Ethan lifted a hand off his thigh and massaged his forehead with it. He wished she’d just be quiet, already—she was like Jiminy freaking Cricket. ‘Yes …’ he said on a sigh.

‘And the reason you don’t appear to have it with you is …?’

Ethan lifted his head. ‘I hate the damn thing,’ he muttered.

Olivia raised an eyebrow. Did he realise how much he sounded like a petulant child? ‘Does it affect your tough guy image, Ethan? I wouldn’t have thought you so vain.’

Ethan snorted. Did she really think this was about vanity? ‘No, it’s just …’ He shook his head, shut his eyes, rested his head back again as he realised he was about to admit the truth. ‘It … invites conversations I just don’t want to have.’

The heaviness in his voice reached right inside her gut and squeezed. Hard. She knew all too well how hard rehashing things could be—talking about stuff that sometimes you just didn’t want to talk about. Especially with people who had no connection to you.

So many people had wanted to talk to her after what had happened to her parents, had wanted to reminisce, lament, vent. And she’d spent an awful lot of time avoiding them.

Without thinking about it she slid a hand onto his knee. The fine wool of his trousers was soft against her palm, the contours of his knee hard.

‘Ethan …’

Ethan lifted his head again as her touch caused a riot of sensations up his aching leg. Good sensations. She was barely touching him at all, but still it felt as if she’d injected pop rocks into his thigh. He looked at her neat fingernails and remembered how good they’d felt on other parts of his body. How good they’d been together. How much they’d sizzled.

How insatiable they’d been.

His reasons for being with Olivia might not have been exactly altruistic, but they’d been amazingly compatible in the bedroom.

Which reminded him how long it had been since he’d been with a woman. A year.

Not since Aaliyah.

He dragged his eyes off her hand and looked up. Their gazes locked. The worst thing about her touch was how familiar it felt. Here in this clinic, with this woman from his past looking at him with patience and compassion, it would be so easy to grab hold and travel back to a time when he’d been able to lose himself in her and have everything else fade to black.

But it felt … disloyal. To Aaliyah. And he despised himself just a little bit more.

‘Just go, Olivia.’

Go before I kiss you. Before I haul you up on the couch beside me. Before I beg you to stay.

Before I use you one more time.

Olivia’s belly clenched at the flare of heat that fired Ethan’s dull gaze. She’d seen that look before. She knew what it meant. She knew what he wanted. Her breath grew thick in her throat as things south of her waistband stirred and strained, demanding she respond in the most primal way.

His nostrils flared as the silence stretched between them and she could feel the coiled intensity of his muscles. He wanted her. She could see that. Hell, half an hour in his company and she wanted him too.

But, unlike last time, she wanted all of him. She wanted his story and his sadness and his shadows. And she wasn’t going to settle for scraps. For some quick roll in the hay while he made love to her with dead eyes. Because having sex with Ethan had never been a onetime thing for her and she needed to protect herself better than last time.

She was here for Ama. And then she was leaving.

She was not having sex with Ethan Hunter.

Olivia pushed herself shakily to her feet. She was standing between his knees now and an image of her straddling him played in glorious Technicolor inside her head.

She took a step back. ‘Are you—?’ She cleared her throat of its sudden wobble. ‘Are you heading home soon?’

Ethan shook his head. He probably hadn’t been very capable of standing prior to Olivia touching him; he for damn sure wasn’t now. ‘I’ll sleep here tonight.’

Olivia nodded. It seemed best, considering walking had been a monumental effort. ‘Are you … will you be okay?’

‘Dandy,’ he said sarcastically, annoyed at her distant propriety—a far cry from the heat of the look they’d just exchanged.

Olivia ignored his terseness. ‘What time do you want to meet in the morning?’ she asked.

‘Be here at nine.’ His tone was dismissive and he hoped she got the message—get the hell out.

Olivia got the message. It rankled, but she didn’t want to get into anything more with him tonight. It seemed their incendiary attraction still simmered and she didn’t trust that the line between angry and passionate wouldn’t blur and they wouldn’t do something they’d both regret in the morning.

She turned on her heel and headed towards the desk, where her bag had been dumped when Ethan had fallen. She reached for it, her gaze falling on the decanter of whisky. She snatched it up. It could leave with her as well.

Out of sight, out of mind.

‘You don’t have to take it,’ he said derisively from behind her. ‘Even if I was capable of hauling my butt off this couch, I’m done with drinking tonight.’

Olivia turned, slinging the straps of her handbag over her shoulder. ‘Consider this as my way of delivering you from temptation.’ And with that she headed for the door.

Ethan tracked her progress, her clinging jeans, the swish of her honey-brown hair down the back of her coat way too fascinating for his own peace of mind.

A surge of what felt like good old-fashioned lust swept through his system.

He didn’t feel very delivered at all.

Ethan was woken by a hard shake to his shoulder who knew how many hours later? Except where there had been darkness there was now light. Way too much light.

Daylight streamed like glory from heaven through the open slats of the dark wooden blinds dressing the window under which the chesterfield sat, piercing like needles into his eyeballs.

‘Ugh,’ he groaned, shutting his eyes tight. ‘Somebody turn down the sun.’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Leo demanded, ignoring his brother’s protests as he yanked up the blind, causing a tsunami of sunlight.

Ethan groaned louder. ‘It was late,’ he said, shielding his eyes. ‘I crashed here.’

‘I should start charging you rent,’ Leo muttered.

Ethan cracked an eyelid open to find his brother lounging against the far arm of the couch. He squinted at his watch. It was six-thirty in the morning. ‘Lizzie kick you out of bed?’

Leo grinned, which was way too much for Ethan at this hour of the morning. ‘She’s not sleeping very well,—has to keep getting up to go to the bathroom. I’m trying to give her as much room as possible.’

Ethan was pleased his brother had found love, but such happiness was a bit hard to take—especially hard on the heels of his less than stellar reunion with Olivia. He sat and swung his legs over the edge of the couch, pleased to feel the strength back in his quads.

‘You look like hell,’ Leo said cheerfully.

‘Gee … thanks.’ Compared to last night he felt like a million dollars.

‘You going to head home or shower here?’

Ethan ran his hands through his hair. ‘I’ll use your bathroom.’ He always kept spare clothes in his office, and a private bathroom was one of the perks of being the director—or related to him anyway.

Ethan owned the clinic jointly with his brother, but had gladly ceded control to him when he’d decided to leave everything tainted with the Hunter name behind and put his medical degree to good use in the army. Leo had been angry that he was skipping out on his family responsibilities, especially with the clinic in such trouble after his father’s scandal, and had spent the next ten years trying to involve his younger brother in the day-to-day running of the clinic.

But Ethan hadn’t cared. He’d not wanted any part of lipo and boob jobs on a bunch of movie stars. He’d been doing real work and Leo could do whatever the hell he liked to salvage the professional and financial reputation of the once renowned Hunter Clinic.

And then he’d been blown all to hell and Leo had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. An offer he’d desperately needed to stop him from sliding into an abyss of self-pity.

Leo pushed up off the arm. ‘When you’re done I’ll buy you breakfast.’

Three quarters of an hour later they were sitting inside a nearby café, tucking into a traditional English breakfast. They were both on their second cup of coffee.

‘So. You saw Olivia last night, I take it?’

Ethan looked up from his plate. ‘Yes. Nicely orchestrated,’ he said with derision.

Completely unabashed, Leo said, ‘How did that go?’

‘How do you think it went?’

‘Not as well as I’d hoped, by the sounds of it.’

‘Let’s just say I wasn’t in the best shape when she arrived. She pretty much accused me of being one step away from the old man and then chewed my ear off about not doing my physio.’

Leo laughed. ‘Still the same blunt old Olivia, huh?’

Ethan grunted, then took a sip of his coffee. ‘She is and she isn’t. There’s a … reserve about her … she’s not her usual vivacious self.’

‘Maybe that’s just being around you?’

Ethan contemplated his brother’s observation. Maybe it was. Anyway … it didn’t go well. She has your decanter of whisky too, by the way.’

Leo laughed harder. ‘Did you discuss the case at all?’

Ethan shook his head. ‘She’s coming to your office at nine to brief us both.’

Leo quirked an eyebrow at his brother. ‘Am I to be an intermediary?’

Ethan looked at his older brother. His tone was light but their history with Olivia Fairchild was complex. And, apart from one aborted attempt on the day of Leo’s wedding, Ethan had never really apologised for his behaviour where that was concerned. He’d not only hurt Olivia but he’d also hurt Leo—deliberately.

Because he could.

He put his coffee cup down in its saucer. ‘No. Of course not. About that … about Olivia … about what happened between all of us—’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Leo interrupted. ‘Water under the bridge.’

‘No.’ Ethan shook his head. ‘I was out of line.’

‘Yes, you were.’ Leo grinned. ‘But … I knew deep down she never really liked me—not in that way. She certainly never gave me any reason to think there was anything other than friendship on her behalf. But … she was so gorgeous … my ego got in the way.’

Gorgeous. Yes, Leo was right. Olivia had been vivacious, sparkling, witty. Quick with a laugh and a snappy one-liner.

And utterly gorgeous.

‘That doesn’t make my behaviour any less reprehensible. You were right. I was using her to get at you and I’m sorry. I was pretty self-destructive there for a while, huh?’

Leo shrugged. ‘Losing Mum was hard on you.’

‘And not on you?’

‘Ethan … we’ve made our peace. We both did things wrong and I don’t expect you to spend the rest of your life apologising for something that happened a long time ago which we’ve put behind us.’

He paused and pierced his brother with a look that Ethan had come to know as his clinic director look.

‘And I’m not the one you need to apologise to. That’s what you were supposed to be doing last night.’

Ethan grimaced. ‘Yeah. That didn’t happen.’ He glanced at his brother, who held his gaze with unwavering intensity. ‘She refused to accept my apology last time. What makes you think she will now?’

‘It’s been a long time,’ Leo said. ‘And she’s never struck me as being someone to hold a grudge.’

‘It was pretty unforgivable.’

Leo nodded in agreement. ‘You need to make it right, though. You’ll be working with her again over the next few months. You have to clear the air.’