the odd glass of wine if I’m dining out, but I’m generally happy to be the designated driver on a night out like this,’ he added, as if he’d read her mind. ‘Easier than trying to get a taxi sometimes.’
Yet she didn’t miss the flash of...something that skittered across his face before he shot it down.
So he wasn’t the drunk, but maybe someone close to him?
She gave herself a mental shake at her uncharacteristic curiosity.
What did it matter? It wasn’t any of her business.
Admittedly, she’d dealt with enough soldiers telling her only half-truths about their injuries in order to get back to their unit quicker. If you knew the give-aways it could be easy to spot when someone was holding back, even if you had no idea what they were withholding. But this wasn’t the army now. She wasn’t at work. This was about play. So if this stranger wanted to keep something private then who was she to pry?
She smiled openly.
‘So, you aren’t going back to them? Your friends?’
‘Do you want me to?’
She should tell him it didn’t matter to her either way. Hadn’t she been ready to leave anyway for the comforts of her hotel spa bath and downy bed? Instead, she held out her hand by way of silent invitation.
‘I’m Elle.’
‘Just Elle?’ He smiled, stretching out his arm.
His fingers brushed hers moments before a strong palm enveloped her hand. Something arced between them, making the air seem to crackle. It was all Elle could do not to snatch her hand back.
Or to lean into him and give in to the rash impulse to press her mouth to those inviting lips.
‘Well, then, Just Elle, I’m just Fitz.’
‘Touché.’
She couldn’t help a soft chuckle from slipping out and the instant flare of awareness from the stranger—from Fitz—instilled her with another unexpected boost of confidence.
The guy who was coveted by a good proportion of the females in the place actually fancied her? From something as simple as her laugh?
‘So, Elle, what brings you here tonight? Alone? Only—and forgive me if this sounds impertinent—aside from your impressive moves back there with your unwanted admirers, you’ve looked a little...uncomfortable all evening.’
She offered a rueful smile.
‘Was it that obvious?’
‘You mean aside from the ramrod-straight back? Or the untouched drink? Or the fact that most people are happy to flirt yet you were oblivious to the five or six other, non-inebriated men who tried to make a play for you all evening?’
‘Are you saying I don’t fit in?’ She couldn’t help teasing him, firmly quashing the slither of unease that he might have a point.
‘I’m saying you looked a little like you weren’t used to it.’
She sighed. She could try to be nonchalant, but it wasn’t likely to work. Maybe she should just be honest? She had opened her mouth to speak when a commotion on the other side of the room caught her attention. But as the people jostled she caught sight of a body on the floor, convulsing as a screaming girl tried to hold it down.
Elle didn’t think, she didn’t wait, she just glanced at her watch to note the time and she acted.
ONE MOMENT ELLE was sitting on the barstool next to him, the next she was thrusting people out of her way as she made a beeline for some hubbub behind him. Call it intuition after fifteen years as an army officer, call it something about Elle’s understated purposefulness, but Fitz was compelled to follow even as he strained to see past the throng.
It was only when he saw the young man on the floor, with Elle gently forcing a sobbing girl to release her grip on him, that Fitz realised what was happening. Icy fingers slid the length of his spine, the length of his body, rooting him to the spot. He fought to shut his mind to the memories that threatened to overtake him, but not fast enough. They slammed into him with brutal force, knocking his breath out like a bullet striking body armour.
The last time he’d seen someone having a seizure like this had been over twenty years ago. His baby sister had had seizures from about the age of one. Not often, but still. How had he forgotten about that?
Memories crowded his head. Images he’d buried along with her body. Her tiny, five-year-old’s coffin next to the adult-size one of their mother. He struggled to shove the unwanted images away and try instead to focus on helping the woman he’d just met who was managing the situation with the same cool efficiency with which she’d dispatched Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dumber earlier.
‘Let him go,’ Elle was telling the girl, kindly but firmly.
‘No. No. I can’t.’ She shook her head manically and tried to shrug Elle off. ‘He’s my brother, he’s going to hurt himself.’
‘How long has your brother suffered from epilepsy?’
‘What? No.’ The girl shook her head violently. ‘He’s seventeen, he doesn’t have epilepsy. He’s never had epilepsy. What’s wrong with him?’
‘Your brother’s never had a seizure before?’ Elle asked calmly.
The same calmness with which Fitz remembered his mother teaching his eleven-year-old self what to do if his sister ever had a seizure if he was alone with her. Not that he’d ever needed to in the end.
‘Of course he’s never had one,’ the girl was wailing. ‘I told you, there’s nothing wrong with him.’
‘What about anyone else in your family?’
‘What? No. I’m his sister, I’d know if he had epilepsy.’ The girl was practically apoplectic. ‘I have to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. Oh, God, what’s wrong with him?’
‘It’s okay.’ Taking the girl’s head in her hands, Elle forced the kid to look at her. ‘I’m a doctor, do you understand me? It’s going to be okay but you have to trust me. Let go of your brother. If you try to hold him in place you could end up causing more damage.’
Her soothing tone not only seemed to help the girl but him too, and he began to be able to move past his memories just as she glanced up at the room, her stern, clear voice carrying over the now music-free club.
‘Everyone else, can you just back up, please, and give him some room?’ She turned back to the girl. ‘Okay, now this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to move that table away for me so your brother doesn’t hurt himself by banging it.’
All of a sudden Fitz’s legs sprang back into life and, propelling himself forward, he distracted the girl.
‘Come on, I’ll help
