He wasn’t going to hide from telling Nora where Ryan was. It was why he was here. But right now he had an opportunity placed before him that meant he didn’t have to think about the situation he’d left behind in northern Italy or about how seeing his brother really made him feel. Right now he wanted to do something he knew he could do, and do well. And if it helped burn off the latent energy so that maybe at some point later today he’d be able to sleep, even better.
Probably after he got some sleep things would go back to feeling simple and he’d stop worrying that his boss was going to judge him negatively for something any decent person would have done.
Realising he’d left his other bag behind, he called out, ‘Can you pop through to reception and pick up my garment bag, take out the blue suit and bring it to me?’
‘What did your last slave die of?’
Ethan looked in the mirror, liking how her harrumphed tone put the twinkle back in his eyes. ‘Happiness when I came out of the bathroom naked to fetch my own clothes?’
As he started removing jacket, top and jeans, he tried to make out more dark mutterings from the other side of the door before it was opened a notch and his clothes were pushed through the tiny gap and dumped on the chair inside the door. A few seconds later the door opened a little bit wider and she mumbled, ‘There was no tie in your bag.’
‘Oh, yeah. Don’t use them.’ He had no problem meeting her curious gaze and as her eyes dropped lower to take in his chest and the ink that wrapped around his right pectoral and shoulder, his grin grew impossibly wider. ‘Too restrictive.’
She shut the door firmly between them.
He chuckled. He might be suffering from insomnia, but even the fug of running on empty hadn’t diminished the spark of attraction between them.
Unbuttoning the white shirt, he shucked into it.
Settling back into life after a deployment was always hard. Granted, he usually had the satisfaction of knowing he’d done a good job and all he could to help.
This time everything was different.
This time…well he wasn’t willing to take that one out of the box for analysis quite yet. All he knew for certain was that for the first time in a long while he’d questioned his ability to make a situation better and he’d questioned his ability to keep doing a job he loved so much. Especially during the hours when he’d been talking to Pietro, trying to figure out how to get them both out. Shaking his head, he put the suit on and determined to think about something else.
For his brother to track him down and make contact was unusual, but when the first phone call from Ryan had come, Ethan had remained calm.
Relaxed.
Calm always got him through deployment. And relaxed had always got him through dealing with his family, and in particular, his kid brother.
He’d accepted that phone call with the deliberate laissez-faire attitude his brother was so expert at, and when Ryan had told him he was in trouble, he hadn’t asked near enough questions.
Ethan was going to carry the guilt of that for a while, no matter that in his opinion his brother hadn’t ever known what real trouble was. Never saw what Ethan saw every day in his work. Ryan’s version of trouble could be alleviated by him simply growing up and changing his attitude.
His brother had had to call a second time before Ethan properly computed what was going on. By then, coinciding with being called into his superior’s tent and told to take some leave while they filled out their report, the last thing he had been feeling as he packed his bag to take the plane home to the UK, was calm and relaxed.
Ryan needed his help. Of course Ethan would help.
Any concern over the fact that his own future hung on the outcome of a report could be relegated to second place.
He only hoped getting Sephy King on board with his idea to help his brother wasn’t made more difficult by her older sister, Nora.
Nora King.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Not a princess in skyscraper heels with defiant fiery button-brown eyes and the dreamiest, creamiest, palest of complexions, though.
She was the living embodiment of the corporate females he deliberately avoided these days, but there was something about her that slammed right into him, leaving him a little breathless. Even with the business-as-usual façade she wore, he could see the struggle she was trying to survive underneath. How she couldn’t quite hide the fact that grief had stripped her bare and she didn’t know what to do about it.
He’d seen that same hollowed-out shocked look on people’s faces when their worlds had exploded and they’d been left to try and rebuild what they could.
Combing his hair back from his face, he thought about the woman on the other side of the door. He really shouldn’t, but damsels in distress being something of a rarity these days, he felt like indulging himself.
Probably not the wisest move; especially as the plan had been to sort things for his brother, so he was ready to go and finish the job he’d started if he got the call from the charity. When, he got the call from the charity. He wasn’t going to waste energy thinking negatively.
Nora was standing by her uncluttered glass desk when he entered the office, her head angled towards his luggage as if trying to absorb all the information about him she could by osmosis. It occurred to him that no woman should be able to look that regal while having a shoe stuck to her hand, but Nora made it look easy. And sexy. Or maybe the insomnia was finally tipping him over the edge.
Buckling his belt he walked over to the garment bag and took out a pair of formal shoes to put on. He supposed if he was going to be back for a while he’d have to get used to being suited and booted again.
Doing this presentation for her and taking her to hospital to get her parted from her shoe would definitely help take the edge off the restlessness that came with being back.
Maybe taking her out afterwards would help keep that restlessness at bay. Especially if he took her somewhere colourful, lively, relaxed and about as far removed from the crumbling half-finished job he’d left behind him.
His gaze swept over the rigid set to her shoulders and the way she sucked on her bottom lip. On second thoughts, perhaps he’d take her somewhere quiet. Intimate. No distractions.
‘I can’t believe you don’t have a tie with you,’ she said.
‘You’re lucky I have the suit with me.’ He usually travelled lighter, but he’d had the King’s world in mind when he’d packed. If he wanted their help, he’d figured a bit of conformity would ease the way.
‘I don’t know why you would bring a suit but not a tie,’ she continued.
Ethan smiled inwardly at the genuine suspicion in her voice. He bet Nora liked her guys bound by the formality. Traditional. Safe. Boring. He caught her watching him out of the corner of his eye. ‘So what do you think?’ he asked. ‘Brush up as well as the next guy?’
Nora seemed to consider his question seriously. What? Was she actually weighing him up against every other guy? The notion had him
