Chapter 9
R aphael
Across the desk in the antiquated fifties-style office, Jared’s face mottled red as he tore me a new one, his screen displaying a tabloid picture of me and Alex last night.
“Look at that shit. You exposed the princess and the whole team to ridicule.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The story implies she was drunk. The photo suggests she couldn’t walk out under her own steam. That reflects on the Crown. What were you thinking?”
I stared at the image. Her pretty face. My arm around her, under her breasts. It looked like a boyfriend helping her more than a bodyguard, but that wasn’t the point. “I was doing my job.”
“You had no right to be there. You acted outside of your jurisdiction.”
A rush of anger had me balling my hands into fists on my knees. “I went in to protect her, and it’s lucky I was there. I pulled her out of a situation that could’ve turned ugly. One which your team refused to help with. Tell me how any of that is wrong.”
He slammed his hand down on the desk, rattling the wire trays and his stained mug. “As a temporary member of my unit, you jump when I tell you to jump. You’re on duty when I tell you you’re on duty. You don’t get to wade in whenever you choose.”
I snorted in disdain, disgusted with his behaviour and his management of the service. “So in your world, I should have just left her to the wolves?”
“You shouldn’t have been there. You didn’t have the right.” He held up a finger, stopping me as I was about to speak again. “I can’t have someone like you in my unit, even just as cover. From the start, I didn’t like you, and you only proved me right.”
I was so infuriated I wanted to yell. He didn’t know me and hadn’t taken the time to try. “There is nothing bad in protecting our principal when she needed it. You’re the one in the wrong. You need to find out how that photographer discovered her. You need to change everything you’re doing before someone gets hurt.”
Jared stood. “Don’t presume to give me orders, kid. You’re fired. Get the fuck out of my office.”
Fired? For a second, I stayed in place, unable to speak.
Jared smiled, and his haughty tone only got haughtier. “Maybe you’ll learn next time not to try to teach an old dog, you little punk. Now fuck off before I get the police in here to throw you off palace grounds. See if the press want that photo to add to their collection.”
I forced myself to move. Him calling in the armed officers would see me ejected from the building, and I had to speak to Alex first.
Out of the office, I took a right rather than a left, heading deeper into the palace. I emerged at the base of the sweeping staircase where the princess had sat last night and waited for me to bring her friend home.
I had no clue what I was doing, only that I didn’t have her number. I definitely didn’t have the clearance to roam the building unchallenged, and even if I did, I had no idea where her apartment or rooms were.
If I accidentally stumbled in on the king, I could be shot.
A man in a suit and carrying a tray stepped from an ornate doorway across the hall. He looked me up and down. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Princess Alexandra’s bodyguard. I need to speak to her.”
He gave a professional smile. “The princess left the grounds half an hour ago. Though clearly without you. Perhaps you should take that up with your manager?”
I muttered thanks, and the man watched me go back the way I’d come. Beaten, I trudged away. I’d missed out and now had to leave without saying goodbye.
Maybe it was for the best. I didn’t belong here. She hadn’t liked my interference. When I got home, I’d talk to Ben about her safety then put this…whatever it was I had going on behind me.
M y Inverness flight touched down at four p.m., and I drove straight from the airport to the McRae estate. London was a buzzing city, but there was nothing like coming home to the Scottish mountains I loved.
The peacefulness was a balm over my rough edges.
The open road wound past the glistening loch surrounded by foothills and rolling heathland. Summer was in full bloom, and everything was green, with wee flowers studded in the landscape and the air clean and clear. Elsewhere, the Highlands would be thick with tourists, but we were tucked away in a remote spot that only locals knew.
It was secluded and private, yet in under an hour, I was nearly home.
With my car windows open, I drove past the two huge stone gateposts that marked the entrance to the estate, Castle McRae ahead of me on the other side of the bridge. I crossed it and swung left, taking the route through the woods and passing the second McRae castle, Braithar, the place I currently called home.
No time for stopping now. I’d already rung ahead to Ben, and when I finally reached the wide-open moor where the aircraft hangar was located, my boss was waiting for me. Leaning against a car, he chatted with another man, my older brother, Gabe, kitted out in a mountain rescue jumpsuit and backpack as if poised to head out onto the hill.
For days, I’d felt like a fish out of water. Being home and seeing familiar faces eased another degree of my tension. I leapt from the car, and Gabe’s attention shifted to me.
As always, he spread out an arm to pull me into a hard hug. “Glad you’re back.”
I hugged him. “Any news?” His wife was due to have their bairn any day. My first niece or nephew.
“Not yet. Effie’s bored out of her mind, but the midwife said another week or two yet.”
“If you’re heading out, tell her I’m here if she needs anything,” I said.
Despite there being almost no snow, the mountain rescue teams were busy, and my older brother flew the rescue helicopter. Summer brought long hours of daylight, and hikers took the opportunity to get lost or injured in the mountains with alarming regularity.
“Ariel’s with her this afternoon,” he referenced our younger sister, “but I’ll take ye up on that this evening if I’m still out.”
Further members of the rescue team exited the hangar, led by Lochinvar, the leader of the mountain rescue service. Gabe saluted us and strode away to join them, leaving me and Ben alone.
My boss, a solid man more than a decade older than me, watched me with a more serious expression.
I matched it. “We need to talk.”
He pushed off the car. “Aye. Let’s take it inside.”
I followed Ben into the hangar. The open frontage gave way to a stunning view of the landscape. Inside, mechanics worked on helicopters, and a collection of studious cadets listened to an instructor in the flight school I’d once attended.
We bypassed it all and entered the bodyguard office, a freestanding structure built at the back.
Ben parked himself behind his desk. I didn’t sit. Unlike with Jared, I trusted my boss with my life and needed to pace to get the words out.
“I sent the news article. Did ye read it?”
Ben inclined his head. “Messy business.”
“It was.”
“And ye handled it exactly the way I would’ve. I’m proud of ye.”
Another even tighter knot of tension unravelled. I’d been fired because of the actions I’d taken last night. I hadn’t failed at anything in my life, ever. Not an exam, not my driving test at seventeen, not my helicopter private licence or the extended tests I’d taken earlier in the year to fly commercially. I was driven and hardworking, yet everything I’d left behind felt like a failure.
“Walk me through it. Don’t skip a detail,” Ben ordered.
As methodically as I could manage, I worked through the events as they’d unfolded, from the minute I’d reached the palace, to when we’d talked on the phone, then the aftermath. The photographer. The drunken friend. The exit strategy.
Ben listened and praised my choices. As the newest member of his team, I still had a lot to learn, but I’d been out with Leo on tour and to high-profile events, and I’d flown as part of that. We had a slick process designed around protecting our principal.
I exhaled frustration. “The problem isn’t the fact that she’s photographed everywhere she goes. That’s unavoidable. It’s not even that there isn’t the budget for twenty-four-seven protection. It’s the fact her team doesn’t give a flying crap, and she isn’t following any safety protocols, let alone basic ones. Something’s going to happen. I can see it a mile off, and any trained person would, too. What the hell is Barrington Bray doing with that team?”
Ben scrubbed a hand through his dark-blond hair, his grey t-shirt displaying our McRae Bodyguards logo. He pursed his lips then picked up his phone. Opening something on the screen, he eyed me. “Only one way to find out.”
My heart thumped, but Ben was right. It was no good me complaining to him. He had my back, and the person responsible for that shitshow was the service owner.
“Call him,” I agreed.
He dialled. The phone rang.
It kept going, no answer. Then the voicemail service kicked in. Ben hung up and tapped out a text.
“I’ve asked him to call me back.” He set the phone down and steepled his fingers. “I owe ye an apology for that mess.”
“No, ye don’t.”
He trained his gaze on me, his expression telling me I needed to hush. “I agreed to lend a member of my team without doing the legwork to check what you’d be going into. I thought the experience would be good, and I’ve known Barrington for years so I trusted that his operation would be decent. I believed he’d have his finger on the pulse. I was wrong.”
“I didn’t mind the work,” I slowly gave up. “I would’ve stayed to help.”
“From the picture ye painted of Jared, I doubt he’d listen. No, there’s something else going on that we don’t know and can’t be ignored.” He rapped on his desk. “Leave it with me. You’re still off the rota for a few more days, so go and chill out, then we’ll talk in the morning. Jax is around the hangar somewhere.”
He released me, and I slunk outside, lighter than when I’d come in but still troubled. A quick hunt around gave me no joy for finding Jackson, so I shot him a text and let myself drift into the helicopter bay.
This was my happy place. Engine oil and rotor blades.
Near the hangar entrance, a mechanic worked on the guts of a Sikorsky S-92A, the rescue heli my brother flew in all weathers. Beyond that was a Robinson R44, used by the commercial arm of the hangar to fly private hire. It was cheap and fast, and used to get execs to important meetings and doctors to hospitals. I could pilot both, but it was the Airbus H-125 that was my baby.
I neared my favourite, snug in a bay. I flew it weekly to get Leo to and from meetings and gigs. On his last tour, crowd trouble and a narrow escape left Valentine, another of our team, stabbed in the thigh. As a result, Leo had changed how he moved in and out of cities. No more staying in hotels overnight, no matter the time.
I could fly him to London in an hour and a half. He could perform gigs all over the country then be home and tucked up with his wife and kids before the night was out. It was an arrangement that suited everyone and gave me a role in the service I could be proud of. Something I wasn’t exactly feeling after the disaster of the previous few days.
Amid the clatter and clanks of people working nearby, I peered through the window of the heli, checking out the avionics. A quick jaunt skywards would cure my stress levels no end. Flying took every bit of my concentration, and it cleared my mind like nothing else. Then I remembered my promise to Gabe. I couldn’t head out in case my sister-in-law needed me.
I was grounded.
A hand seized my shoulder and spun me around.
Jackson laughed and grabbed me into a hug. “Found ye.” He pulled back and scrutinised my face. “What’s wrong?”
Everything. All of it was wrong.
The fact I couldn’t stop thinking about Alex’s safety when it was none of my business anymore. The sense of being at home when I should be somewhere else. Ben would address the team issues with Barrington, and that was where my story ended. I needed to get it out of my head.
I mimed shooting myself. “Too much. What are ye doing?”
“We came back from Edinburgh a couple of hours ago, and Ben had us scheduled for a fitness afternoon. Val’s out on a trail run, I’m about to hit the weights.”
A workout sounded like a very good idea. We had a gym installed in a rear corner of the hangar, past the bunkhouse where air cadets and rescue workers could sleep overnight if needed.
I shoved his shoulder. “I’m down.”
He shoved me back, an amused smile curving his lips. “Like that, is it?”
Jackson goaded me all the way to the gym, and our workout turned into a fight. At university, we’d wrestled, and at around the same height of six-two, were well matched. As part of our job, we did high-intensity cardio five days a week and strength training every other day.
It wasn’t just the hard slams of combat helping me now.
At a little older than me, my best friend had a world of experience in handling tragedy and pain after the worst had happened to his family. He didn’t ask for details of what I brooded over, merely took his position across the crash mat and let me vent my emotions.
After an hour, he had me pinned down, and I finally submitted, smacking the mat. Sweat dripped from me, but at least I could see straight.
Jackson rolled away and lay flat out. “Beer.”
I pointed to my phone, left on loud next to the mat. “Can’t. Effie duty.”
“Steak, then. We’ll stop off at the pub and pick up dinner. The lasses will be happy.” He sprang up and offered me a hand.
I accepted and let him haul me to my feet. Then I checked my messages. One arrived in front of my eyes—from my brother, saying he was on his way back and would go home, so he had his wife covered.
That meant dinner alone with my best friend and my sister. I loved them both, but I was still in a shitty mood. The thought of hanging out with an in-love couple was not appealing.
Another idea had crept into its place.
One where I spent time digging around the internet for traces of Alex. Something I’d never admit to my friend.
I regarded him. “Effie doesnae need me anymore. Mind if I rain check dinner? I have something else I need to do.”
Jackson tilted his head. “Why do I get the sense you’re up to no good?”
“Quit mind reading me. Ye won’t like what ye find.”
His shrewd gaze followed me back to my car.
For obvious reasons, bodyguards made excellent stalkers, and I was unsure if I could resist trying it on for size.