The Bodyguard's Christmas Proposal Read online

  Royal Christmas at Seattle General

  A very royal Christmas surprise awaits...

  As trees go up, snow begins to fall, lights begin to sparkle and gifts are wrapped, the esteemed Seattle General Hospital Emergency Room team prepares for a festive season they won’t soon forget!

  Head ER doc Domenico di Rossi has long kept his identity as Crown Prince of Isola Verde a secret, so when his father is admitted to the ER, chaos erupts and unexpected Christmas miracles are set in motion for everyone in the hospital. Now, with lives on the line, secrets to hide, a throne to be claimed, and hearts to win and lose, it’s clear that this Christmas will be the most dramatic yet for the team at Seattle General Hospital!

  Available now:

  Falling for the Secret Prince

  by Alison Roberts

  Neurosurgeon’s Christmas to Remember

  by Traci Douglass

  The Bodyguard’s Christmas Proposal

  by Charlotte Hawkes

  The Princess’s Christmas Baby

  by Louisa George

  The Bodyguard’s Christmas Proposal

  Charlotte Hawkes

  Born and raised on the Wirral Peninsula in England, Charlotte Hawkes is mom to two intrepid boys who love her to play building block games with them, and who object loudly to the amount of time she spends on the computer. When she isn’t writing—or building with blocks—she is company director for a small Anglo-French construction firm. Charlotte loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her at her website, charlotte-hawkes.com.

  Books by Charlotte Hawkes

  Harlequin Medical Romance

  Reunited on the Front Line

  Second Chance with His Army Doc

  Reawakened by Her Army Major

  A Summer in São Paolo

  Falling for the Single Dad Surgeon

  A Bride to Redeem Him

  The Surgeon’s One-Night Baby

  Christmas with Her Bodyguard

  A Surgeon for the Single Mom

  The Army Doc’s Baby Secret

  Unwrapping the Neurosurgeon’s Heart

  Surprise Baby for the Billionaire

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  Praise for Charlotte Hawkes

  “Ms. Hawkes has delivered a really good read in this book where I smiled a lot because of the growing relationship between the hero and heroine... The romance was well worth the wait because of the building sexual tension between the pair.”

  —Harlequin Junkie on A Surgeon for the Single Mom

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EXCERPT FROM THE PRINCESS’S CHRISTMAS BABY BY LOUISA GEORGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  IF TWELVE YEARS as an ER nurse had taught Kat Steel anything, it was that there were two things that travelled ridiculously fast around a hospital. One was a winter flu bug. The other was gossip. Right now, the latter was rife.

  Even as Kat silently navigated her way around the small cluster of colleagues at the nurses’ station, all typing up notes or getting their next shout, the air was positively buzzing. The downtime was one of the pitfalls of cases coming into the ER in fits and starts on some days.

  ‘I mean, seriously, did you see the guy?’

  ‘Of course I saw him. How could anyone miss him?’

  ‘I missed it. I was with the woman in bay two. What happened?’

  ‘He was like some kind of superhero.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m calling him Comic Book God.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, Gemma, you’re such a nerd.’

  But there was no malice in the last comment, and Kat couldn’t help but smile.

  She might have only been at Seattle General for the past eight months, but she’d quickly discovered that Gemma was funny and kind, and a self-proclaimed comic nerd. She was also the closest thing Kat would describe as a real friend.

  As if reading her thoughts, Gemma looked up and caught her eye.

  ‘Did you see him, Kat?’

  There was no question who they were talking about. After all, it wasn’t every day that a gurney raced through the ER with one patient astride it, their knee rammed into the femoral artery of an older man who’d lain, unconscious, beneath him. Evidently the man—or indeed, superhero—had been doing all he could to plug the bleed and save the older man’s life.

  At least until Dom di Rossi, their Head of ER, and the rest of his team could stabilise him enough to get him into Theatre.

  ‘Yeah, I saw him. But I was dealing with the female passenger who came in with them.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gemma moved slightly away from the group so that no one else could hear. ‘I saw her, she looked very...autocratic.’

  ‘Yeah, nice, though. Clearly more concerned about her fellow passengers than herself. She refused an X-ray. Insisted on seeing Lucas.’

  ‘Lucas Beaufort?’ Gemma named another ER doctor.

  ‘The same.’ Kat shrugged. ‘But don’t tell the hyenas. They’ll only read something into it.’

  ‘You know I won’t.’

  Picking her way around the group to collect the notes for her next patient, Kat ignored the rumourmongers and pretended that she wasn’t interested. That the whole incident hadn’t looked like some incredible Hollywood action film.

  It was irritating that she couldn’t seem to shake the man out of her head. Like he’d somehow locked himself in there. The intense focus on his face. And...something else. Something she couldn’t quite identify.

  ‘Admit it, Kat, even you can’t have failed to be impressed.’ Another nurse dragged her back to reality, and back to the conversation about the superhero patient.

  ‘It was certainly...unusual,’ she conceded, after a moment.

  Because, after Kirk, if anyone should be immune to men—even those who looked like comic book gods—then surely it should be her?

  ‘Kat?’ The low voice of one of the hospital managers snagged her attention and Kat turned gratefully as a tablet was pressed quietly into her hands. Anything that could spare her from thoughts of her perfidious ex was to be welcomed.

  ‘Your next patient. I trust you’ll be discreet.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kat confirmed, glancing down at the electronic notes before the hospital managers summoned her along.

  Logan Connors.

  She was about to locate the patient in the main ER when the manager shook her head.

  ‘Not in there. This way...’

  Making their way out of the general ER to the VIP patient area, they hurried along the wide corridors to the private rooms, right to the most restricted section.

  Who were these people?

  But there was no time to consider the question. The door to one of the rooms opened as someone went inside and, for the briefest moment, Kat glimpsed Emilia Featherstone, Seattle General’s Head of Orthopaedics, who had collected the elderly man from the gurney earlier. Then, as Kat hurried along, the door closed again and her attention was snagged by another figure standing on the other side of the corridor with his back to her, almost as if on g
uard. As he turned his head to talk to her approaching manager, Kat startled, and then something rolled low in her belly.

  The guy from the gurney—Comic Book God. Surely he couldn’t possibly be her next patient?

  She stood, rooted to the spot, as her manager bustled back down the corridor to her, the man clearly reluctant to follow.

  As they neared, she realised that the name Comic Book God wasn’t nearly a lofty enough term to describe this hulk of a man, who was mouthwateringly tall, big and fit.

  Very fit. In more than one sense of the word.

  ‘This is Logan Connors,’ the manager introduced Kat, the very nature of how this was happening warning her that he was also to be treated as a VIP.

  Even his real name had a tinge of superhero about it. Or perhaps that was just her...projecting. There was no doubt about it, the man was attractive.

  More than attractive. Even frowning at her, as he was.

  ‘I don’t need to be looked at.’

  There ought to have been a law against any man having such a rich, seductive voice, especially when they looked like this one did. And especially when they were practically growling.

  ‘I’ll leave him in your capable hands, Kat,’ her manager declared, turning to walk back down the corridor as she mouthed at Kat to convince him.

  She had to be kidding.

  ‘Thanks,’ Kat muttered, instead. ‘Mr Connors...’

  ‘Logan.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’m not being looked at. But if you’re going to call me anything, just call me Logan.’

  She swallowed.

  ‘Okay,’ she began, ‘Logan... You’re going to have to let me check you over.’

  Heat zipped thought her. If that didn’t sound like the most cringeworthy come-on, she didn’t know what would.

  But how could it not?

  He was possibly the most beautiful, most masculine man she’d ever seen in her life, with a strong, square jaw that made her palms itch just to reach out and trace it, and teeth so white that it was impossible not to imagine them against her skin.

  It had been impressive enough watching him sail in on that gurney but now, almost face to face, Kat felt a ripple of something else—something she didn’t care to identify—cascade through her.

  Fighting to regulate her suddenly erratic breathing, Kat wrested her gaze from him and glanced over his shoulder to the private room where Dr Featherstone and her colleagues were still with the other MVA victim. The man whose life this Logan Connors—Logan—had saved by compressing the older man’s proximal right iliac artery.

  Given the extent of the damage, he would have needed to apply upwards of one hundred and twenty pounds of pressure to stop exsanguination within seconds—something a first responder might have needed his entire upper body to manage—yet Logan had managed it simply by ramming his knee onto the critical point.

  Ten minutes ago she hadn’t thought it possible. Now, looking at the man standing in front of her, looking for all the world as though he was hewn from granite, she thought maybe she could believe anything of him.

  He truly looked as though he could move mountains. Shape worlds.

  Ridiculous, fanciful notion, she snorted inwardly.

  He was probably just an ex-military guy. He certainly looked like one. And that compression technique was one she thought she remembered hearing military physicians were taught—to plug a main artery like that.

  Not that it made any difference who he was, or what he’d done.

  ‘Your...father...is in good hands,’ she hazarded.

  Instinct told her they weren’t father and son, but Logan’s protectiveness of the older man was unmistakable. Even for a hospital accustomed to protecting VIP identities, the secrecy around these patients was unusually high.

  And Comic Book God was looking particularly fierce.

  She told herself it was the fact that he was standing there, so strong and upright, as though he had just arrived at some posh gala, the most well turned-out man there. As though he wasn’t clearly injured or bloodied, or his clearly expensively tailored suit ripped and sullied with bloodstains.

  And, somehow, that only made him look all the more...sexy.

  You’re being ridiculous again.

  Shaking her head, Kat battled to focus. This wasn’t like her. It wasn’t what she did.

  She prided herself on her reputation as an efficient, kind, approachable ER nurse, liked by patients and colleagues alike, just like all the nurses who had made her own childhood, spent in and out of hospitals, so much more bearable.

  And above all—just like those nurses who had cared for her—Kat strived to be very, very good at her job.

  She did not strive to feel unsettled.

  Ever.

  Which only made it all the more incomprehensible that, standing face to face with Comic Book God, she found herself...rattled.

  Unexpectedly, that gaze slammed into hers, and this time she realised his eyes had to be the most incredible, piercing blue she’d ever seen. Pinning her to the spot. Making her feel as though he could peel back every layer of who she was, and leave her exposed and vulnerable, for the world to see.

  And then they scanned her up and down. Checking her out. And everything...compressed inside her.

  You’re being ridiculous.

  She pasted her best smile on her face and held her hand out to indicate a vacant consultation room.

  ‘If you’d like to go into there, Mr... Logan.’

  Not a single muscle twitched. He remained standing, feet shoulders width apart and arms folded over his chest—only making it seem all the broader, and stronger.

  ‘I already told you,’ he growled at last, ‘I don’t need to be checked over.’

  The steely blue gaze swirled with emotion. For a moment she felt swept up in the maelstrom, her breath catching in her throat until, just as suddenly, they masked over and she tumbled to the ground—shut out. Relieved and bereft all at once.

  He was acting like it was his duty to put the man in that room in front of his own health. But surely he could see that it benefited no one to stay outside a door when they had an entire team in that room?

  ‘I understand that you’re concerned for your friend—’ Kat tried her usual tack of empathy, but right now it was all she could do not to melt under his laser glare ‘—but he is with our best team right now. And we are obliged to check you over. You could have internal injuries and not even be aware of them.’

  ‘I don’t have internal injuries. I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re covered in blood,’ Kat pointed out as evenly as she could.

  Right up until that startling gaze walloped back into hers, leaving her feeling oddly winded.

  He glanced down in evident surprise.

  ‘It isn’t my blood,’ he declared after a moment.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to ascertain that for myself.’ Her voice sounded strange. Haughtier than she was used to.

  Logan Connors was getting under her skin, and she wasn’t sure she understood why, much less cared for it.

  His eyes gleamed, as though he could read her thoughts. Slowly, he unfurled his arms and lifted them out to the sides in invitation.

  Or in challenge.

  ‘Fine. Be my guest.’

  Either way, a tiny thrill threaded its way along her spine. Wholly inappropriate—not that she seemed to be listening, no matter how sternly she tried reprimanding herself.

  ‘Not here, in the middle of the corridor,’ she managed to bite out. ‘Perhaps in the consultation room?’

  He crossed his arms back over his chest, his stance seeming all the more rooted. If that were even possible.

  ‘Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.’ It was a voice that rumbled straight through her. Again.

 
Doing things to her. Again.

  Something ached in Kat’s chest. And lower, if she was going to be absolutely honest. My God, she had never, never responded to a patient this way.

  She had never responded to anyone this way. Not even Kirk.

  She cleared her throat, consulting the notes on her tablet and ignoring the odd tumbling, swooping sensation in her chest.

  ‘And, like I said, I can’t assess you in the middle of a corridor.’

  He didn’t answer. He barely even shifted. Yet this man—this stranger—somehow made the corridor seem brighter, and bigger and yet simultaneously he seemed to...fill it.

  She pressed on.

  ‘It’s hospital policy.’

  He didn’t even blink. His eyes merely roamed her body, leaving her feeling as exposed as if she’d been naked.

  And a helluva lot hotter.

  She swallowed—hard—and struggled to refocus.

  ‘I really ought to ensure there’s no delayed injury that only becomes obvious once its already severe. Your own health is just as important as that of the man in that room.’

  She didn’t know what made her eyes slide over that chest and those folded arms to see a wedding band.

  The feeling of disappointment that plummeted through her was illogical. Yet undeniable.

  She thrust it aside.

  ‘There must be people who care for you.’ She glanced down at his hand, told herself that it was only professional interest that made her notice the lack of a wedding band. ‘Someone to whom your welfare is more important than anything?’

  It was like a switch flicked on again for a fraction of a second. Kat watched, mesmerised as a fierce kind of expression swam over his features, changing them for a moment. A love so intense—an emotion she suspected he usually kept well buried—swirled tumultuously in his eyes, buffeting her, and then it was gone.

  A tight fist punched inside Kat’s chest.

  For a moment she wondered what it must feel like to be the woman who could elicit that kind of all-consuming reaction from a man like this one. Or indeed from any man. And then she shot down that line of thought because, for her, only grief lay down that particular road.