‘A gang of men attacked me with baseball bats. When I was unconscious they cut me.’ He said this with all the expression of a man reading out a shopping list. ‘Are you satisfied, Savannah?’
‘Not nearly.’ She felt so sick she could hardly stand. ‘Why did they do that?’ she demanded.
‘Don’t push it.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t talk about this—not to you, not to anyone.’
He held her gaze, unblinking, until she was forced to look away.
‘You were lucky to survive—’
‘I said I don’t talk about it.’ His expression had turned to stone.
‘You were lucky to retain your mobility. There must be many who have not been so fortunate.’
‘Savannah,’ he growled in warning.
‘Or who have lived to tell the tale.’
‘Comprehend this,’ he snarled, bringing his face menacingly close. ‘I don’t want your understanding, and I sure as hell don’t want your pity.’ Pulling back abruptly, he unlocked the door and left the room.
She had prepared for this, but, even so, Savannah was stunned for a moment. The energy from Ethan’s fury still rang in her ears, disorientating her, but she rallied quickly. Chasing after him, straightening her clothes as she ran, she followed him up the stairs. The lights had been dimmed as the staff had gone to bed, and tall, black shadows crossed with Ethan’s, joining them by a tenuous thread. Driving herself to the limit, Savannah took the stairs two by two.
Catching hold of her as she came up to him on the landing, Ethan swung her round. ‘Do you and I speak the same language?’ he demanded, trapping her against the wall.
She fought him, warned him to get off her and railed at him, but Ethan stole each impassioned word from her lips with a kiss.
‘Hiding the evidence of your arousal?’ Ethan taunted, as when he released her she stood with the back of her hand across her mouth.
‘I love you. Of course I respond to you. I have nothing to hide.’ She pulled her hand away, revealing her love-swollen lips. ‘Why do you hide your pain from me, Ethan?’
‘My pain?’ Ethan laughed. ‘Spare me the psychobabble.’
‘Is it too close to home?’
He greeted this with a contemptuous sound.
‘So now you return to your ivory tower,’ Savannah observed. ‘And I go home?’
‘It’s safer for you there.’
‘Safer,’ Savannah repeated, shaking her head. ‘There’s no compromise with you, is there?’
‘No,’ Ethan confirmed.
‘Then by those same rules you have to accept I won’t give up on you.’
As the light played on Ethan’s hard, set face, he folded his arms and leaned back against the door.
Ethan continued to stare at her with his dark eyes slumberous and knowing Savannah wanted him to seduce her all over again. He held a dangerous power over her, she realised, and that power was addictive. The pleasure Ethan could deliver was unimaginable, and she would never get enough of him. But with his warm, hard body possessing her, the realities of life would always be shut out. ‘I won’t leave until you tell me how you got those,’ she said, refocusing determinedly.
He laughed. ‘You’re refusing to leave my house?’
‘What’s the worst that can happen, Ethan—you tear up my contract?’ His eyes narrowed with surprise, as if that had never occurred to him. ‘Your life is far more important to me than a recording contract.’ The moment this was out in the open, Savannah felt naked and vulnerable. She would give up everything for Ethan, she realised, and now he knew that too. If he laughed at her now, everything was over.
Ethan remained where he was, with his arms folded, quietly watching her.
She pressed him again about his scars. ‘Please,’ she entreated, holding out her hands to him.
‘Believe me, you don’t want to know,’ Ethan said, shifting position.
It was a start; it was a chink of light at the end of the tunnel and she groped towards it. ‘Perhaps you think I’m too young to share this with you, though not to take to bed?’ she suggested.
Ethan shrugged, and in the same monotone he’d used before he told her about the beatings that had started when he was little, and had gone on until he was too big for them, when his stepfather had employed a gang of thugs to finish the job. His stepfather’s timing had been impeccable, she learned. He had chosen the week Ethan had heard he’d won a coveted place on the England rugby squad to finish the job.
‘So I would never play again. And, as a bonus, he had me scarred.’
Ethan’s early life had been so very different from her own, Savannah could hardly take it in. But it made everything clear, she realised as he went on. ‘Before his arrest my stepfather and mother came to visit me in hospital. He must have wanted to be certain the job had been completed to his satisfaction before handing over his money, I imagine.’
Savannah’s stomach churned at the thought of so much evil. ‘Go on,’ she prompted softly.
‘His main purpose was to ensure no one would ever look at me again without revulsion, and who better to test this on than my mother?’
‘I can’t believe your own mother would turn from you. Surely that was the very moment when she would draw you to her heart?’
‘Your experience of childhood was very different to mine. Let’s just say my stepfather got his money’s worth.’
‘No, let’s not,’ Savannah argued fiercely. ‘He failed. If anyone notices your scars, you make them forget. You have a bigger heart and a bigger presence than your stepfather could possible imagine.’
‘And there’s a grisly fascination about me that makes me irresistible to the ladies?’ Ethan interrupted dryly. ‘Yes, I know that too.’
‘Don’t you dare suggest that’s how I feel, because it’s just not true. You’re more of a man than anyone I know. And, as for your stepfather…’ Savannah’s rage was all the more vivid for being contained. ‘The little worm!’ she managed finally.
As Ethan’s eyes flickered she poured her love into him. There was just a single step dividing them and she took it. Winding her arms around his neck, she stared into his eyes. ‘I can’t leave you like this.’
Gently untangling her arms, Ethan pulled away. ‘Give up on this, Savannah.’
‘Never!’ But she could feel him withdrawing into himself, and she didn’t know how to pull him back.
‘Goodnight, Savannah.’
She heard the note of finality in his voice, and as Ethan turned away she wondered if she would ever be able to forget this moment and what might have been, or close her heart to the possibility of love.
Savannah’s eyes were still drugged with sleep when her searching hands acknowledged an empty bed. Of course her bed was empty. Ethan wasn’t here. Ethan never had been here in the way she’d wanted him to be, and last night he had made it clear he never would be. Fumbling for the light switch, she grimaced when she saw the time. He must have been up for hours saying goodbye to his friends, and hopefully, she wasn’t too late to do the same.
When she entered the dining-room everyone cheered. ‘What?’ Savannah said, smiling as she stared around. Ethan’s stare was boring into her, but she couldn’t ignore those happy faces round the table.
Ethan’s voice curled round her, underscoring her sense of loss. ‘Your CD just debuted at number one on the classical charts.’
Number one? She should feel something. This was what she and the team behind her had been working towards for years. Her career was important to Ethan’s record company, Savannah registered numbly, so she was pleased for him.
She had everything to be grateful for, she told herself firmly, prompting her reluctant facial muscles into a smile.
‘We’ll want your autograph before we leave,’ one of the players teased, understandably oblivious to Savannah’s troubled state of mind.
‘And could you sign this for my sister?’ asked another. ‘My sister dreams of being a singer like y
ou one day.’
Savannah jolted round immediately. ‘I’ll do better than that,’ she offered. ‘Piece of paper, anyone?’ Ethan tore a sheet from a pad and handed it to her. Resting it on a magazine, she scribbled something and handed it to the player. ‘Give this to your sister. It’s my telephone number. Tell her to ring me. I’ll give her any help I can.’ Who knew more about dreams than she did?
Playing a role helped her get through the rest of the morning, and then the happy hostess standing at the leading man’s side waved off the team.
Ethan waited until the coach was out of sight before asking Savannah to accompany him to his study.
‘What’s this?’ Savannah said as he handed her an envelope. She gazed in dread at it, as if it contained the ashes of her future.
‘It’s your first-class ticket home.’ His stare was un-swerving, and the fact that he’d put acres of desk between them wasn’t lost on her. Closing her fingers around the envelope, she wanted to say something, anything, but the words just wouldn’t come.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to travel back with the team.’ Ethan had put her welfare first again, Savannah registered dully, as if he were her business manager rather than her lover. ‘And I thought you should travel home in style.’ He said this as if that style was the panacea for all ills.
‘Travel home in style?’ Savannah repeated.
‘My chauffeur will take you to the airport, and from there you’ll—’
‘Ethan,’ she cut across him. ‘I don’t need a chauffeur to take me to the airport, and I don’t need to travel home in style.’
‘There’s around an hour until you leave.’ He might not have heard her. ‘It shouldn’t take you long to pack, should it?’
Some toiletries and two evening gowns? ‘No, it shouldn’t take long.’
‘Good. That’s settled, then. And I don’t want you worrying about the paparazzi.’
Ethan was nothing if not efficient, Savannah thought, already anticipating his next reassurances concerning security, guards and alarms.
‘So you’ll be fine,’ he finished.
If that was all it took, Savannah thought wistfully, expressing her thanks. Learning what she had about him, she could understand why Ethan’s heart had grown so cold, but not why he refused to embrace the chance of love.
‘Okay?’ he said with one of those brief, forced smiles people used to bring an encounter to an end.
‘Okay,’ she agreed with the same false gusto.
Ethan had his fists planted on the desk and was leaning towards her, as if keen to underline his concern. Savannah thought she knew why. She was the valuable property of Ethan’s record company, and it made sense to protect her. This was no personal relationship, other than in her self-deluded head. She stuck the envelope in the back pocket of her jeans, and when Ethan looked as if he was waiting for her to say something more she managed, ‘First class? Exciting.’
‘My apologies. I couldn’t free up the jet for you, because I need to use it.’
‘No problem,’ she assured him. If Ethan wasn’t with her who cared where she sat? But…more leg-room with the heart ache? She’d take it. ‘I’ll get ready, then.’
What more was there to say? Should she beg Ethan to let her stay on? And, if he agreed, could she ever soften him?
The reality of a man who had proved to be absolutely untouchable chilled her to the core. It was better to leave now before she said or did something she’d regret, Savannah concluded. She loved Ethan with all her heart, but in his eyes she could see not even a flicker of encouragement. Having thanked him again for the arrangements he’d so kindly made for her, she did the only thing possible and left.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HE LISTENED to the limousine crunch across the gravel as it carried Savannah to the airport, waiting for the rush of relief that never came. She had sought him out immediately before leaving to thank him for his hospitality. His hospitality? When she’d left him to go and pack, he’d sat brooding in his study, supposedly finalising a bid for a country home in Surrey, but his thoughts were all of Savannah. He wouldn’t inflict himself on her, which was the only reason he let her go. She was young and idealistic, and in time she’d come to see he was right. He was glad she had gone, he brooded, gazing out of the window at a view that was no longer perfect without Savannah in it. Perhaps if he repeated that mantra long enough he would come to believe it.
He pictured her face and remembered her parting words: ‘You have a beautiful home, Ethan; take care of it. And start painting again.’ She had smiled hopefully at him as she’d said this, adding, ‘You have a real talent.’
For the macabre?
‘Yours is the talent,’ he’d told her.
‘Paint some happy scenes, Ethan, and don’t hide them away—put them on display.’
It was shorthand they both understood for ‘keep the lights on’.
Savannah had done more than bring the palazzo to life, she had held up a mirror to his life, giving him a tantalising glimpse of how it could be. Which was all the more reason to set that pure heart free. He wouldn’t weigh Savannah down with his dark legacy. Savannah deserved better than that, better than him, and with her career going from strength to strength there was no reason why she couldn’t have it.
It was like the bottom falling out of your world twice, Savannah concluded as she closed the front door on the bailiffs. She was still reeling from her parting from Ethan, and had barely been back at the farmhouse in England five minutes when the two men had knocked at the door.
It was like a black-comedy sketch, she decided, crossing the room to put the kettle on the Aga; a very black comedy-sketch.
‘Your parents have taken on too much credit, love,’ the bailiffs had told her when she had assured them with matching determination that they must have got the wrong address. Unfortunately, the two men had had the right address and there was no mistake. They had shown her the legal documents they’d brought with them, and she had checked out the court order line by hateful line. The only reason they’d cut her a bit of slack was because they had wanted her autograph.
Understanding they were only doing their job, she had given them that before going to the bank to take out enough cash to send them away happy.
As she nursed her mug of tea, Savannah could only be thankful she hadn’t got round to spending a penny of the money from her first royalty-cheque before she’d left for Rome. At least she had been able to put that money to good use now. But how could this have happened? She had asked herself this same question over and over again. How could her parents’ world fall apart like this in the space of a few days?
But it wasn’t a few days, Savannah reflected, walking to the window and staring out bleakly at the well-kept yard. It was years of paying for the best teachers, the best gowns, and even the lovingly polished secondhand grand piano in the dining-room. It was years of sacrifice for her. And she hadn’t seen it before. She had grown up taking such things for granted—the golf club, the tennis club, all the right places and all the right clothes—and all these things cost more money than her parents had, or could make from the farm.
‘We’ve seen it all before,’ one of the bailiffs had assured her as he’d taken an inventory of her parents’ possessions. ‘And not just in the leafy lanes where the people with money live, but more and more frequently on working farms just like this one.’ He’d paused then and looked at her as if even he, collecting money from hard-stretched individuals for a living, had never quite got over the calamity that had hit the farming community.
Foot-and-mouth, Savannah reflected bleakly. The disease had devastated the countryside and the people that lived there, killing their cattle, killing their dreams. So many farmers had been forced to adapt or go under. Blinking away her melancholy, she forced her mind round to practical issues.
The court order still stood, and it was up to her to get this mess sorted out before her parents returned from their cruise. Returning to the kitchen tabl
e, she sat down to make a list. But as she stared at the page of jottings in front of her she realised she could only raise half the money needed. And if she didn’t come up with a solution by the end of the month the bank would foreclose and there’d be no farm. Heartache reminded her of Ethan. Briefly she considered asking him for a loan, but quickly discounted it because he would never let her pay him back. He might have the riches of Croesus, but that money wasn’t hers to dip into. No. She would find her own solution.
An unexpected phone call provided Savannah with an equally unexpected opportunity, but not one she could take up. ‘I’m the last person on earth who has any influence over Ethan Alexander,’ she explained to the senior official from the Rugby Football Union. But the man from the governing body of English rugby was persistent, and as he went on talking Savannah thought she saw an opportunity that might just turn out to be the saving of them all.
‘And I said no!’ Frowning, Ethan sprang up from his swivel chair and began to pace the long-suffering floor of his study. ‘My rugby days are over. You know that,’ he snapped at the official from the RFU. ‘Yes, what I’m saying is your suggestion is out of bounds. I can’t possibly make it fly for you—and no is my final answer.
‘What?’ Ethan ground his jaw as the man kept on talking. ‘No, I didn’t know that—when did this happen?’ His expression turned grim as he listened to the official’s account of a recent news item he’d missed due to a business trip. He might say no to a lot of things, but he would never turn his back on Savannah.
‘No’ could no longer be his final answer.
Almost exactly a month later Savannah stood on a newly levelled field at her parents’ farm, waiting for Ethan’s helicopter to arrive. She had anticipated this moment, spending many sleepless nights planning for it—planning that had included closing off part of her heart that would never be brought into service again.
The Ruthless Billionaire’s Virgin Page 13