Brides Of Privilege (v1.3)

by Kasey Michaels

  “I was not trying to be funny!” she said, breaking away from him, blindly walking down the street, still heading in the direction Harry had been taking her.

  He caught up to her, slipped his arm around her waist once more. Like he owned her. Like he had the right.

  She didn’t pull away, remind him that he had no rights where she was concerned.

  “Savannah, don’t you want to know where we’re heading?’’ Harry asked after he’d steered her around yet another corner.

  “I couldn’t care less,” she responded, lifting her chin, wondering if it was possible to walk straight out of Prosperino and into oblivion, already knowing that, if it were possible, it wasn’t likely—at least not in these shoes.

  “Okay, but I’ll tell you anyway,” he said, pulling her to a stop, “because we’re here.”

  Savannah looked up, saw that they were standing directly in front of the Prosperino City Hall. “Oh, God,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  He took her hand and led her inside the cool building with the marble walls. They stopped in front of the building directory and Harry announced, “There it is. Marriage licenses, third floor.”

  “You go ahead, I’ll meet you there,” Savannah said, already heading toward the front doors, and sanity.

  “Savannah Hamilton!” Harry called after her, loudly enough for heads to turn. “You have to marry me. Think about the baby!”

  “Oh, dear,” Savannah heard an elderly lady say to her equally gray-haired friend. ‘‘It’s like I’ve been telling you, Maude. The whole country is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  Her cheeks flaming, her hands drawn up into fists, Savannah turned to confront Harry, who was standing at the elevator, holding the door open for her, and looking about as innocent as he had the day he’d shown up at her boarding school with a faked note from her father stating that she was to be allowed to leave the grounds with “my trusted representative.” That trusted representative had then taken her for her first clandestine, off-campus pizza.

  Strange. Until this very moment Savannah had not realized that, for all his smiles and flippancy, Harry had become a much more—the word that entered her head was intense—person than he had been six years ago.

  Not that she’d expected him to have lived inside some bubble, rather the way she had done, and not have changed at all.

  Savannah wondered just how much Annette had to do with the changes she saw in Harry.

  “On or off, lady?” an older man standing at the back of the elevator asked. “Not that I’m in any big hurry to get to jury duty, but I don’t think they want me to be late.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Savannah said, glaring at Harry as he waggled his eyebrows at her and grinned yet again. Now this Harry was the Harry she remembered. The Harry she’d fallen for like a ton of bricks, and with all the intensity a seventeen-year-old could come up with—and that was a lot of intensity.

  “Come on, Savannah,” Harry urged, thankfully more quietly. “You want to leave home but said you had nowhere to go. Now you do. Besides, do you really want to keep the name Hamilton?”

  “I can get a job, and the name Hamilton hasn’t hurt me yet,” she told him, playing for time, wishing there were a big computer screen somewhere that would flash the right answers to her, tell her what to do.

  No. No, she didn’t want anyone to tell her what to do. She was tired of people telling her what to do.

  “You know what? I don’t think I like being a pawn. Sam’s or yours. Goodbye, Harry. Thanks so much, but no thanks,” she said, and then she turned and ran.

  * * *

  “If you don’t mind my saying so,” the man in the elevator said, “you really blew that one, son.”

  “Not yet, I haven’t,” Harrison responded, letting go of the door. “Happy jury duty, sir, and sorry for holding up the elevator.”

  “Yeah, I’m hoping for a murder trial. Better than sitting home, watching the soaps and listening to my wife tell me to take out the garbage. Never retire, son. It’s a living hell, and they call you for jury duty every time you turn around, I swear it.”

  Harrison smiled, thanked the man for his advice, then trotted after Savannah, who couldn’t exactly outrun him in those ridiculous high heels she was wearing.

  Although he did realize that he rather enjoyed watching her try, admiring the way her hips swayed side to side as she half-walked, half ran down the street.

  He caught up to her at the corner, taking her arm and leading her into a patch of shade next to one of the buildings.

  “Savannah, I’m sorry,” he said quickly, noticing that her big blue eyes were unnaturally bright with unshed tears. “I’m as much of an ass as Sam, and if you want to kick me in the shin and leave me here, I won’t blame you. But first, please listen to what I have to say.”

  “We have nothing to say to each other, Harry,” she told him. “Nothing.”

  “You’re wrong, Savannah. I owe you the truth. Do you want to hear it, or are you going to deliver that kick and then make another break for it?”

  She tipped her head and looked at him with some curiosity. That lock of hair had broken free again, and he found that he’d developed a considerable affection for the way it seemed to frame her perfectly oval face, skimming past her cheek, curling into her chin. “Five minutes, Harry. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  “Great, but not here. Let’s go back to the office.”

  She walked with him, stepping to one side when he tried to put his arm around her waist, and Harrison knew he’d let old hurts blind him to the new hurts he’d learned about from Savannah, inflicted himself with his clumsy, full-steam-ahead plans.

  He used his key to get into the locked building, and they rode the elevator in silence, walked through the hallways of middle management in silence, entered his executive suite in silence.

  “Hello,” Lorraine said happily from behind her desk. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Really,” Harrison said, wondering if his executive assistant would like an all-expenses-paid trip to Outer Mongolia. One way, of course.

  “Yes, really. They always return to the scene of the crime,” Lorraine said, looking at Savannah. “Are you all right, honey?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Savannah said, shooting Harrison a look that probably could have frozen fire, then pushing open the door to his office and stepping inside.

  “Listening at keyholes, Lorraine?” Harrison asked, glaring at the woman.

  “In your father’s day, yes. Now I just leave the intercom switched on, considering that you’ve never quite figured the thing out.” She sat back, spread her hands. ‘‘Hey, she could have been a terrorist or something. You didn’t really think I’d desert you, not with everyone else leaving at noon. Although I will say I only expected you to come back so you could fill me in on everything that’s happened. Which is why I quickly hid in the closet when I heard the two of you were about to leave. So, are you going to bail out the company and save that poor girl? Wait, I’ve got a bigger question: Are you going to tell her the truth about what happened six years ago?”

  “How would you know what happened six years ago?” Harrison asked, then waved his hand. “Scratch that. You know everything that happens around here. It’s why I can’t fire you. You’d just go to some rival media company and spill your guts, right?”

  Lorraine’s smile disappeared. “I would never—”

  Harrison stepped around the desk and dropped a kiss on Lorraine’s thin cheek. “I know, Lorraine. I’m sorry. But I’m under a little stress here.”

  “Just don’t hurt her, Mr. Colton,” Lorraine said, gathering up her purse and one of her always present paperback mystery novels. “There’s something, I don’t know, vulnerable about her.”

  Harrison nodded, then headed for the office, walking straight to the desk and pulling the plug on the intercom. Ten seconds later, the outer office door closed as Lorraine left.

  “She’s a very nice woman,” S
avannah said, uttering her first direct statement to him in more than ten minutes.

  “She’s a terror and a tartar, and I don’t know what would happen to this place without her,” Harrison said, pouring them each a cold soda. “Okay,” he said, handing one glass to Savannah and taking the other with him as he sat down, both of them in the same seats they’d occupied earlier. “Truth time.”

  “Whole truth time?” she asked, her face so pale, he believed he might be able to count every freckle on her cheeks and nose.

  “Whole truth time,” he agreed. “But to do that, we have to go back six years, which isn’t going to be comfortable for me. We have to go all the way back so that I can tell you that this is the second time around for Sam when it comes to what he considers the best way to increase his bottom line. The only difference is that, unlike you, Annette was a willing coconspirator.”

  “I don’t understand,” Savannah said quickly, then frowned. “No, that’s not true. I do understand. Harry, are you telling me that Annette agreed to marry you because Dad was hoping you’d bail him out of some business problem he had back then? But that’s silly. You were working for him. You didn’t have any money.”

  “Keep going, Savannah. I think you’ll figure it out,” Harry said, watching her closely.

  “You didn’t have any money,” Savannah repeated, looking around the rather opulent office. “You didn’t, but your father did. Is that it? Sam wanted you to get your father to invest in Hamilton, Inc.?”

  “Oh, better than that, Savannah. He wanted us to invest with him and he wanted a piece of CMH, as a sort of gift to him for allowing me to marry his daughter. When I told him to go to hell, Annette finished the one-two punch by telling me that if I didn’t agree she wouldn’t marry me, that she’d only agreed to marry me because I was rich, could help her father and give her the life she deserved.”

  “So you called off the wedding,” Savannah said. “Not Annette? And it had nothing to do with Annette falling in love with Robert?”

  “So far so good,” Harrison said, knowing he could count on Savannah’s quick mind to fill in the rest of it, which would probably end with her at last kicking him in the shins. “Now here comes the part that doesn’t make me look so good, the part I didn’t want you to figure out quite so fast.”

  “You must have been so angry. And so hurt. You loved her, Harry. I know you loved her. How could she have been so cruel? And so stupid! Didn’t she realize how lucky she was that you— Well, never mind about that right now.”

  Savannah put down her glass, got up and walked to the window overlooking the street. “Six years later, I show up here, pretty much telling you the same sort of story, except that it’s a little different this time because I’m not a willing participant. Still, the end result would be pretty much the same, except that I’d switch grooms, right back to Dad’s first choice—you.”

  She turned to face him. “Is that irony, Harry? My major may have been environmental studies, but I’m pretty sure that’s irony. Anyway, Dad would be bailed out and, if you’re serious about marrying me, he’d have his bottomless pit of money to draw on. Except he wouldn’t, would he? Not if you demand fifty-one percent.”

  “No, Savannah, he wouldn’t. I’d have controlling interest in Sam’s company, he wouldn’t get squat from CMH or any of my holdings, and because I was married to his last remaining asset, he’d have to grin and bear it. Unless Annette wants to go tycoon hunting, that is. How do she and James get along?”

  “Like oil and water,” Savannah said, rubbing at the side of her neck, obviously deep in thought. “This would work out very well for you, wouldn’t it, Harry? Revenge on Dad, waving me in front of Annette...all that good stuff. But what’s in it for me?”

  “A lot, if you were anything like your sister,” Harrison said, quickly adding, “if you thought marrying for money was a good idea. A little less, if you’re just looking for a way to free yourself from Sam and start a life of your own. But I won’t bail Sam out unless we do the whole thing. Otherwise, all I’ve got is a company I have to pour some big bucks into to get it back on its feet, and you’re still out there, with Sam laying a guilt trip on you for what your mother did, and James Vaughn is still in the picture.”

  “How long?”

  “How long would we stay married? That is what you’re asking, isn’t it?”

  “I think it’s a good question, and about the most reasonable one yet,” Savannah said, tipping up her chin. “And, of course, it would be strictly a marriage of convenience, both yours and mine. A business agreement. Nothing more.”

  Harrison looked at her, saw all that vulnerability Lorraine had seen, and nodded. ‘‘A business agreement. All right. I agree. We’ll even set a time limit.

  How does two years sound to you? I get my revenge, because I’d be lying if I said that doesn’t have some appeal, and you get out from under Sam’s boot. At the end of two years, you have your freedom again, and no worries about Sam. I’d say we both win.”

  “I’m a winner, Harry? Then why don’t I feel like celebrating?’’ Savannah asked, heading for the door. “Come on, we’d better get back to city hall before it closes for the weekend.”

  Chapter 3

  Harrison came into the office on Saturday, to clear the decks for what he thought would most probably be a full week, once Sam Hamilton found out, hopefully by Monday afternoon, that—to use the technical term for it—his goose had just been plucked and cooked.

  He’d sent Savannah back to her “father’s” house late Friday afternoon after warning her that she wasn’t to say anything to the man about the small civil marriage ceremony planned for Monday morning. Not a word. He’d also gotten her promise that she’d meet him at his house on Sunday evening, her bags packed, and they’d proceed from there.

  Where the hell they were going, where they’d “proceed” to, he hadn’t the faintest idea. He only knew that he was already having second thoughts about this marriage-in-name-only stuff.

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time and, he knew, he would have agreed to most any condition at first, when his need for revenge overcame his own personal code of ethics, but Lorraine had been right. Savannah Hamilton was vulnerable. And young. Beautiful. Desirable.

  He hadn’t noticed that at first, or had tried not to notice it, concentrating on remembering her as she’d been six years ago, and not as she was now. All grown-up.

  Definitely all grown-up.

  He could still call it off, call it all off. And he probably should. He was using Savannah, plain and simple, to get some of his own back on Sam Hamilton.

  Sam Hamilton. Truly a world-class bad guy. A throwback to the bad old days where daughters had been seen as little more than a marketable commodity.

  “And that’s why I can’t call it off,” Harrison told himself as he paced the carpet in front of his desk. “He’s got Savannah on such a guilt trip because of her mother’s supposed sin, that he’d still have her married to a creep like Vaughn within a week.”

  Just as it had the night before, when he’d sat at home in the dark, sipping Scotch, the thought of James Vaughn having any sort of association with Savannah tied his gut in a knot.

  He’d tried, for most of the evening, to tell himself it was because Vaughn was a womanizer, because Savannah would be devastated by the man’s lifestyle. There were so many reasons, so many very valid reasons, why Savannah could not be allowed to sacrifice herself in a marriage with James Vaughn.

  What he tried not to tell himself was that he couldn’t get past the nauseating thought of Vaughn touching her, that he wanted to be the one who kissed her, touched her, awakened her.

  Yes, he’d always liked Savannah. Right from the start, from the first day he’d met her, when he was twenty-five and she had been just seventeen. He’d liked her as a sister, admired her bright mind, enjoyed her shy smiles. Even enjoyed the way he used to catch her looking at him when she thought he hadn’t noticed.

  But that had been s
ix years ago, when he’d been young and dumb and easily flattered by a young girl’s very obvious crush on him. He could laugh at the whole idea, because he was engaged to Savannah’s sister, in love with Savannah’s sister.

  Who hadn’t been in love with him.

  Harrison walked to the window, the same window Savannah had looked out yesterday. He thought about Annette, something he hadn’t allowed himself to do for a long time.

  She had been so beautiful. Milk-white skin, midnight hair, huge violet eyes. So perfect. Maybe too perfect.

  Or maybe he’d been too blinded by her beauty to see the imperfections. The way she refused to do much more than sit herself down and look beautiful, dismissing any notion that she should go in the swimming pool, play badminton in the hot sun, eat anywhere other than the best restaurants, and always, always keep him at arm’s length when he tried to move beyond kisses.

  He’d thought of her as some sort of fragile fairy princess, and had treated her accordingly. He had, he realized now, concocted a dream around Annette, allowing her beauty to conjure up other attributes, such as kindness, and a loving heart.

  It had been Savannah who’d been kind and loving. Happy to be alive, willing to get down on the floor and play board games, not at all upset to be dunked in the swimming pool.

  It had been Savannah who had been real. Annette had been a dream.

  But Savannah also had been seventeen years old.

  “She’s not seventeen anymore,” Harrison reminded himself as he closed the blinds on the afternoon sun, on his thoughts that had very little to do with anything called a marriage of convenience. A loveless marriage. An unconsummated marriage. A marriage meant only as the perfect revenge.

  “That’s it,” he said, heading for the phone on his desk. “I can’t do this. Not to Savannah. It wouldn’t be fair, not to either of us.”

  But before he could pick up the phone, his private line rang, and he swore under his breath before answering it. “Colton here,” he barked out, wondering which one of the few people who had his private number had taken the time to track him down at the office on a Saturday afternoon.