Brides Of Privilege (v1.3)

by Kasey Michaels

  “And...?” Harrison said, sensing that there was more coming, as if he hadn’t already heard enough to banish any lingering misgivings he might have as to whether he was doing the right thing in pretty much forcing Savannah into this marriage of convenience. As a matter of fact, it would probably take everything in him not to hop in the car and go get her now, get her out of that house, away from those people.

  “Well...I hadn’t planned to say anything,” Savannah went on hesitantly. “Really, I hadn’t. I know you said I shouldn’t, that you wanted everything to be a surprise on Monday...”

  “You told her,” Harrison said, closing his eyes.

  Yeah, well, so much for best-laid plans. “Then what happened?”

  “You’re right. I told her. It was stupid of me, Harry. Stupid and juvenile, and I even think I said something like ‘Oh, yeah, well let me tell you something.’ I shouldn’t have done it. As to what happened next? She—she didn’t take it well,” Savannah said, and Harrison actually smiled. He hadn’t known Savannah to be a master of understatement.

  “How didn’t she take it well?”

  “She said some fairly ugly things, about you, about me, about my mother. She was Annette’s mother, too, Harry, and Annette’s older, knew Mother better than I could, since she died when I was only five. Oh, Harry, she called her a whore, and called me an ungrateful bastard. It was terrible.”

  “I’ll bet it was. And, Sam? Does he know?”

  “Not yet,” Savannah said. “He’s in Las Vegas for the weekend, with James. Celebrating. He won’t be back until tomorrow night. There’s no way of reaching him because he didn’t tell us where he’s staying.”

  Celebrating. Celebrating the sale of the daughter he’d raised as his own. If Harrison had felt less than a prince a while ago, Sam Hamilton was something lower than human. “Okay,” he said, shoving the necklace back into its velvet box, dropping it into the drawer in the table beside his chair, then immediately forgetting it. “You stay there. You stay right there, and I’ll come get you.”

  “That isn’t necessary, Harry,” Savannah told him.

  His temper, barely held in check, suddenly flared. “Like hell it isn’t! If you think I’m going to leave you there alone with Annette, you’re crazy. Just stay there and—”

  “Harry, I’m outside, in my car, using my cell phone,” Savannah said, interrupting him. “I—I just wanted to be sure you were home, and awake. It’s midnight, Harry. I didn’t just want to come ringing your bell.”

  Harrison was already half running down the hallway from the study that was in the rear of the house, hitting light switches as he went. “I’ll be right there,” he said, hanging up the phone, tossing the cordless instrument on the foyer table before opening the door and heading out to the circular driveway.

  It was only as Savannah stepped from the car, and. he took her in his arms, to comfort her—that was all, just to comfort her—that Harrison realized just how very glad he was to see her, that she had come to him.

  Still holding her close against him, feeling her tremble, they walked back inside the house. He led her straight to his study, told her to sit down, and he went into the kitchen to put a kettle on the stove. Hot tea. That was what his mother had always served in times of stress, swearing that there was nothing like hot, sweet tea to banish the cold, warm the heart and calm the nerves.

  He stood next to the stove, impatiently waiting for the kettle to boil, then made up a tray with two cups, a bowl of sugar and a small pitcher of milk. He carried it back to the study.

  Savannah was standing at the fireplace, her back turned to him.

  “Come on, Savannah. Come over here and sit down. Drink this while it’s hot.”

  She stayed where she was for several moments, time for him to look at her, dressed in old blue jeans and a black pullover, her long, slim body graceful even as she stood still. She wore her hair down tonight, the sweep of it brushing against her shoulders, obscuring her features as she finally turned to him, keeping her head down, her eyes averted from his.

  She looked nervous. She looked hesitant as she moved toward the couch and the low table where he’d placed the tray. But she didn’t look like the Savannah of his memory. She looked like the Savannah of yesterday afternoon: fully grown, beautiful and able to arouse him in ways that had absolutely nothing to do with old memories.

  “Savannah?” he asked, sitting down beside her, frowning as she flinched when he reached out a hand to push her hair away from her face. “What’s wrong? You’re not afraid of me. You wouldn’t be here if you were afraid of me.”

  She raised her hand to the side of her face as she turned toward him. “Of course I’m not afraid of you, Harry. I—I just had a little accident. That’s all.”

  Harrison took hold of her hand, gently lowered it, turned her chin so that she was facing the light. “She did this?” he asked through clenched teeth, taking in the livid bruise on Savannah’s cheek, the small cut near her eye that had to have been caused by one of the many rings Annette always wore.

  Savannah nodded, then pressed her palm to her face once more. “She called me a few choice names, too,” she said, then gave him a watery smile. “Oh, and did you know I’m getting secondhand goods? Annette’s leavings?”

  “Is that right?” Harrison said, spooning two sugars into Savannah’s teacup, trying to control himself.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Savannah told him, accepting the cup. “But, before you think I’m some spineless, battered idiot, I think I should tell you I punched her when she said that. After she hit me. I’m pretty sure she’s going to have one hell of a shiner.”

  Harrison picked up Savannah’s right hand after she’d replaced the cup on the tray, and noticed some redness and puffiness around her knuckles. “Did it’ feel good? Hitting her back?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Savannah said, and now her smile reached her eyes. Her dry eyes, with no sign of tears in them. “It felt really good.”

  And then they laughed. They laid their heads back against the sofa cushions, looked at each other and laughed like loons.

  Chapter 4

  Savannah woke slowly, stretching beneath the sheets, turning onto to her side to snuggle into the pillow—and winced when her injured cheek pained her.

  Rolling onto her back once more, she blinked several times, slowly remembering how she’d gotten there in the first place.

  She’d been laughing. She and Harrison had both been laughing. Silly. Overreacting, probably.

  And then, she remembered, squeezing her eyes shut on the memory, she had begun to cry.

  Too much. It had all just been too much. She’d been walking on eggshells ever since her father— no, not her father, Sam—had sat her down and told her about her mother’s infidelity, about how he had done the right thing and raised Savannah as his own.

  Told her that she owed him for her mother’s lies, that the time had come to pay that debt.

  She’d cried when he told her, Savannah remembered, but perhaps she hadn’t cried enough, hadn’t gotten it all out of her system. Or, perhaps, it had been Sam’s command that she marry James Vaughn and thereby rescue Hamilton, Inc., that had dried her tears and sent her into a state of near numbness that had paralyzed her for days.

  During every one of those days, Sam had come to her, told her that her time was limited, that she had to make up her mind, or else they’d all be out on the street, the company lost, everything he’d worked so hard for destroyed. He was counting on her. Annette’s future depended on her. And she owed them. By God she owed them.

  Savannah turned back the sheets and left the bed, heading for the shower in the connected bathroom.

  She owed them? When had she begun to question that statement? Was it during her bouts of tears, when she remembered that Sam had always treated her so differently from Annette? All those years of hearing how beautiful Annette was, how highly polished. What a good and obedient child she had been, what a lovely and loving daughter, and how even no
w her father always came first for her, even after her marriage.

  But she, Savannah, had always been a disappointment. Always the tomboy, climbing trees, skinning her knees, collecting bugs and bringing them into the house. And she wasn’t pretty, didn’t even try to be pretty, or help Annette with her hostess duties when business associates came to dinner. Not that she’d been invited back to any of those business dinners, not after she’d argued environmental issues with the president of a company that was busily cutting down every tree in the Northwest that he could lay a chain saw to, without a thought to future generations.

  “Too damn smart, and smart-mouthed, for your own good,” Sam had told her. Upon reflection, he might have been right, considering that Savannah recalled that she had only been fourteen at the time. Sam had sent her to boarding school the week after that incident, and she had only come home on weekends or for holidays. That removal from the house had pretty much sent the message to Savannah that her father couldn’t stand the sight of her.

  Annette treated her like the ugly duckling younger sister, when she noticed her at all, and Sam was hardly ever around when she came home.

  But then Harrison had come into the picture, when she was seventeen. He’d been nice to her, frolicked in the pool with her, talked to her, listened to her. He’d visited her school, bringing her magazine articles on the environment his father’s company had printed, helping her with her year-end project, taking her out for pizza.

  When, during that terrible week, had Savannah’s thoughts turned from the shocking news she’d learned, from the future Sam had planned for her, to Harry and how he had seemed to care about her?

  Did it matter? All that mattered now was that she’d acted on impulse, come to see Harry, and now it would appear that she was going to marry Harry.

  “For all the wrong reasons,” she told herself as she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a large white bath sheet around herself as she hunted for a smaller towel to dry her hair. “Of course, that’s all off now, now that you opened your big mouth and told Annette.”

  The thought of her sister had Savannah turning to the mirror, leaning close to inspect the mark on her cheek. The redness had gone, leaving only a slight swelling and some discomfort, along with a quarter-inch superficial cut near her eye. Man, that woman packed a wallop—although Savannah felt sure she’d given as good as she got.

  She might even be proud of herself, having stood up for herself that way, except that she shouldn’t have been caught up in the argument in the first place. But Annette had come to her room, goaded her, baited her, and she’d finally fought back with the only weapon she had. Harry.

  And Harry had laughed. Oh, he’d been upset, but then he’d laughed. They’d both laughed, right up until the moment Savannah had felt her chin begin to tremble, until the moment a wave of grief that was nearly physical had swept over her, until the moment Harry had taken her in his arms while she bawled like a baby. For her mother. For the father she’d never known. For the childhood she’d missed. For the mess she was in now. For...well, just for everything.

  Harry had held her, tried to comfort her and finally carried her up to this room, told her to wait while he got her suitcases from the car so that she could change into her pajamas.

  She’d tried to tell him no, that she’d go to a hotel, but her heart hadn’t been in that protest, and Harry had known it. He’d put her suitcase on the bed, opened it, then kissed her cheek and left her alone, telling her to get a good night’s rest. Everything, he’d promised, would look better in the morning.

  So here she was. Sleeping under the same roof as Harry, irrevocably alienated from her family, such as it was. It was morning now, and she’d cried, and she’d slept, but she still had no clear idea as to what came next.

  She only knew two things. The first was that her teenage crash on Harry had never gone away, and had now matured into love. The second thing she knew was that there was no way she could marry him.

  * * *

  Harrison had started the bacon when he’d heard the shower go on in the guest bedroom, and his timing had been perfect, because he was just spooning scrambled eggs onto two plates as Savannah entered the kitchen.

  He hoped this excellent timing was an indication of how well the rest of the day would go, but one look at Savannah’s expression told him he’d probably been too optimistic.

  “Sleep well?” he asked as she went to the cof-feemaker, poured the hot, fragrant liquid into two cups she then carried to the table.

  “Yes, thank you, Harry,” she told him, sitting down, picking up her fork. “I slept really well. You?”

  “Like the dead,” he said, lying through his teeth. He’d been up until nearly three, pacing his study, wondering how deep and hot the hell he’d be sent to would be if he gave in to impulse, climbed the stairs and knocked on Savannah’s door. If he went inside and offered her comfort. Offered her more than comfort.

  He hadn’t done that, of course. He was too much the gentleman. He’d been raised too well. And he knew that, if he did, Savannah would be right in seeing him as just one more person trying to take advantage of her.

  But there was another problem, and he was pretty sure Savannah had already gotten to the heart of it He was more than sure she’d be pointing it out to him before they finished breakfast.

  He’d been up since six, trying to figure out how he could dance out of her conclusions, turn them around, convince her that this marriage they’d agreed to was still a viable option.

  “You’re a very good cook,” Savannah said as she ate. “I was never allowed in the kitchen, but I did take an elective home economics class at school. I thought they’d teach us how to cook, but all they taught us was how to pick a quality caterer. Private schools sort of exist in their own little worlds, don’t they? But when I lived in an apartment during grad school, I did learn to make a mean microwave pizza. Still,” she said, attacking the hash browns he’d made from scratch, “I never tried tackling anything like this.”

  “Bachelor living, Savannah,” Harrison told her, finishing up his own breakfast, then carrying the plate to the sink. “It’s either learn to love frozen dinners or learn to cook. I decided to learn. My mother suggested I hire live-in help, but I’m rarely home for more than breakfast, so I decided against it.”

  Was that enough small talk? Harrison was pretty sure it was. The next time Savannah opened her mouth, she was bound to tell him “thank you very much, but the marriage is off.”

  “Harry—” she began, swiveling on her chair, to look at him.

  “Want to hear something wild?” he interrupted quickly, grabbing at the first conversational gambit that popped into his mind.

  She looked at him, sighed, then brought her empty plate to the sink. “Okay, Harry. Tell me something wild. Lord knows I haven’t heard anything wild in at least, oh, ten or twelve hours.”

  “We’ll leave these until later,” he said, running water over both plates, then taking Savannah’s hand and leading her into his study, theft coming back to the kitchen to pour each of them another cup of coffee.

  “Open that drawer, the one right beside the chair you’re sitting in,” he told her as he carried the cups back into the room. “See that blue velvet box? Take it out, Savannah. Open it.”

  She looked at the box, tipped her head slightly and looked at him. “Open it? Why?” she asked, obviously with a lame attempt at humor. “Is it full of some miniature version of those exploding paper snakes?”

  “Something like that,” Harrison said, as her comment came a little too close to home for comfort. “Go on, Savannah, open it.”

  She did as he asked, slowly opening the six-inch-square, thin box, then opened her mouth in a silent O!

  “Something else, isn’t it?”

  “Is it...is it real?” she asked, touching her fingertip to the center stone of the sapphire-and-diamond choker. “God, Harry, it’s real, isn’t it? What are you doing leaving something this valuable just sittin
g around here, where anyone could find it, steal it?”

  “Are you going to steal it, Savannah?” he teased, then laughed as she made a face at him. “Now, do you want to hear the something wild? It’s about the necklace.”

  Still holding the box, but not taking the necklace from its white satin bed, Savannah curled up on the chair, her legs tucked up as she signaled that she was ready to hear his story.

  Now that he had her attention, and had diverted her from whatever it was she wanted to say to him, Harrison realized that he’d probably just dug himself another hole. Talking about suitable Colton brides wasn’t exactly a topic he wanted to explore this morning.

  Still, he’d opened his mouth, so there was nothing else to do but tell the old story, then wait for Savannah’s response. It wasn’t long in coming.

  “Did Annette ever try on the necklace? How did it look on her? Did it sparkle?’’ she asked, still holding the box, but no longer running her fingertip over the stones of the choker.

  “Annette? No, as a matter of fact, I think I’d forgotten about the necklace, until my grandmother brought it up yesterday. That’s when I got it out of the wall safe.” When Savannah shot him a quick, questioning look, he continued, “Okay, so I almost told her we were getting married. I didn’t, but I almost did, and that’s when she mentioned the necklace, and the story around it. But my grandmother is in Paris. She wasn’t standing right in front of me, making rotten remarks. So, if you’re worried about spilling the beans—”

  “Blowing the deal,” Savannah interrupted, giving the thing her own spin. “Throwing a monkey wrench into the works. Eliminating the element of surprise.”

  “Exactly, all that stuff,” Harrison agreed. “If you’re worried about any of it, don’t. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Oh, well, Harry, that’s not true,” Savannah told him, shutting the box and placing it on the table beside her. “Annette knows now, so Sam is going to know by tonight. The element of surprise is gone, and he’ll know what you’re up to before your people put the offer on the table. I don’t want to get into a lot of old sayings, but forewarned is forearmed, right?”