Brides Of Privilege (v1.3)

by Kasey Michaels

  Harrison drank the last of his coffee, stood up. “And I’m telling you it’s no big deal. I still make the offer, Sam still can’t refuse.”

  “Harry, sit down. I can’t watch you when you pace, and that’s what you’re about to do, isn’t it?”

  Harrison sat down and began tapping a hand against his knee. Realizing what he was doing, he stopped.

  “When I came to your office on Friday, Harry, I was a mess, and still believed that I had some responsibility to bail Sam out of a problem he created all on his own. I was confused and hurt—I’m still hurt, I won’t lie about that—and I dumped it all in your lap.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Harrison countered, knowing he wasn’t helping himself.

  “No, you aren’t, are you? Because, as I know now, Sam and Annette had pretty much tried the same thing with you as they’re doing now with James Vaughn. You saw my predicament as the best shot at a fitting revenge you’d ever find. You get control of Sam’s company, and you take the one thing Sam has left—bargaining power. Me, if you want to be specific. I mean, at least you were honest about it all. The takeover, the marriage, all of it. But none of it is necessary now, Harry. We both know that.”

  “Because you’ve burned your bridges,” Harrison said, looking into the bottom of his coffee cup, surprised to find it empty. “After Annette’s little display last night, you’ve decided that both she and Sam can sink or swim on their own, because you’re gone. History. Am I right?”

  Savannah touched her cheek. “You could almost say Annette slapped some sense into me. I don’t owe them anything, Harry. Which brings me to my main point. You don’t owe me anything, either. You can still get your revenge, because now you know how desperate Sam is, how much he needs an investor. This is supposing, of course, that James Vaughn will be out of the picture by tomorrow, when they all figure out that ungrateful little Savannah has taken a powder and isn’t coming back.”

  She sighed, stood up, looked down at Harrison. “So that’s it, isn’t it? Harry, I thank you, I thank you so very much, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve offered.”

  “However, you don’t need me anymore, so thanks for everything, but you’re out of here?’’ Harrison said, also standing. “What about our marriage license?” he asked, knowing he sounded ridiculous, hoping he didn’t sound bitter.

  Savannah shrugged, tried not to look at him. “I suppose you could always frame it, put a caption under it that says something like There but for the Grace of God...”

  “Not funny, Savannah,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Where will you go?”

  She looked at him, and he saw that her big blue eyes had gone bright with unshed tears. “Where? I don’t know. I’ve got a small trust fund from my mother that Sam couldn’t touch. I can live on that for a while, and I am educated, you know. I’ll find a job.”

  “Stay here until you do,” Harrison heard himself say. “Please, Savannah. It’s a big house. Besides, I don’t want you where Sam can get at you. At least not right now. Come on, Savannah. I’m making sense, and you know it.”

  She lowered her eyes for a moment, then looked up at him again, nodding without saying anything.

  “All right,” Harrison said, trying to keep the elation out of his voice. “Then it’s settled.”

  “For a week,” Savannah said, stepping away from him. “Two at the outside. That should give you enough time to make Sam see reason, get you your revenge. Enough time for me to find employment and an apartment here in Prosperino.”

  “Whatever,” Harrison said, agreeing with her even as he was busily making other plans.

  * * *

  Savannah came into the house through the kitchen Thursday evening, tossed her brand-new briefcase on the table, then—because she’d seen Harrison’s BMW in the driveway—sang out, smiling at the silliness of what she was about to say, “Hi, honey, I’m home!”

  Ten seconds later, Harry walked into the kitchen, dressed casually in a white knit golf shirt and khakis, holding the evening newspaper. “You’re pretty bright and cheerful, Savannah,” he said, reaching into the refrigerator and pulling out two cans of soda. “I take it things went better in the trenches today than they did yesterday.”

  “Yesterday, every other day this week, and all of last week,” Savannah corrected, taking the soda can from him, popping the lid, then taking a quick, thirsty gulp. “You are now, sir, looking at one of the gainfully employed.”

  She waited for his reaction, watching him closely. He stopped in the midst of opening his own soda can, his body going very still for the count of three. Then he smiled, a bright smile. Possibly too bright a smile? Or was she reading too much into a smile? Hoping too much on a smile?

  “Savannah, that’s terrific!” he said, putting down the soda and coming across the room to wrap her in a bear hug, lifting her completely off the ground. “Just terrific!”

  “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” she answered, straightening her suit jacket, then removing it, to lay it across the back of a nearby chair. “You knew that today was my second interview with Boggs, right? Well, I have to tell you, Harry, they love me. They positively adore me.” Her smile grew wider. “I start in two weeks, when they open their new facility. It’s ground-floor stuff, Harry, entry level. But I’m in!”

  “Savannah Hamilton, about to fight the good fight for water waste management. Do you think you’ll be able to handle all the romance in that job?”

  “Idiot,” Savannah said, giving him a playful punch in the arm. “It’s an important job, in an important industry. You know that, too, unless you really want another lecture from me on the environment, the lack of unpolluted water, and all that good stuff.”

  “I’ll pass, thanks anyway, although I might let you twist my arm until I ask you to write an article or two for me,” Harry said, bending down to give her a kiss on the cheek.

  He kissed her on the cheek a lot. Touched her a lot, but never too intimately, never threateningly. For almost two weeks, they’d lived together in this house, eaten their meals together, watched videos together, beaten each other at board games, and sat beside each other late into the evening in the study, just talking.

  She felt as comfortable with Harry as she’d ever felt in her entire life, with anyone. And yet each night, as they headed upstairs to bed, as they climbed the stairs together, after Harry kissed her on the cheek and they went to their separate bedrooms, Savannah had felt as unhappy as she’d ever felt in her life.

  Unhappy. Unfulfilled. Damn it—-frustrated!

  More than once, after assuring herself that Harry was asleep, she’d padded back down to the study, to take out the necklace, hold it in her hand and stare at it, watching the sapphires and diamonds twinkling in the light.

  She’d never taken it out of the box, never tried it on. The temptation was always there, but she was too afraid to give in to it.

  She was too afraid that if she tried it on, the stones would go all muddy and dull.

  And now she’d be leaving.

  “Harry? Should we go out to dinner, to celebrate? My treat.”

  “Your new job, my treat,” he answered, already heading for the hallway. Then he stopped, turned back. “Oh, I almost forgot. It’s a done deal as of this morning at ten o’clock. You’re now looking at the new majority owner of Hamilton, Inc.”

  “You did it,” Savannah said, subsiding into a chair, her knees suddenly weak. They’d done lots of talking these past days, but they’d never mentioned Sam, or Annette, or Harry’s intention of taking over Sam’s company. “Did you see him? Did he ask about me?”

  Harry looked at her, slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Savannah. No, he didn’t ask about you.”

  “Oh,” she said, wondering why that hurt so much. Maybe old habits just died hard, and she’d lived too long hoping to please Sam, wishing for his attention. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to, right? He probably doesn’t even know I’m here.”

  �
��He knows, Savannah,” Harry said, pulling out another chair, sitting down across from her, taking both her hands in his. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But then you’ve got to let it go, Savannah. You’ve got a new life, a new job and the whole world in front of you. You have to let it go.”

  “I know,” she said, squeezing his hands, then pulling away from him. “Tell me everything.”

  “There really isn’t that much to tell,” he said, picking up his soda can once more. “It was all lawyers and signing papers and business, for the most part. Not that there wasn’t a small, rather ugly outburst when Sam finally realized the restructured company will now be called Colton-Hamilton, Inc. That wasn’t pretty, but when you have someone over a barrel, Savannah, it’s time to take what you can. I took.”

  “You really don’t like him, do you? How long before you buy him out entirely? That is your plan, isn’t it? To get him, and the Hamilton name, totally out of the picture?”

  “You think I was vindictive?”

  “No, probably not. I think you’ve waited six long years, bided your time, and then hit him with all you had. They hurt you, Sam and Annette both, and now you’ve hurt them back, except that they’ll still have enough money. It’s their pride you were after, because they’d hurt yours.”

  “No, Savannah, you’re wrong,” Harry said, looking at her intently. “I didn’t continue with the buy-in because of what happened six years ago. Oh, I started out that way, I won’t lie to you about that, but that’s not how it ended up. I did it because they made you cry. I did it because of your childhood, the way they’d treated you, the way they’d tried to use you with James Vaughn. I did it, Savannah, because they deserved it.”

  Savannah pressed her palm against her mouth and slowly shook her head as she stared at him. “No,” she whispered at last, lowering her hand. “Oh, Harry, no. How could you do that? For me? I didn’t want this for me. I didn’t ask for this. Or maybe I did. Maybe, deep down inside, I did want to see Sam grovel. I don’t think I want to talk about this anymore.”

  She stood, ready to run out of the room, but Harry’s next words stopped her. “Don’t you want to know what Sam did say about you, because he did say a few things? And what Annette said? She was there, you know.”

  “Annette was there?” Savannah said, not realizing that she’d lifted her hand to touch her cheek. “Why on earth was she there?”

  Harry stood, smiled as he walked toward her. “I can’t be sure, and I don’t want to sound too arrogant, but I think she was there to seduce me.”

  “Did it work?” Savannah asked, backing up a step, feeling pain knife through her, a response too deeply embedded, for too many years, to conquer in a couple short weeks. Because Annette always got everything she wanted. Because Annette had once had Harry.

  “Let’s put it this way, your sister doesn’t take hints very well. But I think she’ll figure it out.”

  “What did you say to her?” Savannah asked, caught between a fresh bout of nerves and no little fascination as she watched Harry’s expression go from mildly amused to unexpectedly serious.

  “I told her,” he said, taking hold of both her arms, “that I was flattered, but I’m interested elsewhere.”

  Savannah wet her lips, lowered her eyes. “Oh. Well...well, that should have worked.”

  “She wanted to know the lady’s name.”

  “Did she?” Savannah said, trying to smile. “I— I imagine that might interest her. Did you tell her?”

  “No. Not until I tell the lady.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, looked at her with his green eyes turning dark, serious. “Do you want me to tell the lady?”

  “I—I—” The clock in the nearby study chimed the hour of six, and Savannah quickly stepped back, took a steadying breath. “We’ll never get a reservation if we don’t call now. You call, and I’ll go upstairs and change, okay?”

  Harry leaned a shoulder against the refrigerator, nodding his agreement. “Take your time, and just change into something casual. I’ve got this sudden hankering for delivered pizza. Unless you really want to go out?”

  “No...no, that sounds, um, that sounds good. I’ll just go take a shower and...okay. Pizza’s good.”

  Savannah got as far as the stairs before she had to hang on to the newel post to catch her breath.

  * * *

  He’d gone too fast. He’d gone too far.

  Two weeks. She’d lived under his roof for almost two weeks. Two weeks during which they’d renewed an old friendship, learned more about each other and left a lot of things unsaid.

  Two weeks during which he’d learned that yes, he was attracted to Savannah.

  Two weeks during which he’d learned that attraction and love were two very different things. Because he now loved her. Loved her with all his heart.

  Two weeks during which he’d settled an old score, not for himself, as he’d believed, but because Sam Hamilton had hurt Savannah, and he’d crush anyone who ever hurt her.

  But now he was pushing it. Going too fast. Savannah had just come out of her cocoon, just begun to spread her wings. She’d extricated herself from a really bad home life, had just been offered her first job, and her whole world was in front of her, ready to be lived.

  Did he really believe she would want to marry him, live here with him? Love him?

  Gratitude. That was what she felt for him, and that was to be expected. Gratitude, and possibly a little fear, as he had shown her he was more than Harry, the guy who had befriended a lonely teenager. He was also Harrison Colton, businessman. Sometimes ruthless businessman.

  In time, she’d understand that, no matter what his motives, he had done what was best for Hamilton, Inc. Fifteen hundred employees would keep their jobs. The company, with his money and expertise, would flourish, grow. The people he’d worked with for eight months six years ago, the friends he had made, were mostly still there, and they’d been overjoyed to hear the news when he’d gathered them in the company cafeteria and made his announcement.

  So he’d done a good thing. For some good, and some not so good reasons. He was a businessman, and he could live with that. He did, however, wonder if Savannah could live with that. He believed, hoped, that in time she could.

  It had been pretty low of him to tell Savannah about Annette, but Savannah had a good heart, a forgiving heart, and he could tell that she was still feeling at least slightly sympathetic toward Sam and her sister. Trying to reestablish contact with either of them would be a mistake—much like trying to pet a shark.

  “Which doesn’t mean she wants you running her life now,” Harrison reminded himself as the doorbell rang and he headed down the hallway. “And you don’t want to run her life. You just want to be a part of it. So don’t screw this up!”

  The delivery boy left a few moments later, still grinning at the size of his tip, and Harry went back to the study, putting the pizza down on the coffee table, where he’d already assembled plates, napkins and two bowls holding a premixed tossed salad he’d poured ready-to-serve out of a plastic bag.

  A bottle of wine was open, and breathing, and he had two glasses chilling in the freezer. He walked around the room, turning off the two table lamps he’d switched on, then lit the candles that sat waiting in their holders.

  Everything was ready. He’d had time to run upstairs and pack a suitcase, enough time to book two seats on the noon flight to Reno. The stage was set. His hopes were high.

  And the damn necklace was in the drawer, where he planned to keep it until at least ten years after their wedding.

  The only thing that could go wrong now was that he’d come to the wrong conclusion, that Savannah liked him, was grateful to him, but didn’t love him.

  He heard her coming down the hallway and went to meet her, nervous as a schoolboy.

  Chapter 5

  Savannah walked through the downstairs hallway as though in a dream. A lovely dream, a fairy tale that showed all the signs of leading to a happy ending.

  Sh
e’d tossed her suit on the bed, raced through her shower, then had taken the time to smooth on body lotion before slipping into a pair of soft pink velour shorts with a matching pullover top. Her hair was in a ponytail, she had lipstick on, but no other makeup. Her nose was shiny and her feet were bare. She’d sprayed Obsession between her breasts.

  And she felt nothing like a gangly teenager.

  “Don’t you look comfortable?” Harry said to her as she entered the study and sat herself down at the opposite end of the blue-and-green-plaid couch. “Hungry?”

  “Famished,” she said as he lifted the lid on the box, exposing a large pizza. Half plain, half pepperoni. “Do you think we’re in a rut?” she asked, accepting the slice he’d slid onto a plate. “We could try mushrooms. Bacon. Anchovies.”

  “Not in this lifetime. I’m a purist when it comes to my pizza, thank you. Let me get the wineglasses.”

  She watched as he went to the kitchen, feeling her heart beat faster as he came back, holding two frosted glasses, smiling at her in a way that quickly had her taking a bite of pizza, then wondering how on earth she’d ever planned to swallow it.

  “My grandmother phoned again today,” Harry said, pouring the wine. “Sometimes I don’t hear from her for weeks, but she’s really got a bee in her bonnet right now. I’m willing to bet she’ll be calling Jason any day now and driving him up the wall with her suspicions.”

  “Suspicions?” Savannah asked, happy to have something to talk about. Anything to talk about. Although, she quickly realized, if his grandmother had phoned back because Harry had nearly “slipped” and told the woman about his supposed upcoming marriage, she might be more willing to have a rousing discussion on the always volatile state of West Coast weather instead. “What’s she suspicious about, Harry?”

  “It’s a long story, concerning another branch of the Colton family here in California. My uncle’s family. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  “Definitely,” she answered, relaxing slightly. She didn’t know if she was merely delaying the inevitable or was afraid that there wasn’t any inevitable; that she and Harry would share a dinner, talk and then once more go upstairs to their separate bedrooms. “Does this story have anything to do with the necklace?” She looked over at the table beside the deep-blue corduroy chair. “You know, you really should put that thing in a safe. Although I can’t wait to tell the story to my friend Elizabeth. Elizabeth Mansfield, that is. Not that there’s any chance her long-ago relatives were the Mansfields your ancestors had all that trouble with. Now please put that necklace away.”