‘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.’