men. Taking into account the man-mountains in the England team, the Bear was the best of all the men there, they said; he was the deadliest in the pack.
Savannah shivered at the thought of so much undiluted maleness. By the time she had wriggled her way into her gown she had worked herself into a state of debilitating nerves, though she reasoned it wasn’t surprising she was intimidated, when this tunnel led onto the pitch where the atmosphere was humming with testosterone and almost palpable aggression.
The thought took her straight back to Ethan. The power he threw off, even from the printed page, made him physically irresistible. Perhaps it was the steely will in his eyes, or the fact he was such a powerfully built man. He might be a lot older than she was, and terribly scarred, but she wasn’t the only woman who thought Ethan’s injuries only made him more compelling. In magazine polls he was regularly voted the man most women wanted to go to bed with.
Not that someone as inexperienced as her should be dwelling on that. No, Savannah told herself firmly, she was gripped more by the aura of danger and tragedy surrounding Ethan. In her eyes his scars only made him seem more human and real.
Oh, really? Savannah’s cynical-self interrupted. So that would be why these ‘innocent’ thoughts of yours regularly trigger enough sensation to start a riot?
Prudently, Savannah refused to answer that. She had no time for any of these distractions. She poked her head round the curtain again. There was still no one there, and she was fast running out of options. If she continued to yell she’d have no voice left for singing. If she put her jeans on again and went looking for help, she’d be late onto the pitch. But she couldn’t let Madame de Silva down, who had recommended her for this important occasion. She couldn’t let down the squad, or Ethan Alexander, the man who had employed her. She’d put her dress on, then at least she’d be ready. Or her parents who had scrimped and saved to buy the dress for her, and she only wished they could be here with her now. Secretly she was happiest on the farm with them, up to her knees in mud in a pair of Wellington boots, but she would never trample on their dreams for her by telling them that.
As her mother’s anxious face swam into her mind, Savannah realised it wasn’t singing in front of a worldwide audience that terrified her, but the possibility that something might go wrong to embarrass her parents. She loved them dearly. Like many farmers they’d had it so hard when the deadly foot-and-mouth disease had wiped out their cattle. Her main ambition in life now was to make them smile again.
Savannah tensed, hearing her name mentioned on the tannoy system. And when the announcer described her in over-sugary terms, as the girl with the golden tonsils and hair to match, she grimaced, thinking it the best case she’d ever heard for dyeing her hair bright pink. The crowd disagreed and applauded wildly, which only convinced Savannah that when they saw her in person she could only disappoint. Far from being the dainty blonde the build-up had suggested, she was a fresh-faced country girl with serious self-confidence issues—and one who right now would rather be anywhere else on earth than here.
Pull yourself together! Savannah told herself impatiently. This gown had cost a fortune her parents could scarcely afford. Was she going to let them down? She started to struggle with the zip. The gown had been precision-made to fit her fuller figure, and was in her favourite colour, pink. With the aid of careful draping it didn’t even make her look fat. It was all in the cut and the boning, her mother had explained, which was why they always travelled up to the far north of England for Savannah’s fittings, where there were dressmakers who knew about such things.
‘You can’t wear that!’
Savannah jumped back as her curtain was ripped aside. ‘Do you mind?’ she exclaimed, modestly covering her chest at the sight of a man whose physique perfectly matched his reedy voice. ‘Why can’t I wear it?’ she protested, tightening her arms over her chest. It was a beautiful dress, but the man was looking at it as if it were a bin liner with holes cut in it for her head and arms.
‘You just can’t,’ he said flatly.
Taking in the official England track-suit he was wearing, Savannah curbed her tongue, but she wasn’t prepared to let the man continue with the peep show he seemed intent on having, and she held the curtain tightly around her. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ she asked with all the politeness she could muster.
‘It’s not appropriate—and if I tell you that you can’t wear it then you can’t.’
What a bully, she thought, and her flesh crawled as the man continued to stare at her curvy form behind the flimsy curtain. Did he mean the neckline was too low? She always had trouble hiding her breasts, and as she’d got older she hated the way men stared at them. She would be the first to acknowledge her chest was currently displayed to best advantage in the low-cut gown, but it was a performance outfit. She could hardly hide her large breasts under her arms! ‘Not appropriate how?’ she said, standing her ground.
The man’s disappointment that she didn’t fold immediately was all too obvious. ‘The Bear won’t approve of it,’ he said, as if that was the death knell of any hopes she had of wearing it.
‘The Bear won’t approve?’ Savannah’s heart fluttered a warning. To walk out onto the pitch and have Ethan Alexander stare at her … She had dreamed of it, but now it was going to happen she was losing confidence fast. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t defend her dress to kingdom come. ‘I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t he approve of it?’
‘It’s pink,’ the man said, his face twisting as if pink came with a bad smell.
Savannah’s face crumpled. It was such a beautiful dress, and one her mother had been so thrilled to buy for her. They had discussed the fact that hours of dedicated work had gone into the hand-stitching alone, and now this man was dismissing the handiwork of crafts women in a few unkind words.
‘You’ll have to take it off.’
‘What?’ Savannah felt the cold wall pressing against her back.
‘I understand you’re a last-minute replacement,’ the man said in a kinder tone, which Savannah found almost creepier than his original hectoring manner. ‘So you won’t know that a major sponsor has supplied a designer gown for the occasion, which he expects to be worn. The dress has received more publicity than you have,’ the man added unkindly.
‘I’m not surprised,’ Savannah muttered to herself. Well, it could hardly have received less, she thought wryly, seeing as she was a last-minute replacement. She kept a pleasant expression on her face, determined she wouldn’t give this man the satisfaction of thinking he’d upset her.
‘And the Bear expects all the sponsors, however small their donations, to get their fair share of publicity, so you’ll have to wear it,’ he finished crossly when she refused to capitulate.
Perhaps he would like her to cry so he could play the big man to her crushed little woman, Savannah reflected. If so, he was in for a disappointment. Because she was plump and rather short, people often mistook her for a sweet, plump, fluffy thing they could push around, when actually she could stick her arm up a cow and pull out a newborn calf during a difficult birth, something that had given her supreme joy on the few occasions she’d been called upon to do so. Her slender arms were kinder on a struggling mother, her father always said. She didn’t come from the sort of background to be intimidated by a man who looked like he had a pole stuck up his backside.
‘Well, if that’s the dress I’m supposed to wear,’ she said pragmatically, ‘I’d better see it.’ She hadn’t come to Rome to cause ripples, but to do a job like anyone
