Ethan’s face. He had turned so angry and dark, and so utterly contemptuous of her. ‘You wouldn’t—’
But her voice wobbled and Ethan pounced. ‘Can you be sure of that?’
‘I’m absolutely sure you would never hurt me.’ Standing her ground, she stared him full in the face.
‘Have you finished? Can I continue with my evening in peace now?’
‘I’ve not nearly finished!’ Like a cork in a bottle her frustrations had been tamped down long enough. ‘You can’t dismiss me. I’m not a child!’
‘You certainly look like one to me.’
‘Then you’re not looking closely enough. I’m a woman, Ethan, a woman with feelings; a woman who won’t let those feelings go just because you say I must.’
Ethan’s answer was to curtly angle his chin towards the door. ‘And now I’m asking you to leave.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
He tried sweet reason. ‘It’s been a long day and you should be in bed.’
Savannah shook her head. ‘I’m not a child you can order to bed. All I want to do is talk to you.’
‘Well, I’m right out of conversation. Now, get out of here. Out!’ He backed her towards the door. ‘Try to get this through your head, Savannah …’ Bringing his face so close she could see the amber flecks in his steel-grey eyes, Ethan ground out, ‘I don’t want your company. I don’t want your conversation. And most of all I don’t want you snooping around here, spying on me.’
‘I’m not spying on you,’ Savannah said, raising her voice too. ‘And if it’s these you’re worried about—’
Sucking air between his teeth, Ethan knocked her hand away, but, ignoring him, she reached up anyway. Touching his face with her fingertips, she traced his cruel scars. ‘I don’t see them.’
‘You don’t see them?’ Ethan mimicked scathingly. Rearing back, he turned his face away.
‘No, I don’t.’ Savannah flinched as Ethan walked past her. And flinched again when, having poured a glass of water and drained it, he slammed the glass down so hard she couldn’t believe it hadn’t smashed. ‘It’s no use you trying to shut me out, because I’m not going anywhere, Ethan.’
He remained with his hostile back turned to her. Perhaps she had gone too far this time. Ethan’s massive shoulders were hunched, and his fists were planted so aggressively on a chair back his knuckles gleamed white.
‘Bad enough you’re here,’ he growled without looking at her, ‘But you should have told me you were—’
‘I’m sorry?’ Savannah interrupted, reading his mind. ‘Do you mean I should have told you I was a virgin?’ She waited until Ethan turned to face her. ‘Are you seriously suggesting I should have said, “how do you do, my name is Savannah, and I’m a virgin”?’
‘No, of course not,’ Ethan snapped, eyes smouldering with passion. ‘But if you’d given me at least some intimation, I could have made arrangements for you to stay elsewhere.’
‘In a nunnery, perhaps?’ Savannah cut across him. ‘In a safe place with a chaperon?’
‘And this isn’t safe, and I don’t have a chaperon.’
‘Correct.’
As they glared at each other it soon became apparent that neither one of them was prepared to break the stand-off.
‘And if I tell you I feel quite safe here with you?’
‘And if I tell you that the rest of the world will put a very different construction on your staying here with me?’
‘But I thought you didn’t care about gossip?’ she countered.
‘I care how it affects you.’
‘From the point of view that I’m signed to your record company as the next young singing sensation, which means I must appear to the world to be innocent?’
Ethan took her barbed comment with far better grace than she might have expected. It was almost as if they had got the measure of each other, and for once he was crediting her with some sense—though he drew out the waiting time until her nerves were flayed and tender. Relaxing onto one hip then, he thumbed his chin as the expression in his eyes slowly cooled from passion to wry reflection. ‘That’s a very cynical attitude for a young girl to have.’
‘How many times—?’
‘Must you tell me you’re not the young girl I think you are?’ he supplied in a low voice that strummed her senses.
‘If I’m cynical,’ Savannah countered, ‘Surely you’re the last person who should be surprised?’
‘I’m going to say this as clearly as I can.’ Ethan’s voice held a crushing note of finality. ‘I don’t want you here. Please leave now.’
She waited a moment too, and then said, ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ Savannah repeated. ‘You’re asking me to believe I must do everything you say. Well, standing my ground where you’re concerned might not be a big thing in your world, or easy in mine, but it has to be a whole lot better than agreeing to be your doormat.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ he demanded.
‘I’ve barely started,’ she assured him, but even she could see there was little point in pursuing this if she couldn’t persuade Ethan to see her in a different light.
And she couldn’t. He pointed to the door.
Lifting her head, she wrapped what little dignity she had left around her and walked towards it—but when she reached it she just had to know: ‘What’s wrong with me, Ethan?’
‘Wrong with you?’ He frowned.
‘Is it because I’m not pretty enough, not desirable enough, or is it the fact that I’m not experienced and savvy enough when it comes to handling situations like this?’
‘Savannah, there is no situation—other than my increasing impatience with you, which means there may soon be a situation, and it will be one you won’t like.’
Walking over to the door, Ethan opened it for her. ‘Goodnight, Savannah.’
Ethan felt nothing for her and she had no answer to that. She was so lacking in female guile, she had no tricks up her sleeve, and it was too late to wish she’d learned them before she’d come here.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Ethan demanded when she turned around and walked back in the room.
If he wanted her out, he was going to have to throw her out, and something told her he wouldn’t do that. Now she just had to hope she was right.
He
