Susanne James - Undressed by the Billionaire

‘Would you really do that?’

Her relief made him think he should have done it sooner. ‘Number?’

As she recited it he punched it in to his mobile phone, and it occurred to him that Savannah must have no idea how lucky she was to have a loving family.

‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said several minutes later when she had finished speaking to her mother.

‘I wanted to,’ he admitted. ‘It was the right thing to do,’ he added sternly when Savannah’s face softened into a smile.

‘It was very kind of you.’

‘It was nothing,’ he argued, turning his attention back to sailing the boat. ‘All I did was point out that my legal team will handle any press intrusion, and reassure your parents that they mustn’t worry because you were safe with me.’

‘You gave them your private number.’

‘How else are they supposed to call me?’

‘Well, thank you,’ she said sincerely.

‘Your mother seemed reassured,’ he said, unbending a little. His reward was to see Savannah’s face softening into a smile.

Her mother had been reassured, Savannah reflected with relief. Her romantic mother had always been a sucker for a strong man, though she preferred them safely corralled on the cover of a book or on a screen at the cinema, and kept a well-trained beta hero at home. She wondered if her mother would be quite so reassured if she could see Ethan in the flesh.

‘I have another call to make,’ Ethan told her, turning away.

As Ethan stood in profile his scars were cruelly exposed, and it appalled her to think one person could do that to another. But surely it couldn’t have been one person—it had to have been more—a gang, maybe? She’d felt a fraction of Ethan’s strength today and he was bigger, stronger and fitter than most men. What kamikaze group of yobs would have dared to take him on?

Trained yobs—professional thugs, truly evil men—was the only conclusion she could possibly come to. No casual attack could result in such serious injuries. But who would pay such men to beat Ethan so severely he’d nearly lost his life and had lost his sporting career? Professional rugby might be a highly competitive sport, but it was hardly a killing ground.

As Ethan finished his call and stowed the phone, turning the wheel to negotiate a bend in the river, Savannah was wondering if the person behind Ethan’s beating also accounted for the darkness in his eyes. If so Ethan carried far more scars than were visible to the naked eye. ‘Are we going to the airport?’ she said, noticing he was steering the boat towards a tributary.

‘To the airport first, and then to my place in Tuscany—just until the heat dies down.’

‘To Tuscany?’ She was feeling more out of her depth than ever.

‘Unless you’d prefer me to leave you to the mercy of the press?’

Savannah’s heart turned over as Ethan looked at her. How childish he must think her. Women would scratch each other’s eyes out for the chance to be with Ethan like this, and yet she had sounded so apprehensive at the prospect of staying with him. ‘I don’t want to be left to that pack of hounds,’ she confessed. ‘But I’ve put you out so much already.’

‘So a little more trouble won’t hurt me,’ Ethan reassured her dryly.

Maybe his lack of enthusiasm didn’t match up with her fantasies, but what Ethan had suggested was a sensible solution. And his place in Tuscany sounded so romantic—such a pity it would be wasted on them. ‘Are you sure it wouldn’t be easier for you if I just fly home?’

‘If you do that you won’t be able to take advantage of the security I can provide. It would take me quite some time to get the same level of protection set up for you in England, which is why I’ve made some arrangements for your parents.’

‘Arrangements? What arrangements?’ Savannah interrupted anxiously.

‘I decided a cruise would take them well out of the range of prying eyes.’

‘A cruise?’ She gasped. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be serious?’

‘You mean you booked a holiday for them?’

‘It’s the best solution I could come up with,’ he said, as if booking fabulously expensive trips was nothing unusual for him.

Savannah couldn’t stop smiling. ‘You have no idea what this will mean to them. I can’t remember the last time they went away—or even if they ever have been away from the farm.’

‘The farm?’

‘I live on a farm.’ She shook her head, full of excitement. ‘You must have seen my address on file?’

‘Lots of addresses have the word “farm” in them. It doesn’t mean a thing.’

‘Well, in this instance it means a great deal,’ she assured him, turning serious. Savannah’s voice had dropped and emotion hung like a curtain between them, a curtain Ethan swiftly brushed aside.

‘Well, I’m pleased I’ve made the appropriate arrangements.’

‘Oh, you have,’ Savannah said softly, thinking of all the times she’d wished she could have sent her exhausted parents away for a break, but she had never had the money to do so. Their grief when they’d lost their herd of dairy cows to disease had exacted a terrible toll, and they’d only survived it thanks to the support of the wonderful people who worked alongside them. Those same people would stand in for them now, allowing them to take the holiday they deserved.

‘You’ve no idea what you’ve done for them,’ Savannah assured Ethan.

He brushed off her thanks, as Savannah had known he would. But because of his generosity she thought he deserved to be wholly in the picture, and so she told him how her parents had stood by and watched their whole herd being slaughtered—animals they’d known by name.

‘That must have cost you all dearly,’ he observed, looking at her closely. ‘And not just in financial terms.’

It was a rare moment between them, but Ethan scarcely gave her a chance to enjoy it before switching back to practicalities. He treated emotion like an enemy that must be fought off at every turn, Savannah thought as Ethan told her that her bags would probably arrive at the palazzo before she did.

‘Just a minute,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘Did you say “the palazzo ”?’ Of all the day’s surprises, this was the biggest. Ethan had just turned all her points of reference on their head. As far as Savannah was concerned, a palazzo was somewhere people who existed on another planet lived.

‘There are a lot of palazzos in Tuscany,’ Ethan explained, as if it were nothing, but as Savannah continued to stare incredulously at him he finally admitted, ‘Okay, so I’ve got a very nice place in Tuscany.’

‘You’re a very lucky man,’ she told him frankly.

In the light of what Savannah had just told him about her parents’ hardships, he had no doubt that was true. At least they’d be able to put plenty of space between each other at the palazzo , he reminded himself thankfully.

‘Tell me about your palazzo .’

Finding he was staring at her lips as she spoke, he turned away. ‘Later,’ he said, relieved to see his driver waiting exactly where he had asked him to, by the landing stage. He waved to the man as he cut the engines and allowed the powerboat to glide into shore. ‘We’ll disembark first, and then I’ll tell you more about it when we’re on my jet.’

But she was back on the ground and in the back of a second limousine before Ethan turned to answer her questions.

‘The name of the palazzo ?’ he resumed, leaning over from the front seat where he sat next to the driver. ‘The Palazzo dei Tramonti Dorati.’

‘That’s quite a name.’ Savannah laughed as she tried to say it, stumbling over the unfamiliar Italian words, acutely conscious as she did so that Ethan was watching her lips move.