Undressed by the Billionaire. Susanne James

anyone half so virile or appealing. His legs were beautifully shaped and muscular, and his naked torso was everything she had dreamed of. The extent of his injuries, of his scarring, only proved it was a miracle he had made it through, and the thought of the pain he must have experienced cut her like a knife. He was twice the man she’d thought him. And more.

      Savannah jumped back in alarm as Ethan thrust his fists down on a marble counter-top. For a moment she thought he’d seen her and that that must have prompted the angry action, but then she realised he was leaning over his braced arms with his shoulder-muscles knotted and his head bowed, as if the sight of his own body had disgusted him. She knew then that everything she had feared for him was true: Ethan’s injuries had scarred more than his body, they had scarred the man.

      ‘Savannah?’

      She gasped out loud as he wheeled around.

      ‘Savannah! I’m speaking to you!’

      The ferocity in his tone made her back away.

      ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

      ‘Looking for you …’ She backed away, hands outstretched in supplication. ‘I knocked, but you didn’t hear me.’

      ‘You didn’t hear the water running?’

      ‘I heard it, but.’

      ‘You didn’t leave immediately?’

      ‘No, I.’

      ‘You what?’ he flashed across her. ‘Wanted to try out your amateur psychology on me?’ As he spoke his glance swept the paintings which he knew she must have seen. ‘I thought so,’ he spat out with contempt when she didn’t reply.

      ‘Ethan, please.’

      ‘I thought we’d agreed you’d stay away from me?’

      ‘Did we?’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I don’t remember that.’

      Straightening up, Ethan dipped his head. His stare was menacing.

      ‘Stop trying to intimidate me.’ If only her voice would stop shaking.

      ‘Then tell me why you’re here.’

      ‘Like I said, I was looking for you.’

      ‘Because?’ he prompted harshly.

      ‘I wanted to speak to you.’

      ‘And so you sneaked into my room?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘Go back to bed, Savannah.’

      ‘No.’ She shook her head. But how was she going to put all her thoughts and impressions into a few short sentences when Ethan would never give her the time? Shorthand was her only option. ‘I care about you.’

      ‘You care about me?’ Ethan’s laugh was cold and ugly. ‘If you only knew how infantile that sounded.’

      ‘Caring for someone is infantile?’ Savannah threw up her hands. ‘Then I’m guilty.’ The feelings she had developed for Ethan were so deep and so complex, at this point she had nothing to lose. ‘I’ll admit, I’m not good with words.’

      ‘No, you’re not.’ Grabbing his robe, Ethan threw it on, belting it to hide his mutilations from her gaze. ‘Get out of here, Savannah.’

      ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she informed him stubbornly.

      ‘Must I throw you out?’

      She wanted to run as far and as fast as she could from the expression on 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