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‘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.
&nb
sp; ‘And if I tell you I feel quite safe here with you?’
