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Number one? She should feel something. This was what she and the team behind her had been working towards for years. Her career was important to Ethan’s record company, Savannah registered numbly, so she was pleased for him.
She had everything to be grateful for, she told herself firmly, prompting her reluctant facial muscles into a smile.
‘We’ll want your autograph before we leave,’ one of the players teased, understandably oblivious to Savannah’s troubled state of mind.
‘And could you sign this for my sister?’ asked another. ‘My sister dreams of being a singer like y
ou one day.’
Savannah jolted round immediately. ‘I’ll do better than that,’ she offered. ‘Piece of paper, anyone?’ Ethan tore a sheet from a pad and handed it to her. Resting it on a magazine, she scribbled something and handed it to the player. ‘Give this to your sister. It’s my telephone number. Tell her to ring me. I’ll give her any help I can.’ Who knew more about dreams than she did?
Playing a role helped her get through the rest of the morning, and then the happy hostess standing at the leading man’s side waved off the team.
Ethan waited until the coach was out of sight before asking Savannah to accompany him to his study.
‘What’s this?’ Savannah said as he handed her an envelope. She gazed in dread at it, as if it contained the ashes of her future.
‘It’s your first-class ticket home.’ His stare was un-swerving, and the fact that he’d put acres of desk between them wasn’t lost on her. Closing her fingers around the envelope, she wanted to say something, anything, but the words just wouldn’t come.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to travel back with the team.’ Ethan had put her welfare first again, Savannah registered dully, as if he were her business manager rather than her lover. ‘And I thought you should travel home in style.’ He said this as if that style was the panacea for all ills.
‘Travel home in style?’ Savannah repeated.
‘My chauffeur will take you to the airport, and from there you’ll—’
‘Ethan,’ she cut across him. ‘I don’t need a chauffeur to take me to the airport, and I don’t need to travel home in style.’
‘There’s around an hour until you leave.’ He might not have heard her. ‘It shouldn’t take you long to pack, should it?’
Some toiletries and two evening gowns? ‘No, it shouldn’t take long.’
‘Good. That’s settled, then. And I don’t want you worrying about the paparazzi.’
Ethan was nothing if not efficient, Savannah thought, already anticipating his next reassurances concerning security, guards and alarms.
‘So you’ll be fine,’ he finished.
If that was all it took, Savannah thought wistfully, expressing her thanks. Learning what she had about him, she could understand why Ethan’s heart had grown so cold, but not why he refused to embrace the chance of love.
‘Okay?’ he said with one of those brief, forced smiles people used to bring an encounter to an end.
‘Okay,’ she agreed with the same false gusto.
Ethan had his fists planted on the desk and was leaning towards her, as if keen to underline his concern. Savannah thought she knew why. She was the valuable property of Ethan’s record company, and it made sense to protect her. This was no personal relationship, other than in her self-deluded head. She stuck the envelope in the back pocket of her jeans, and when Ethan looked as if he was waiting for her to say something more she managed, ‘First class? Exciting.’
‘My apologies. I couldn’t free up the jet for you, because I need to use it.’
‘No problem,’ she assured him. If Ethan wasn’t with her who cared where she sat? But…more leg-room with the heart ache? She’d take it. ‘I’ll get ready, then.’
What more was there to say? Should she beg Ethan to let her stay on? And, if he agreed, could she ever soften him?
The reality of a man who had proved to be absolutely untouchable chilled her to the core. It was better to leave now before she said or did something she’d regret, Savannah concluded. She loved Ethan with all her heart, but in his eyes she could see not even a flicker of encouragement. Having thanked him again for the arrangements he’d so kindly made for her, she did the only thing possible and left.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HE LISTENED to the limousine crunch across the gravel as it carried Savannah to the airport, waiting for the rush of relief that never came. She had sought him out immediately before leaving to thank him for his hospitality. His hospitality? When she’d left him to go and pack, he’d sat brooding in his study, supposedly finalising a bid for a country home in Surrey, but his thoughts were all of Savannah. He wouldn’t inflict himself on her, which was the only reason he let her go. She was young and idealistic, and in time she’d come to see he was right. He was glad she had gone, he brooded, gazing out of the window at a view that was no longer perfect without Savannah in it. Perhaps if he repeated that mantra long enough he would come to believe it.
He pictured her face and remembered her parting words: ‘You have a beautiful home, Ethan; take care of it. And start painting again.’ She had smiled hopefully at him as she’d said this, adding, ‘You have a real talent.’
