“Savannah,” the doctor took his cue. “I’m on the premises, you feel at all bad, you come see me, okay? I’ll call you later as well.”
“Sure. Thanks.” She drew breath. “And if you hear anything Sheriff…” Like what those leads were? But the guy had clammed. “Or if you have any more questions…” Her voice wavered. “You know where my apartment unit is?”
“I do, Ma’am. And I’d like to say how sorry I am this has happened. There’s very little crime in Summerhill, this is unusual. But we’ll do everything we can to find whoever was responsible.”
“I’m sure it was just some… stupid prank or something,” she mumbled.
A hideous prank. And the more it was sinking in, the worse she was feeling. She cleared her throat and adjusted the cover, pulling it higher. She really needed some alone time. Glancing up, she caught both the doctor and Connor scrutinising her. The doc with clinical detachment—Connor, not so detached.
He suddenly turned towards the two men. “I’ll see you guys out.”
“Thanks.”
Turned out ‘seeing them out’ meant walking them as far as the bedroom door. Connor muttered something in a low voice and they left. Connor closed the door after them and faced her.
Savannah decided now wasn’t the time to try to stand up.
Slowly he walked back towards the bed. She drew her knees up and tightened her grip on the cover. For a moment she didn’t know what was freaking her more—being drugged or knowing she’d slept with Connor Hughes. It ought to be the drugging. But that this guy was Connor?
“Mind if I sit?”
She shook her head, tried not to wince as it pounded.
He didn’t take the chair Krista had left vacant, instead he sat on the edge of the bed, his hip level with hers. And she was not following that thought any further… too intimate.
As it was he looked too at home—like he owned the place. Which, she realized grimly, he probably did.
She’d walked right into the lion’s den. Finally was where she’d wanted to be, but in totally the wrong circumstances. She’d wanted to put the screws on him, not actually screw him. But she had. Totally.
And now remnants of that heat burned up her unruly body.
Seriously?
Despite feeling super crap, her hormones wanted him to play? Yet the thought of his touch, sent the sick feeling away.
He was the freaking enemy.
She mentally tossed her body under a freezeroid shower. It was never, ever happening again.
“So,” she opted to play it cool. It was never too late to play it cool. And Savannah was a master of very, very cool. “Not a banker.”
His mouth twitched a little. “No.”
“Not a liftie either.”
“I am a liftie. Sometimes. For a couple hours.”
“The rest of the time you run this place...” she said. “This is Summerhill, right? The famous Lodge.”
He nodded.
“And you own it,” she sighed. “So much for a small net worth.”
“But you don’t like me for it,” he replied, sounding like he was smiling now.
She closed her eyes so she couldn’t see him. Couldn’t be affected. “You can’t be Connor Hughes.”
He reached out and covered her cold hand with his, gently rubbed her Band-aid with his still-bandaged finger. “Why can’t I?”
She looked at him, curling her fingers into a fist underneath his warm palm. “You have longer hair. In that picture on the website...”
Oh. Way to go Savannah—she’d just busted herself. Let him know she’d cyber stalked him. It had been harder than she’d thought it would be. There were far fewer pictures of him than his brother Logan. The model. Connor had been much harder to find—turned out the pictures were old.
He didn’t pick her up her revealing slip, just answered easily. “I shaved it off recently.”
“Why?”
“Cancer fundraiser. One of the housemaids has a child...”
Connor takes care of everyone. Or so Krista thought.
But Savannah knew he didn’t. Because of Connor Hughes and his father, her father had lost everything he’d had left. Even his dignity.
The Hughes empire had stolen Savannah’s future. She wasn’t ever going to forgive him for that. He was so damn spoiled. She’d bet he’d never really done a proper day’s work in his life.
He was watching her closely. No smile in those eyes now. He’d seen her anger?
“The leads the sheriff has… you think you know who it was?” she asked for diversion as much as curiosity.
“I think we both know who it was.”
“Those jerks?” She couldn’t believe it. Were they really that stupid? That mean?
“I don’t know what they thought they could get away with.” Bleakness dimmed the brightness of his eyes.
She shrugged, not wanting to even go there.
“You could have had a bad reaction to whatever it was they gave you,” he all but growled. “They could have hurt you.”
Like those thoughts hadn’t already occurred to her?
The anger inside was almost uncontrollable. To have her strength taken away from her? To be incapacitated like that—forcing her to be dependent on someone else? On Connor freaking Hughes?
“I know you’re angry,” he said.
“You have no idea how I’m feeling,” she choked.
He leaned closer but she flinched back, snatching her hand out from under his.
She did not want his sympathy. She did not want his touch.
“We’ll get them, Savannah. I promise.”
Really? What was his promise worth? “Justice is that important to you?” she asked sceptically.
“Of course. Isn’t it to you?”
“It’s very important to me,” she answered in a hard voice. “When someone has done something wrong, they ought to have to pay.”
His eyes narrowed.
She breathed in. Maybe she’d said that a little too vehemently.
“Is that why you’re here?” he asked.
Her lungs constricted. “What do you mean?”
“Why are you here, in Summerhill?”
“I need money and I get good tips here.” She swept her hair back from her face in a casual gestur
e.
“Really?” He sounded so disbelieving.
“Some people like my bitch bartender act.” She sent him a pointed look.
“And we both know it’s an act.” He laughed under his breath. “You’re not anywhere near as cold as you make out.”
She stiffened, unable to contain her anger any longer. “You should have told me who you were.”
His laugh was louder that time. “I’m not the bad guy here.”
“No? I asked if you knew Rex Hughes. If you knew Connor. You didn’t tell me. Then we had sex and you still didn’t tell me.”
He sobered completely. “And why do you want to know Rex? Why do you want to know me?” He put one fist either side of her, bracing forward to ask right in her face. “What do you want from me?”
That really wasn’t a question she wanted to answer right now. Her brain was too scrambled. And her body? Too confused to know what was best for it.
She’d come here with the general notion of making them pay somehow. But it wasn’t like she was actually about to blackmail them like in some TV soap. Probably the worst she could do was go to the press and see if someone was interested in her story.
But she didn’t want that humiliation for her father.
Truth? She’d been so lost after discovering what her dad had done. That he’d lied to her. Lost her money. Lost her home. Lost his dignity.
Coming here was the one idea that she could cling to. To come to Summerhill and see them for herself and find out how fake they were. Because she was certain they were fake. She wanted to prove that this whole perfect life image that they sold—that they promised anyone could have—was a facade. Then she could go back to her father and show him something—anything—to get him to pull himself together.
“You said you were supposed to hate me,” he said.
She shot him a startled glance.
“Last night, when you learned who I was. You said you were supposed to hate me.” He leaned over her again. “Why?”
“I do hate you.” She loathed him at this moment.
“No. You don’t.”
She gasped. Of all the breathtakingly arrogant things to say?
“You wanted me before you knew who I was,” he said. “You still want me now.”