Bound for Me (Be for Me #4)(23)

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 gesture.