Chapter five
906 Words
Savannah
I woke up on the floor
For a few seconds, I just lay there staring at the ceiling with my cheek against the cold hardwood and my whole body stiff and my eyes swollen half shut and I let myself have that one brief mercy of a moment before the memory of yesterday came back
Then it came back
I got up. I was Brad Knight's daughter and I did not stay down for long
I was still in the shower when Rosa knocked
"Anna important guests are coming this morning" she called "Mr. Sanders says to get dressed and look presentable"
I stood there dripping for a moment. Important guests. Peter wanted me to be presentable. The last time Peter wanted me presentable he had been arranging to hand me over to a mafia don. I was not exactly filled with excitement
I stood in front of my wardrobe and pulled out the white sleeveless summer dress, the one that fell just below the knee and hugged my figure without trying too hard. I held it for a second then put it on. It was beautiful and it covered my scars and that was all I needed from it
I let my waist-length blonde hair down. If this was going to be another transaction I was at least going to look like myself while it happened
Downstairs the house felt tight and strange. Peter was dressed sharply and moving with that stiff energy he got when he was performing confidence he did not actually have. My mother kept smoothing her dress. Even Serena had the sense to be quiet
Nobody told me anything. They never did
The cars arrived first. Black and expensive and silent. Then the men in suits came through the front door and Peter looked absolutely shitless. Whatever this was it had him rattled down to his bones and I will admit there was a small shameful part of me that found that deeply satisfying
They disappeared into Peter's office and the door closed and the house went quiet
I waited at the top of the stairs. Serena had long since lost interest and disappeared. My mother stood in the hallway below wringing her hands like a woman who knew exactly what was happening and had decided that knowing was enough participation for her
When the office door finally opened Peter came out looking like a man who had just signed the terms of his own surrender. Pale. Quiet. Smaller somehow than when he had walked in. Whatever had happened behind that door had taken something out of him and honestly, I hoped it hurt
And then the man followed him out
Tall and commanding with silver at his temples and the kind of stillness that came not from having nothing to say but from never needing to raise his voice to be heard. He walked into the hallway and the entire atmosphere of the house rearranged itself around him
He looked up and found me at the top of the stairs and went completely still
He was staring at me with an expression I had never seen a stranger wear before. Like he was looking at something he had been carrying for a very long time. It was not threatening. It was almost grief-stricken. I stared back and then discreetly touched my face wondering if I had somehow grown a giant pimple overnight that everyone had been too polite to mention
Nothing. Just my face
Peter cleared his throat "Savannah come down please"
I came down slowly and when I reached the bottom the man exhaled like he had been holding something in for years and reached out for my hands
"You look just like your father"
He said taking my hands in his
The words landed somewhere completely unguarded and I could not speak
He knew my dad?
He caught himself. Extended his hand
"I am Joel Giovanni" he said "your soon-to-be father-in-law"
My who?
I stared at him in shock. The room tilted
"Alex will be here any moment" he said, warm and certain and terrifying
Then the front door opened at that exact moment
The air in the room changed the way it had before a storm. More suits stepped through and then he walked in behind them
Tall. Broad. Auburn hair that did whatever it wanted and somehow still worked. A jaw that looked like it had been carved deliberately. And eyes, the most extraordinary shade of blue I had ever seen in my life, pale and sharp and clear as glass, the kind of eyes that made you feel like they were reading something in you that you had not said out loud
Those eyes swept the room and found mine and stayed
My first thought was that this was absolutely not Santana De Luca and I was not complaining about that at all
My second thought was that my father had actually heard me last night. He had actually listened. Because standing in Peter Sanders' hallway looking at me like I was a puzzle he intended to solve was my knight in shining Armani
Dad you came through I thought and for the first time in longer than I could remember something in my chest loosened
Then he opened his mouth
And what he said next made me take every single one of those thoughts back
What on earth had I gotten myself into
- Writer
