Page 80 of Sweet Surrender
Nash’s lips pulled into a knowing smile. It was as if he could read mythoughts, and knew that I was going to give him the one thing he wanted. But before I could say anything else, he took my hand off his chest.
“Ready to go and raise lots of money for your charity, sweetheart?”
I beamed back at him, a sense of calmness washing through me nowthat I’d accepted my fate. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 25
Nash
Savannah clung to me as I led her into the event room. The eventstarted thirty minutes ago, but I wanted everyone to be here for when we arrived so Savannah could see how many people turned out to take part in the auction.
And there were hundreds of people. People who were wealthy andhappy to donate to a worthwhile cause, and while the cause was to help a charity, the real cause was to get my defiant wife where I wanted her.
The auction was due to start in an hour, so I spent the time takingSavannah around, introducing her to different people. Some people she knew, or at least recognized their famous faces, others she didn’t know.
There was one person I avoided though, someone I was going to waituntil later to introduce Savannah to.
My sweet Savannah was a different person from the one I’d taken tothe launch party. Whenever someone asked about our wedding, she gushedabout how perfect it was, how beautiful her dress was, and how her favorite part of it was the dancing fountains in the background.
She held my hand the entire time, and whenever she looked at me,her eyes filled with love, the way I was sure I looked at her. I didn’t want to get my hopes up because Savannah was good at playing her games, but the more she spoke of our wedding, the more certain I was that she was being genuine.
She was surrendering.
“I still can’t believe this,” Savannah said as she took a sip of herchampagne. We’d spent the last few minutes talking with the executive director of DSoA, who wanted to thank us personally for arranging the evening. “I can’t believe you arranged all this in a few days.”
I smirked. “Anything can be achieved if you put your mind to it. Andmoney, of course.”
She returned my smile before her eyes flashed over my shoulder. Inan instant, her body tensed, and the smile disappeared. I looked over my shoulder to see what had caught her attention, but aside from the familiar faces of people I’d invited to the auction, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
“You okay?” I said, turning to face her.
“Yeah, I thought…” she trailed off as her eyes darted nervously overmy shoulder again. “I thought I saw Liam.”
It was my turn to freeze.
It wouldn’t have been impossible for Liam to be here, after all, I hadlet him go, but it had been with a stern warning in his ear that if he ever went anywhere near Savannah, it would be the last thing he did.
I turned back around, my eyes scanning the crowd as a knot ofanxiety formed in my stomach. Liam had the potential to fuck things up for me, something I categorically wasn’t going to let happen.
“Sweetheart, this is an invite-only event. I know for certain I didn’tinvite Liam,” I said, doing my best to reassure her. While it was an invite-only event, I wasn’t stupid enough to think there weren’t other ways into the venue.
She shook her head. “You’re right, I’m sure it wasn’t Liam. I mean,why would he be here anyway, he lives in Portland. At least, I assume he does, I guess I don’t really know where he could be,” she rambled.
My temper spiked a fraction when her eyes glazed over as if shewas disappearing into the memory of her ex. If there was a way I could reach into her brain and remove every trace of Liam Olsen from her memories, I would have done it. I didn’t want her thinking about him, and I certainly didn’t want her talking about him.
I gently tilted her chin up to me. “Stop. It wasn’t him, he knows betterthan to come anywhere near you, Savannah. Put him out of your head, it wasn’t him.”
Even as I said the words though, a part of me didn’t believe them.The truth was, when I let Liam go, it was with the order that he was to leavethe country and never set foot on US soil again. Or a Carson-Fox resort, for that matter.
I had ways of checking in on Liam from time to time to make surehe hadn’t returned to the country, but in the last week, I’d been so distracted by Savannah and her antics, that I hadn’t done due diligence.
She was quiet for a few seconds, her brows furrowed in thoughtbefore she finally spoke. “What happened to him? I know you said you would let him go, but was that it? Did you just let him walk out of wherever you’d been keeping him?”
Ignoring the way my skin started to itch with her disobeying my orderto put him out of her head, I dropped her chin but took a step closer so our chests werebrushing.
“That’s exactly what happened. He walked out of there knowing hisdebt to me was paid, and he never gave you a second thought,” I said, watching as anger flashed in her eyes as the truth dawned.
Liam had left her to take the fall, and he hadn’t once looked back tomake sure she was okay.
