But the man didn’t seem to think so. He was watching her lips and she felt a surge of feminine power. He was watching her, entranced.
‘You,’ he replied simply.
‘I know who you are,’ she said.
He was often in the newspapers: an advisor to companies, on all sorts of Young Irish Entrepreneur power lists. He’d set up a protein shake company which was hugely successful, apparently. She was a bit muddy on what else he did exactly but he was somebody, of that there was no doubt.
‘But I don’t think you know my name …’
She risked a tiny smile at the game. She was winning it.
Eden had told her she looked amazing. She went jogging most mornings, sea swam at weekends. She hadn’t had time for men. Not since that year dating Tom, who had turned out to be a bit of a control freak.
‘He’s a bit opinionated,’ her mother had said when she met Tom and he’d launched into a ‘my world vision’ speech over dinner.
‘Total gobshite,’ Rory had said, more succinctly.
‘And he kept holding onto you,’ said Eden, ‘as if you might fly away if he didn’t keep a firm hold on your arm.’
They’d all been right, sadly.
Luckily, she and Tom hadn’t gone so far as to move in together, which meant that it was easy to get out of it when he’d been transferred to the Limerick office. That was a year ago.
This new man, Calum, seemed a million miles away from Tom.
He was suave: he’d never deliver any speeches about his world view. He was possibly a year or so younger than her and his gaze was admiring. ‘You’re Savannah Robicheaux. Founder of Velvet Beauty. The photos don’t do you justice. Any of them. You’re more beautiful than your sisters. More slender.’
‘Can I get you more champagne?’
He reached for her empty glass and their fingers met. The heat of his touch made her inhale suddenly.
So much of the night was engraved in Savannah’s memory. She could replay it if she wanted to: how she’d thought he’d whisk her away, like a rescuing prince on a white charger. Instead, he’d brought her to her table and had taken her card.
‘I’ll be leaving early: I’ve an early flight,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll phone you when I’m back. If you’d have lunch with me—?’
‘Yes,’ Savannah had replied, only just stopping herself from asking for his number. Men always said they’d phone and then they didn’t and she wanted this man. The thought shook her. She really wanted him. He would whisk her away, take care of her, make sure life was safe …
‘Good. Take care, Savannah,’ he’d said, taking her wrist and kissing the inside of it.
Excitement trilled through her. This was like a fantasy scene in a film: a man kissing her wrist, this man.
She’d been on a high for days.
Every time her mobile phone rang, she’d grabbed it. Then he’d phoned.
‘Did you think I wouldn’t contact you?’ was the first thing he asked, and she laughed because he’d got it exactly right.
‘I did worry,’ she began.
‘Never worry. I am here to take all your worry away,’ Calum had said.
It had been a fairy-tale courtship.
Calum had taken her out to expensive restaurants and for romantic weekends away. If there was a hotel with a four-poster bed in it – Savannah adored four-posters – then they went there. He paid for it all and Savannah, who had always worried about money since being a child in the fiscally-wobbly Sorrento, felt relief that this confident, generous man had come into her life. They graced every event in the city and posed for society photographers outside, with Calum standing proudly and protectively beside her, one arm clasped tightly around her waist.
‘You make a lovely couple,’ Eden remarked one evening when Savannah came over to her and Ralphie for dinner. ‘When are we going to meet this paragon of romance, or are we only going to see him in the papers? You’ve been going out with him for ages now. I want to look him in the eye—’
‘And scare him!’ joked Ralphie.
