Page 32 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
But inside that sitting room was a man seated on the middle of a sofa with his legs crossed and both arms spread out across the back of the sofa. If any man could have looked better than the man that seated on that sofa she wouldn’t believe it. He was gorgeous. Just everything about him fit gorgeousness. From his thick brown hair that sat on top of his head as if he was Robert Redford in his prime, to the wide jaw and deep, cobalt-blue eyes that pierced her presence as if he knew all her secrets even from across the room. That was Marcellus. He looked a bit older, but still every bit as gorgeous. Her heart began to soar. Just seeing him again relaxed her. She somehow knew, though everything was bad, with him in charge it was all going to be alright.
“Need me for anything else, Dad?” Olivier asked as he looked beyond Savannah.
“No.”
“I’ll be in the family room if you need me,” Olivier said to his father, then he gave Savannah a polite smile and eased out of the room, closing the double doors behind him and effectively closing her in.
“Come. Sit down,” Marcellus said to her.
He didn’t take his eyes off of her, which made her extremely uncomfortable, as she walked to the wing-backed chair that sat in front of the sofa. She immediately felt underdressed. He was in a suit and tie, even in his own home, while she wore bike shorts and t-shirt and sneakers. She had to remind herself that she was doinghima favor. He wanted to stare: let him stare. But she wasn’t going to lose her lunch over it.
But Marcellus wasn’t staring at her for the hell of it. He was wondering within himself if she knew something about his son’s abduction. If she could be helpful to him. Or a problem. He was remembering her and how she felt in his arms. “What’s your name?” he asked her as if he hadn’t remembered her at all.
Savannah was a little disappointed, but she didn’t let it show. “My name is Savannah Richardson.”
Savannah smile. Didn’t he know it! She wore a bang like a kid would wear, he noticed, but it still couldn’t hide the fact that she was no kid anymore. Black didn’t crack, and she was a testament to that fact, but the seriousness of her look, and the sophistication of it, solidified her years. She would be thirty-seven now, and it showed. Certainly younger than he was, but no spring chicken herself. He also understood, just looking into her face, why his daughter Kalayna insisted that she was not the kind of woman to play games. That she was a serious sister, as Kalayna put it. He saw that too. Just like it saw it back then. “Niko fired you.”
Semantics again. She almost just wanted to say yes. But she had to quantify it. “I was fired by his company, but yes.”
“Why did he fire you?”
“First of all he didn’t fire me. His fashion director did. And second of all I was fired for no good reason.”
“You realize everybody says that.”
“Yes, I know. But in my case it’s the truth.”
Marcellus found himself unable to take his eyes off of her. It was as if she fascinated him all over again. There was nothing about her that stood out in his mind, but yet everything about her stood out. The way she sat straight-back and proud. The way she showed not a single sign of intimidation. That rarely ever happened. Everybody were intimidated by him. It pleased him to see that she wasn’t everybody. That there was something so very authentic about her just as it had been eight years ago. “So you were the perfect little secretary for my son, were you?”
“I was nowhere near perfect, no sir. I’ll never tell that lie. But did I work my butt off for him? Yes I did. Did I advise him and stick by him through thick and thin? Yes I did.”
“Did he fire you? Yes he did.”
Savannah was about to set that man straight again, making clear that Niko never fired her but his company did. But she was beginning to realize just how right Tyla had been. It was just semantics. If his company fired her, thenhefired her, plain and simple. Even his father saw that. She decided to move on. “I assume you wanted me to come here because you found out something about Niko.”
“Did Olivier not tell you?”
“He said I’d get the full story when I got here. To your house.” She looked around at the crystal chandeliers. “If you can call this palace a house.”
If Marcellus wasn’t so worried about Niko, he would have smiled. She certainly had that upfront way about her he still liked. But he was worried about Niko. “My son has been kidnapped, Miss Richardson.”
“Kidnapped?” Savannah’s eyes stretched wide in disbelief and her heart dropped. “Oh my God!” Her face turned into a mask of distress right before Marcellus’s very eyes. “Are you sure?”
He nodded his head. Her face looked like he felt inside. “Yes, we’re sure.”
“But why? And by whom?”
“We don’t know the details. That’s why I summoned you here. I thought you could help.”
“Me?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine anybody wanting to do something like that to Niko. I mean, he had his rivalries with fellow designers and his issues with various models who wanted him for themselves, but nothing that would lead somebody tokidnaphim. Oh my Lord. This is awful. This is just awful, Mr. Drakos!”
If this woman was faking her grief, Marcellus thought, she deserved an Academy Award. She was as devastated as he was, as if she still cared about his son the way he saw her devotion all those years ago. It touched him deeply. “Don’t worry, Miss Richardson,” he felt a need to reassure her. “We’ll bring him back home safe and sound. That I can promise you.”
Savannah looked at him. And then she nodded. She did feel reassured. “I believe you,” she said to him in a way so sincere that it touched him even more, although the distress still lingered on her adorable face. “But do you have any clues or anything at all about who would have taken Niko?”
“I was hopeful that you might have some insight since you were the one who tried to warn us that something was wrong.”
“But that was just me being me. I had no real evidence, just that Niko always returned my calls and my text messages. When he stopped doing so, I knew something wasn’t right. I felt that something was horribly wrong. But nobody would believe me.”
