Evergreen: An Alpha Billionaire Romance

by Michelle Love

‘Mr. Saffran, Mrs. Saffran, hey. Look, Bree is still inside, and as far as we know, she’s okay. Ms. Grace…you know Emory?’

  ‘I do,’ said Clem quietly, and turned to Luca, ‘Emory Grace, Bree’s English teacher, the one she’s always talking about.’

  Luca nodded then looked at Greg. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Emory, I mean, Miss Grace, she stayed behind to find Bree and a couple of our other classmates. I know Emory; she won’t let anything happen to them. And Bree…Mr. Saffran, Mrs. Saffran, I don’t know if you know this about your daughter, but she’s kickass. I know she’ll be okay.’

  Clem smiled gratefully at him. ‘Thank you, Greg, and I hope everyone is okay, all your friends too.'

  ‘I hope so too. Thanks, look, I’d better get back to…’ He nodded at his mother and father. Luca shook his hand.

  ‘Of course, thanks, Greg, we do appreciate you coming to talk to us.’

  Luca and Clem stood, their arms locked around the other and waited. Luca bent to kiss the top of Clem’s red hair. ‘Our daughter’s kick-ass,’ he said softly.

  Clem nodded. ‘She’s kick-ass,’ she agreed and tightened her grip around him.

  Bree Saffran felt anything but kick-ass at that moment. In fact, she was pretty sure she was about to pee herself, and that would suck. Really suck. Because if Mr. Azano was about to shoot her, then she wanted to die with dignity and not covered in urine.

  David Azano was leveling the gun at her, his eyes wild. Bree had never seen him like this, but she could tell from his eyes that there was no-one sane inside him. She’d seen this before in some of her wilder friends. Two words.

  Bad. Trip.

  ‘All you kids, you just leech the life out of people like me. You take, you take, take, take, take, fuck…’ He pulled the trigger, and Bree’s heart failed. The gun clicked and clicked. Empty. Oh, thank you, thank you. While Azano stared at the gun, she edged around the room, trying to put herself between him and the door. She didn’t look down – couldn’t look at the bodies that were littering the teacher’s break room. God…she could smell the blood rust and salt and gore. She moved slowly, but Azano looked up them and grinned.

  ‘No use trying to escape, little rich girl. I’m three times the size of you, and faster, and, my oh my, what do we have here?’ From his pocket, he pulled a flick-knife. He waved it at her. ‘Back-up. Looks like I’m going to have to get up close and personal.’

  He lunged at her, and Bree let out the loudest scream she could as Azano grabbed her and flung her to back against the wall. She struggled with everything she had but he was strong, huge and the knife slashed ever closer to her.

  Then in what seemed like a dream, a small, dark-haired missile launched herself at the man, knocking him away from Bree. Bree was stunned and froze. Emory.

  ‘Bree, fucking run! Bree! Run!’

  But she couldn’t. She watched as Emory wrestled with the man…if he was three times bigger than Bree then he dwarfed the tiny Emory. Bree blinked then leaped onto the man’s back, yelling and screaming like a banshee. The two women clung the man, hitting, biting, clawing at him, trying to subdue him but the acid trip he was on gave him superhuman strength.

  In horror, Bree watched as the knife sunk into Emory’s stomach, and she gasped in agony.

  ‘No!’ Bree yelled, but Azano yanked the knife out of Emory and waved the bloody blade at Bree.

  ‘Bree! Run, now!’ Emory was clutching at her belly, trying to stem the bleeding and trying to get to her feet as Azano advanced on the younger woman. ‘Run! Go get help…there’s nothing you can do here, please.’ Emory kicked out the back of Azano’s knee, and he went down, screaming and cursing before whirling around and grabbing Emory again. Emory, weakening, looked at Bree.

  ‘Bree,’ and her voice was unbelievably calm in the face of her certain death, ‘please, go. I can’t bear it if you died. Please, run…’

  Bree started to sob. ‘Em…we all love you, I love you, please I can’t leave you…’

  ‘Run, baby, run…’ Emory choked as Azano stabbed her again and then Bree gave her, her dying wish and ran.

  Clem saw her first, being carried by a policeman, and let out a scream. Luca followed her gaze then they were running to meet their daughter.

  ‘She’s okay,’ said the policeman carrying her, ‘She just passed out. She was hysterical when she escaped.’

  Luca took his daughter from the policeman carried her over to where the paramedics were treating the injured. In a few seconds, Bree was coming around but burbling and getting hysterical again.

  Clem took her daughter’s face in her hands. ‘Baby, baby, it’s Mama, it’s Mama. Look at me; you’re safe now, you’re safe…’

  ‘Please, he’s killing her…you have to help her,’ Bree was panic-stricken looking between her mother and father.

  ‘Who, baby?’ Luca took her hand, his chest tight.

  ‘Emory…it was Mr. Azano…he shot some people, some teachers, some kids and he was trying to kill me but his gun was empty. He had a knife, and he was going to kill me but she stopped him, she jumped on him…’

  ‘Ms. Saffran.’ They all started and turned to see the police captain his expression urgent and alert. ‘You say he ran out of ammo?’

  Bree nodded. ‘Yes. He just has a knife…I think we were the only ones left but please, you have to stop him. He stabbed her…she’s only tiny and she saved me, saved my life, Mom, Dad…’

  Luca wrapped his arm around her shoulders and nodded to the police captain, who turned and spoke quickly and quietly into his radio. As if from nowhere, shoals of cops began to flood towards the school. Clem and Luca sat either side of their daughter, who refused to move until she knew how her beloved teacher was.

  Minutes passed. Everyone in the clearing fell silent as they waited. Then, a few minutes, they heard shouting, gunshots. Bree clutched her mother’s hand.

  Finally, they saw paramedics running beside a gurney, an i.v. blood bag swinging from a stand affixed to the bed. Bree gave a small cry, but they couldn’t see who it was. Luca stood and patted her shoulder. ‘I’ll go see, sweetheart. Stay with your mom.’

  With a meaningful look at Clem, he turned and rushed over to the ambulance. With a rush of relief, he saw the young woman on the stretcher- this must be Emory Grace. The relief was fleeting; he saw how much blood she was still losing. One of the first responders looked at him as she hopped into the ambulance to attend to the unconscious Emory.

  ‘Will she be okay?’ Luca felt helpless.

  ‘Are you a relative?’

  Luca felt desolate. ‘She saved my daughter’s life.’

  The responder’s face softened. ‘We’re going to do everything we can, but she’s in a pretty bad way, lost a lot of blood.’

  He asked her where they were taking Emory Grace and she told him. ‘We really have to go.’

  ‘I know, just one quick thing,’ and he leaped into the ambulance, leaning over Emory and whispering. ‘Thank you. Thank you for saving my girl.’

  He touched her soft cheek, and she gave a small moan, and his heart flipped.

  ‘Sir?’ The responder sounded urgent now. Luca stepped out of the ambulance, and just before they closed the door, he called. ‘Anything, do anything you can to save her. Please.’

  The paramedic nodded and closed the door, and Luca was left to stare after the ambulance as it raced, screaming towards the nearest emergency room.

  ‘Please,’ he said softly. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t only his daughter’s life Emory Grace had saved that day.

  For Emory, a few days later, it wasn’t a happy awakening. Searing pain racked her body; her throat felt like sandpaper and worst of all, she opened her eyes to see her estranged husband sitting by her bed. Oh god. Had she gone to hell?

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice sounded echoey, hollow, rasping.

  Ray jumped up and called for the doctor in that imperious tone of his, before helping her sip a cup of water. ‘Darling, of course, I�
��m here, where else would I be at a time like this?’

  Emory felt a button in her hand, and she pressed it, hoping it was for morphine or to call the nurse. ‘Well, Ray, are you here because you care or because you’re mad someone beat you to trying to kill me?’

  Ho-hey, she must be flying high on the morphine to talk back to him like that. His face went red, and she watched him try to keep his temper.

  ‘I’ve been here day and night to care for you,’ he said in a low, furious voice. ‘Just like you to be so ungrateful.’

  ‘Fuck off, Ray.’

  Yep, yep, she was definitely high. Luckily for both of them, the doctor came then and started to ask her a bunch of questions; his voice was so warm and kind that she couldn’t help compare the two men in front of her. She interrupted the doctor.

  ‘Doc, before you say anything else, I think I’d like some privacy from my soon-to-be-ex-husband. Ray, please leave.’

  Ray looked annoyed, but when he glanced at the doctor, the doctor shrugged and nodded. ‘Patient’s prerogative, Mr. Grace.’

  From the tone of his voice, Emory could tell Ray had been a royal pain the hospital staff’s asses. Dr. Lundheim, a young, handsome man in his thirties she guessed, waited until Ray had left the room and then grinned.

  ‘As I was saying, feel free to scoff derisively, but you were very lucky. No major organs were damaged and the leaking artery that was the cause of your blood loss, we were able to perform a graft. Now that doesn’t mean you can go swing dancing anytime soon, but you should make a full recovery and as you’re young and healthy, pretty quickly too.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Doctor, I mean it.’

  ‘How do you feel? Honestly?’

  ‘I ache, and my stomach is sore but considering…I’m surprised I feel this…alive, shall we say?’

  He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at her. ‘Good, I’m glad. Means everything is progressing how it should. I want you to stay in for a few days so we can get some more blood into you, stabilize your vitals but you should be able to go home by the end of the week. And, you’ve quite a fan club out there. Kids from your school, some parents. Hanging on every update. One family, in particular, have been here twenty-four-seven. The Saffrans. Luca Saffran. You’ve got friends in high places, kiddo.’

  Emory chuckled then winced as the muscles in her stomach tugged. ‘I’ve never even met Mr. Saffran, but I do know his wife a little and their daughter, Bree, is one of my favorite students. Not that I should have favorites, don’t tell anyone I said that.’

  The morphine again. No filter, she thought. Dr. Lundheim patted her hand.

  ‘Well, now, I can give them all some good news. What do you want me to tell the press?’

  Emory blinked. ‘The press?’

  The doctor rolled his eyes. ‘Of course, the press. You’re a heroine – not just statewide either, a national star. The President himself sent his regards.’

  Emory let her head fall back. ‘Now I know it’s the morphine.’

  ‘Seriously, Emory, there’s a bank of press reporters and photographers camped outside the hospital, waiting for their first glimpse of the conquering heroine.’

  Emory suddenly felt sick. ‘Oh, I get it now. I get why Ray’s here…’

  The doctor looked confused and then realization dawn, and his jaw flexed. ‘That does explain the performances, shall we say?’

  Emory shook her head. ‘Can’t miss the spotlight.’

  ‘It’s not his spotlight.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’ She suddenly felt tearful. God, why did it upset her so much? ‘Doc, I would appreciate it if he were refused entry to my room from now on. I don’t want to see him.’

  ‘That’s no problem. And, if you like, I can let the press know that he doesn’t speak for you, that you’re an independent woman.’

  Emory smiled gratefully at him. ‘That would be lovely. Thanks, doc, for everything.’

  ‘Rest up; then I might let you have some visitors – the ones you want that is,’ he added with a grin.’ He stood up and Emory caught his hand.

  ‘Doc?’ Her voice shook. ‘How many? How many in the end?’

  The smile faded from the young man’s face. ‘Eleven, including the shooter. Four kids, six teaching staff. And nearly you too.’

  Emory felt her throat close, the grief all-consuming and she couldn’t stop the tears then. ‘God…’

  ‘Hey,’ The doctor glanced outside the door, ‘I know how to cheer you up. There’s a very excitable young lady out here who, on more than one occasion, has threatened to kick my ass if she isn’t able to see you soon.’

  Emory chuckled through her tears. ‘That would be Bree.’

  ‘It would indeed.’ He signaled to Bree, and a second later, she came into the room and flung herself on Emory, who winced as the movement pulled on her wounds. She didn’t care, though; she wrapped her arms around the girl and hugged her hard. Something had happened in that room of terror; a bond that had already been formed in their classes together had turned to sisterhood. Bree, her short cap of black hair sticking up in every direction, drew back and smiled apologetically.

  ‘Sorry, I hope I didn’t hurt you,’ Bree glanced at the doctor who rolled his eyes and grinned.

  ‘See you later, Emory.’ And he was gone. Bree studied her teacher and friend.

  ‘You look so much better than I thought you would.’

  ‘Flesh wounds mostly,’ Emory lied to reassure her. Bree’s dark eyes were serious.

  ‘Did they tell you how many?’

  Emory nodded. ‘It’s unspeakable, Bree, and to think that David, of all people…’

  Bree lowered her voice. ‘People are saying he was high on something. They're really shady about releasing details. My dad was able to get some information but nothing we couldn’t have guessed.’

  Emory sighed. ‘How are the parents of the kids who died? Lee and Hayley, I know about. Who else?’

  ‘Sandrine Keys and Lexi Kline.’

  Emory groaned. ‘God…should we have seen this coming? Was David stressed out? He never gave any indication of it.’

  ‘No one knows,’ Bree could see Emory was getting upset. ‘Look, don’t think about it now, just get well. Hey, my dad wants to come see you – would that be okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ Emory had never met Luca Saffran, only Clementine, Bree’s mother. ‘Tell him to come by whenever he’s free.’

  Bree looked a little guilty. ‘He’s actually just outside right now.’

  Emory laughed, but inwardly she felt exhausted. ’No problem.’ Bree went to the door, and Emory heard her calling her father in a low voice. Emory hoped she didn’t appear too bedraggled; she felt she must look as wrung out as she felt.

  Then Luca Saffran walked into the room and suddenly she wasn’t tired anymore. Luca Saffran was tall; his black hair and dark eyes the mirror image of his daughters. He kept his dark beard neatly trimmed, and Emory detected some Asian heritage in his handsome features. Handsome, she thought to herself, handsome doesn’t really cover it. The man was gorgeous.

  Luca Saffran smiled at her and offered his hand. She shook it, trying not to show the whirl of emotions inside her. Luca nodded to Bree who smiled and left them alone, closing the door behind her.

  ‘Ms. Grace, I hope you are feeling better.’

  Deep voice, quiet, soft. Masculine. Emory nodded. ‘I am. Nothing serious.’

  Luca chuckled softly. ‘Bree said you wouldn’t want a fuss. It didn’t look like ‘nothing serious’ when they pulled you out of that school.’

  ‘You saw me?’ Emory felt her face grow hot. Luca nodded, his dark eyes full of sorrow.

  ‘Ms. Grace…’

  ‘Emory, please.’

  ‘Emory.’ The way he said her name made her heart pound; it only got more excited when he took her hand. ‘Emory, there are no words to describe how grateful we are to you…God, that doesn’t even begin to explain. You saved three lives when you saved my daughter,
Emory. I owe you a debt.’

  Emory was overwhelmed by his words, but she shook her head. ‘There is no debt, Mr. Saffran. Anyone would have done the same. Bree is an extraordinary young woman, and I was just doing my job.’

  ‘Above and beyond,’ he said, his voice breaking slightly, then, embarrassed, he grinned slightly. ‘And it’s Luca, okay?’

  ‘Luca.’ She liked the way his name sounded in her mouth. Luca. He still had her hand in his.

  ‘I want you to know, all your medicals bills are being sent to me – yes,’ he added when she opened her mouth to protest. ‘Stephen Harris told me of your situation, that you have separated from your husband. This doesn’t even begin to cover what I owe you, so I won’t take any argument.’

  Suddenly Emory saw what he must be like in the boardroom, why he was who he was: the CEO of the biggest pharmaceuticals company in the world. SaffraPharm Inc. was a rare company - for every dollar they made, they gave back the exact amount in free drugs to people and countries who couldn’t afford life-saving treatments. He was firm, masterful without being controlling. He smiled at her now, and their eyes held for a beat too long.

  ‘Emory, you look tired.’

  She nodded. ‘I am, but thank you for coming to see me…and thank you for the other thing.’ She flushed, but he merely smiled.

  ‘Emory,’ and it was his turn to hesitate, ‘may I come see you again? Would that be inappropriate?’

  She felt her face burn. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Good.’ He reached out and touched her face, just briefly then let his hand drop. ‘I’d better let you rest.’

  When he’d gone, Emory closed her eyes but sleep evaded her. Her mind whirled with every emotion: grief, anger, sadness – all of which was undercurrent by this new feeling. Attraction. She tried to push it away; it was entirely inappropriate, after all, she was in a hospital bed, and Luca Saffran was the parent of one of her students for Christ’s sake.

  ‘It’s just the morphine,’ she whispered to herself, but she could have lost herself in his deep brown-black eyes and those finely angled cheekbones. Her skin still burned where his fingertips had brushed against it. Stop it. She forced her thoughts away from him, but after a while, she called the nurse, asked for a sedative and soon fell into a deep dreamless sleep.