The Billionaire's Pledge by Rachel Bond

little scream of surprise and pain, and then Zac was saying “You all right?” and shoving her downward toward something yellow and shiny. She was inside. The door was coming down. Now Zac was next to her and a roar like ten unmuffled Harley-Davidson motorcycles filled her head, and they sped off down the street in the Lamborghini.
    Savannah touched her brow and her fingers came away wet and sticky.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 15
     
    “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! Fuck FUCK!!” Zac pounded his open palm against the wheel and let out more f-words than Savannah had ever heard in her life. At least since she’d watched The Wolf of Wall Street .
    “You okay?” he asked, glancing over. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”
    “Am I? I guess I am. Christ.”
    She stared at her fingers, dark with blood. Her head spun. Was this real? How had this happened?
    The car sped around Hood River for a few minutes, then suddenly swung left and stopped short in Zachary’s driveway. Savannah had been so dazed she hadn’t realized they were even on his street.
    Inside the house, she felt like she was in shock. She collapsed on the sofa, but Zac picked her up and carried her easily down a hall and into the bedroom. She felt him pulling back the covers while still holding her—how was he doing that so effortlessly?—and setting her gently onto clean, white sheets. She was going to get blood on them. 
    “Zac…”
    “Don’t talk. Hold on, I need to look at that.”
    He disappeared for a moment and returned with a handful of stuff: bandages, bottles. He handed her a damp towel.
    “You can clean your hands.”
    She looked at the towel. It was white. “But I’ll ruin it.”
    “Fuck the towel, it’s ten bucks at Bed Bath and Beyond. I’m a billionaire, remember?”
    She tried to chuckle but a flare of pain made it impossible. She wiped the blood from her fingers. It was shockingly red on the perfect white towel.
    Zac leaned over and his face was close to hers. He touched her forehead, her cheek, her brow line.
    “Ow!”
    “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just a little cut. I don’t think it needs stitches.”
    “You’re not a doctor. Maybe we should go to the emergency room and let them decide.”
    “My mom’s a nurse. I’ve had my share of cuts and bruises. This is nothing. No offense—I know it hurts.”
    “Then why’s it bleeding so much?”
    “It’s just above your eyebrow. The forehead has a lot of blood vessels, for whatever reason. It’s stopped already anyway. Here, hold on a sec, I’m going to clean it. This might sting.”
    She felt him doing something, and it stung like hell. “Ow! Jesus!”
    “Sorry. That was just a bit of antiseptic cream. Now I’ll put a Band-Aid on it.”
    He peeled open a bandage and smoothed it across the cut. Savannah felt her heart rate slow. She took some deep breaths and lay back into the fluffy pillows. She felt very relaxed. It was like her system had gotten overloaded by all that had just happened, and now it was flooding her body with some kind of endorphins. 
    Zac sat on the edge of the bed and looked into her eyes. “You okay?” he asked.
    “I feel…” She hesitated, trying to find the right words. “I feel like I’m floating, kind of. Like I’m outside myself, drifting along…”
    “Does it still hurt?”
    “No. Nothing hurts.” She paused. “That was frickin’ bonkers back there. My ex was there! Did you hear him?”
    “I saw him and heard him. How come you didn’t tell me he was coming?”
    She shrugged. “Forgot, I guess. Or maybe I repressed it. I don’t know. Hope he doesn’t find us.”
    “He won’t,” Zac said. “I’ve done a lot of little things to make it hard to track down my address.”
    She snorted. “Bullshit. No offense. Probably half the town knows where you live, driving around in that lunar landing module.”
    “Hey!” he said, looking offended. “My car’s not made of tinfoil!” He smiled.
    He touched her shoulder gently,