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"I hate you, Travis," she said.
Her voice wobbled, but it was true. She had to remember that. She didn't love him, she hated him. She'd even gone back to Malibu to tell him so, because she certainly didn't want him to think he'd left her wounded. And, okay, maybe to ask him a question.
Do I mean anything at all to you, Travis? she'd been going to ask.
As it turned out, he'd provided the answer without her having to ask the question. She did mean something to him. She was more than a mistress, he'd said earnestly, as if it were a compliment, given her that hurt-puppy look as if he couldn't imagine why his words hadn't turned her giddy with delight.
Alex gave a great, gulping sob. "I really, really despise you, Travis," she said, as the tears streamed down her face.
He'd let people think she was—whatever they thought she was. That smarmy man in the office. Oh, the way he'd looked at her, as if he knew some dirty joke and she were the punchline. And that other boor. The look in his piggy eyes when his tiny brain started piecing things together. Everybody had stared at her as if she were a one-night stand.
"And I wasn't," she whispered.
She wasn't. She'd been Travis's lover.
But not his love.
Alex wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Enough," she said, but it wasn't. The tears kept coming.
No, Travis hadn't loved her. He'd never promised her love. Good times, yes, but no love. And no forever after. He'd made that clear and she'd said that suited her, just fine.
The only trouble was, she'd lied.
What a mess she'd made of things, losing her heart to a man who'd gone out of his way to point out that her heart was the part of her he least wanted.
Wasn't that great? She wasn't just a liar, she was also a fool. And she was alone in a house that was about as cozy as a mortuary, with a storm raging outside. The only thing lacking was some guy wearing a hockey mask with an ax clutched in his hand, pounding to get in.
Something slammed against the front door.
Alex shrieked, spilled the wine down her robe and shot off the stool.
Darkness, thick and impenetrable, swirled between the library and the entry hall.
The thing hit the door a second time.
"A branch," she babbled. "It's a branch, a branch..."
Of course it was. The storm must have sent tree limbs flying. All that wind, the lightning, the rain...
The branch beat against the door again-except, this branch sounded like a fist. Alex looked around frantically for something to use as a weapon. The wine bottle? The flashlight?
The fist hit again. Alex mumbled a silent prayer and made her way to the door, bottle in one hand, flashlight in the other.
"Open this damned door, Alex!"
Alex froze. "Travis?"
"You're damned right, it's Travis. Open this door or I'll break it down."
For one crazy second, her heart filled with hope. He'd come after her. He'd come for her...
Of course he'd come for her. Women didn't just walk out on the great Travis Baron. He did the walking, the arrogant, insufferable, self-centered
"Alex, I know you're in there. And I'm telling you right now, open-this-door!"
Alex glared at the door. He wouldn't be breaking in, not this time. She'd thrown the bolt.
"Go away, Travis," she said.
"I am not going anywhere. And I am not going to stand out here and drown while we carry on a conversation." The door rattled as he pounded his fist against it. "Alex? Do you hear me?"
Alex lifted her chin. "No."
Outside, soaked to the skin by the storm, Travis groaned and rested his forehead against the sodden wood of the massive door.
"Alex." Travis beat his fist against the door and kicked it, too, for good measure. "Alex, I'm warning you, don't play around with me!"
She'd better not, he thought grimly. He was in a foul mood and had been, for quite a while.
The weather reports had warned of a massive storm building. Small planes had been touching down at the airstrip like bees hurrying home to the hive but he'd taken the Comanche up anyway.
"Flight's gonna be a rough one," some old geezer had warned him when he'd filed his flight plan.
A brilliant deduction, Travis had thought. But nothing would have stopped him from flying north and, by God, he'd made it, only to waste time scrounging around for a car because, by the time he landed, the rental places and the dealers were all closed. In the end, he'd paid some kid at the airfield a hundred bucks for the use of a pickup truck that smelled vaguely like horse.
What had kept him going was imagining Alex's face when she saw him. Surely, by then, she'd have come to her senses. She'd throw herself into his arms, tell him how she loved him...
Travis glowered at the closed door.
Instead, he was standing in the rain, soaked to the skin, pleading with the woman he was damned fool enough to want to spend the rest of his life with, to open the door and let him in. He had to be nuts! Here he was, putting his head in a noose. A silken noose but hey, a noose was a noose. The realization terrified him but he'd kept on going because he loved Alex. Really loved her, with the kind of chorus-singing-in-the-background, flowers-strewn-up-the aisle accompaniment he'd never believed in before.
