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'That I do.' They had reached the main road now and as he turned his head and leant forward slightly at the junction she saw his hair had a small kink to it where it rested on his shirt collar. It was thick hair, virile, glowing with health.
Tearing her eyes away, she said weakly, 'Is it a family concern? I mean, did your father start it?'
He shook his head. 'No. My father died when I was ten years old and my mother married again when I was eighteen. I don't get on with her husband but, as I was going away to university, we were spared each other's company. They emigrated to New Zealand shortly afterwards and took my sister with them, but as soon as she was able she returned to England. By then my business was doing well and I was able to offer her a job.'
'So you looked after her?' She didn't like the fact that she was finding this glimpse into his life so fascinating but she couldn't help it.
Travis's mouth quirked. 'If Sandra heard you say that she would hit the roof. No, I didn't exactly look after her—we're too alike to let anyone do that—but she did work for me for a time before she took herself off to your neck of the woods, London. She's the PA to a clothing manufacturing magnate now and loves every minute.'
Beth nodded. 'She seemed feisty.'
'Oh, she is, Beth. Very feisty,' he said drily. 'And a total career woman.'
Once before she'd got the impression he didn't approve of his sister's lifestyle and it was stronger now. Or perhaps it was the fact that his sister was competing in what was still a male-dominated world and doing very nicely that bothered him? Maybe he was a male chauvinist at heart? The type of man who liked his women to know 'their' place? And certainly she, as an architect, wouldn't suit. Perhaps that was why he didn't fancy her as a woman? She turned her head to look out of the window.
She hadn't realised just how much his statement the last time they had seen each other had bothered her until this moment but, galling as it was to admit to herself, she'd let it get under her skin. Which was daft. His opinion of her didn't matter.
'A conversation with you is like walking blindfold in a minefield.'
Travis's voice was soft and for a moment his words didn't sink in. When they did, her eyes shot to meet his. They had just stopped behind Catherine and Michael at some traffic lights which meant he could give her his full attention, the grey eyes laser-like on hers. 'I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about,' Beth said sharply.
'I'm talking about the way you were frowning out of the window just then.' The black eyebrows rose mockingly.
'I wasn't.' She straightened her face but it was too late.
'I don't like to be rude, but your face would have done credit to Queen Victoria,' he said pleasantly. 'What was it exactly that you objected to?'
Gritting her teeth in exasperation, Beth prevaricated with half the truth. 'I don't see why you should object to your sister following her own way of life,' she said tightly, 'or wanting a career. This is the twenty-first century, after all.'
'I don't.' He seemed surprised she'd thought so. 'Merely that she fails to exercise her considerable number of brain cells when it comes to her health by burning the candle at both ends. She's collapsed twice already in the last eighteen months. Burnt out. I don't want there to be a third time.'
'Oh.' She sat back in her seat a little, somewhat nonplussed. Then she rallied to say, 'But it's her life and if she's happy—'
'She is not happy,' Travis interrupted, just as the lights changed and his eyes returned to the road ahead. 'She made the mistake of dumping the love of her life before she left for London, thinking she couldn't have him and the career she wanted. She was wrong. You can have it all. You just have to work a little harder to make it happen.'
Beth immediately felt terribly sorry for Sandra. 'Poor thing,' she said in a tone which she hoped conveyed how hard she thought he was being. 'That's awful.'
'It was pretty awful for the guy concerned too,' Travis said shortly. 'Who happens to be a friend of mine.'
'Really?' Beth hadn't realised how many of Catherine's genes she shared, but she knew her sister would be proud of her if she could hear her now. 'In that case, couldn't you get the two of them back together? Try a little matchmaking?'
Travis shook his head. 'It took Sandra too long to come to her senses and by then Colin had married someone else.'
Beth was horrified. 'But if Sandra was the love of his life?'
'I said he was the love of her life—there's a difference,' Travis said softly. 'I don't know how Colin felt in the end. Maybe Sandra was just one of any number of women he could have been happy with. Maybe his wife is the love of his life. I don't know; we've never discussed it.'
'So...' Beth was feeling her way here. Groping in the dark. 'Do you believe people can meet and be happy with various other people but that there is only one person who is truly the love of their life?'
