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But then the man with him turned around and blue-green eyes glanced her way.
Shock slammed into her, freezing her in place. She blinked, half-expecting him to disappear, but after another look, he was still there, real, solid ... and far more beautiful than he’d been the last time she’d seen him. He’d been close to perfection as a teenage boy, but now ...
His jaw was more square, brows heavier and those eyes ... so much more intense. There were other changes, too, small ones she couldn’t even identify and he seemed to have aged far more than just a handful of years would account for, but there was no mistaking those eyes.
It was him.
“Travis,” she whispered.
She felt like somebody had just reached inside and ripped her heart out, torn it into shreds before cobbling it back together and shoving it back into place. There were gaping wounds in place of all the missing pieces and the pain was too much, so numbness settled in—shehadto go numb.
If she let herself feel this kind of pain, here and now, after everything she’d had to deal with over the past few days, after staring into her father’s hated faceagain, she’d shatter.
And she couldn’t ever shatter.
Her sisters, especially Mary Kate, needed her too much.
Drawing on the icy reserve that had allowed her to function while she still lived in Wilson Steele’s household, she took a slow breath, then another. Each one was agony, but she didn’t let that show.
She could do this.
She could face him.
She’d gotten through it when he abandoned her; it had been one of the most painful things in her life, but she’d survived.
If she could live with what Stephen Beresford had done, could function despite her father’s cold apathy and the weeks of being confined to the house so she couldn’t get an abortion once she learned about the pregnancy, if she could survive realizing Travis had turned his back on her after realizing she was pregnant, then she could face him now.
“Travis.” She inclined her head slightly, drawing on memories of her mother doing that very same thing as she greeted people at one soiree after another.
He was still staring at her, looking poleaxed.
Shifting her attention to Miles, she cocked a brow. “I didn’t realize we were going to have company.”
Miles gave her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. It almost looked ...pleading.
His guilt all but clung to him and she realized she wasn’t shocked. That guilt was choking him and she hadn’t realized how much until now. Some distant part of her felt pity for him with that awareness, but it was distant, buried under a layer of ice.
She was grateful to Miles, so grateful. But she didn’towehim this. And she owed Travisnothing.
“Isabel,” Travis said, the syllables of her name rough, as if he hadn’t spoken in ages. And somehow, the sound of her name was almost ... reverent, as if he were giving voice to a prayer.
The idea was laughable.
“Ma’am.”
She glanced over at the bespectacled, black-suited maître d’ and wondered what he’d do if she threw her arms around his neck in gratitude. She had a legitimate reason to leave now, one that wouldn’t look like she was running away. Instead of giving into the urge, she gave him a simpering smile that would have done her now former-socialite mother proud. “Yes?”
“We ... ah ... ” He glanced at the two men standing with her and paled, immediately jerking his gaze back to her. “I’m afraid there’s a strict dress code here at Henri’s. Your—”
“She’sfine,” Travis said, the words coming out a lethal growl, nothing like the roughly tender whisper of her name seconds earlier.
“Hardly,” she said, stepping between Travis and the pale hotel employee. Hooking her arm through his, she started ushering him to the door, giving the older, silver-haired gentleman no choice but to walk with her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I hope you’ll forgive the rudeness.”
––––––––
She was walkingaway.
Next to him, practically forgotten, Miles swore under his breath before speaking.
