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She expected him to push.
But he didn’t.
His gaze fell away and he looked back out over the water. As he shoved to his feet, the movement easy and graceful despite the injury in his side, she swiped a shaky hand over her mouth and forced air in, blowing it back out in a controlled manner. She’d spent years in therapy, working with an anonymous counselor Miles had arranged and she still relied on the breathing exercises, still did the yoga routines that had helped her gain control of the panic attacks and rage.
Now, she used the breathing to steady out as Travis paced over the shoreline and stared out into the night before walking back to her a couple of minutes later.
Rage simmered in his eyes.
“I’m not going to ask. You don’t need to talk. But I have to say this—I know he hurt you—that Beresford fucker. I saw you flinch from him the night I ... that night,” he bit off. “If I hadn’t been so fucking angry, so jealous, so fuckingblind, I would have figured it out sooner, and I’m ... no. You don’t want or need apologies from me and they won’t fix shit. But I’m not stupid. I know what he did. And if I could get my hands on him, I’d destroy him. I’d hurt him, make him beg and then I’d kill him, painfully. And I’d enjoy it.”
At that moment, he was a stranger.
Brutal, ruthless, capable of the torturous murder he’d just promised.
Isabel’s breath caught in her throat.
Then he blinked. A long, steadying breath escaped him and when he looked back at her, she saw the Travis she’d come to expect over the past few days, different from the boy she’d fallen in love with, but not a deadly, remote stranger capable of a cold-blooded execution.
Which one are you?
“I know what happened,” he said again, far more calmly now. “And I know about your father. Rage was eating me alive after Miles told me you’d helped them uncover what Wilson Steele was doing, that you were going to put him away. You and your sisters, your mom, you had to go into witness protection—then your mom ended up dying ... ” He paused.
“She killed herself,” Isabel said softly. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself, the dull, scarred-over wound of that particular betrayal a nagging ache. “She was always weak. I’m not saying that because she ended her life. I understand that some see suicide as a way out—sometimes, you are trapped in impossible situations and fuck knows I understand that. For others ... hell, I know depression. I know the pain it can cause—I’ve lived with it for years and it can be cancerous. But she was weak in other ways and she put us in harm’s way because of it.”
She heard a harsh breath but didn’t look his way.
“Some people don’t understand that the wounds you don’t see can be every bit as painful and unrelenting as those we carry on our skin.” She thought of the scars on her belly, scars he would have seen if there had been light, if he had maybe been a little less ... focused on other parts of her anatomy earlier. Even as she thought it, her throat tightened. She’d have to tell him, she realized. If they pursued this any further, she’d have to tell him. He deserved to know.
She thought, bitterly, of the occasional articles she’d seen about his family. Even when she’d tried to tell herself she was over him, done with him, she’d never quite been able to cut that thread and when she’d see the infrequent tabloid spreads on his older brother Zach over the years—and later, his wife, Abby, or more recently, pieces on his kid brother Sebastien and the gorgeous movie star he’d married, Marin, she’d read them. She’d hoarded pieces on Trey, because out of all the brothers, Travis was naturally closest to his twin.
But only rarely had there ever been a mention of the most reclusive Barnes sibling, and never any pictures. There had beennothingon Travis in years.
One thing there had been?
Frequent mentions of the family.
Abigale Applegate Barnes was expecting her first child within the year.
Within a month of that announcement, there had been another—Marin Lassiter-Barnes was also expecting.
Trey and his wife Ressa? They had two kids together—one from Trey’s first marriage and a child Ressa had brought into the mix. They’d been featured in some magazine a year earlier.
The Barnes were all about theFword ... Family. With a capital fuckingF.
Aching, she turned away and placed a hand on her belly, the one that would never carry life.
Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them.
“Stephen Beresford doesn’t concern me,” she said in a voice that came out cool and controlled, so calm she should have been pleased with herself. But she didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to spare. “He’s still got another three years of his mandatory agreed sentence before he’ll qualify for probation and after that, he’ll be on parole five years. Miles will have him monitored and I’m no longer so easily cowed.”
“You were never easily cowed,” Travis said, a thread of anger still underscoring his voice. “And what happened to you wasn’tyourfault.”
“I know that...now.” She went to him, unable to keep her distance when he looked so fierce, so angry. For her. Stroking her hands down his arms, Isabel peered up at him. “I talked to a counselor for years. Miles made sure of that. And I know it’s not my fault. As to being easily cowed ... ” Now, she managed to smile. “You’re right. I wasn’t. But I was easily controlled—my sisters and my mom were always my weaknesses.”
Her twin sisters, Mary Kate and Ellen, alwayswouldbe her weakness, but Miles had kept them safe all these years. He’d continue to do so, too. Miles had already made arrangements with the agent who’d take over once he passed. He’d come to her not long after his oncologist had told him his prognosis.
After she’d gotten over the shock, he’d explained the plans he’d already laid out.
