“How did you know?” Ally asked curiously. Travis wanted to be there for Kade, but Ally wanted to be there for Travis. He looked devastated.
“I wish I would have known in time,” Travis growled. “It started with my parents…” His voice dropped off, and he hesitated.
Ally came up beside him and put a comforting hand on his arm. “What about your parents?”
Travis eyes grew dark and cold as he said in an icy tone, “I killed them.” He shrugged her hand off his arm, picked up his suit jacket and left the bedroom without another word.
Ally stood there for a moment, her entire body trembling. She heard the door downstairs slam as Travis left, and she stood there for a moment in shock as she heard his Ferrari fire up.
Running out of the bedroom and down the stairs, she reached the door and flung it open just in time to see his taillights drive away from her house.
She closed the door and locked it, moving mechanically back up the stairs and crawling between the sheets that still smelled like sex…and Travis.
Her mind whirled over what had just happened, and the pain she’d seen on Travis’s face. As pieces of the puzzle fell into place, she buried her face in Travis’s pillow and wept.
Ally didn’t get much sleep that night, wanting desperately to go to Travis, but knowing he needed time and that the hospital wasn’t the place for a confrontation. When she finally got word of Asha the next day, it was from Asha herself. She called Ally, complaining about Kade’s behavior, and about the fact that he wanted to move their bedroom downstairs so she didn’t have to climb the stairs again. Every time she walked up or down the stairs, Kade was right behind her or in front of her, ready to stop her from falling.
Ally smiled as Asha went on and on, obviously disgruntled. Other than a few body aches, Asha was fine. But Kade was on her ass every minute of the day.
“Kade loves you, and I think you scared him pretty badly. You’re pregnant, Asha. Give him time,” she told Asha patiently.
“I know.” Asha sighed over the phone line. “He’ll lighten up eventually when he sees me go up and down the stairs safely enough times.”
Ally laughed, knowing Asha adored Kade, and her complaining was more out of concern for Kade than her own inconvenience.
After she hung up with Asha, Ally finished reading one of her books on adult children of alcoholics, incredulous about how she had every one of the negative behaviors that seemed to develop in children growing up with alcoholic parents. She’d been reading everything she could to try to learn more about her behavior and how to break free from her negative self-image.
“And then I went out and picked the worst man I could possibly have chosen for a partner,” she mumbled to herself unhappily.
Strangely, she felt like she’d already started breaking some of her bad habits, refusing to believe the negative voices in her head as truth, and she’d work on the rest. Or maybe it wasn’t so odd, since she realized that Travis had started the process, had helped her to start deviating from her normal negative thoughts about herself.
Ally wished Travis had called himself, but maybe he was home getting some much-needed sleep, although she doubted it. Most likely he was hiding, running away. It was her last day of vacation. She’d see him at work tomorrow.
With that satisfying thought, she went to her computer to write.
Chapter 13
Travis had obviously arrived on the upper floor, the usual quiet falling over the employees as he made his way to his office.
Ally did her usual countdown:
“Five…
“Four…
“Three…
“Two…
“One…”
Travis strode through the doors exactly on time, but he didn’t say a word. He shot a sideways glance at her, scowled and proceeded into his office without saying one damn thing to her.
Somehow, Ally had already expected that reaction. She got to her feet, smoothing down her cream-colored cashmere sweater dress, loving the feel of the material under her fingers. It was perfectly professional, with a decorative belt that clipped at the waist and hung comfortably at her hips. But it was a little bit shorter than her normal style, the hem hitting above the knees, and the material clung to every curve. The matching stilettos were plain but elegant, and she loved the whole outfit. She just tried not to cringe when she imagined what the ensemble had probably cost.
She shook her head as she went to the kitchen and poured a mug of coffee. Travis was never going to let her take back any of the clothes he’d bought, so she might as well wear them.
Not bothering to knock, Ally opened the door of Travis’s office, locked it quietly behind her, and placed the mug on his desk. “Your coffee, Mr. Harrison.”
His eyes never left the computer screen. “Fine,” he grumbled.
She was right. Travis was hiding, and doing a lousy job of it. Their awareness of each other was electric in the air. Time for more drastic measures.
“You left something at my house,” she told him in a low, sultry voice.
He looked up then, his eyes turning dark as he saw his black tie dangling from her fingers. Leaning forward, he reached for it with a frown, but Ally held it away. Moving around the desk, she positioned herself behind his chair.
“I don’t think so, Travis.” She yanked his shoulders against the back of the chair and slipped the tie around him, pinning him and making a tight knot that restricted his body at the elbows.
He could have easily fought her, but he just sat there dumbfounded as she moved around in front of him and purred, “I think since I gave you your appetizer, you can repay me by giving me breakfast.” She leaned down before he could say a word, speared her fingers through his hair and kissed him, an embrace that meant business. He responded immediately, his tongue dueling with hers as she kissed him deeply, languorously, removing her hands from his hair and started to unbutton his pristine shirt, jerking it out of his waistband and opening every button she could get to as she nipped at his lips and soothed them with her tongue. When she loosened the buttons on all but the top few that were restricted by his tie, she took her mouth from his and straightened. Placing one stiletto-clad foot on the leather chair right between his legs, she gave his chair a hard shove, and it rolled back just enough to allow her to sink to her knees.
One thing that had always bothered her was the fact that Travis never let her touch him this way, too worried about losing control before he satisfied her. Didn’t he know that she needed to touch him just as much as he wanted to touch her?