She knew she was getting in deeper and deeper, but she couldn’t seem to help herself, and she would defy any other red-blooded woman to be any different. Travis King was a one-man hormonal treat. When he had his tremendous focus aimed on one particular woman, he was irresistible. He had sucked Julie into his world and she didn’t know how she’d ever get out again.
As she realized that, she felt as if someone had dropped a cold stone on her heart. God, she was an idiot. Staring up at the sky and her husband doing twirls and somersaults in the air currents, Julie felt her own stomach spin. This was the second time she’d married only to regret it almost immediately.
Jean Claude had been a creep, no doubt. But at least she hadn’t been completely out of her element in that relationship. With Travis, their worlds were so different, they were bound to collide soon. She was the daughter of his family’s cook for heaven’s sake. And Cinderella aside, these things rarely turned out well.
Plus, he’d had to placate a blackmailer because of her! No, she knew that sooner or later, there was a world of hurt waiting for her. Because despite knowing that she shouldn’t, that there was absolutely no logical reason for her to allow herself to fall in love…it was already happening.
“Señora King?”
“Huh? What?” She tore her gaze from Travis, who was getting lower and lower in the sky, to look up at a hotel employee wearing white slacks and a green-and-white tropical shirt. “I’m sorry. What?”
He smiled and Julie wondered if Travis’s cousin Rico hired only gorgeous employees.
“There is a phone call for you, señora,” he said and handed her a small satellite phone.
“Oh, thanks,” she said, though she couldn’t figure out who would be calling her here. “Hello?”
“Julie O’Hara King,” her mother said in a tone Julie hadn’t heard since she was sixteen and late for curfew. “Would you explain to me how a completely indecent photo of you and Travis ended up on the front page of the tabloid at my local grocery store?”
Oh, God.
“Thomas, I’ll straighten this out as soon as I—we—get home,” Travis was saying.
From Julie’s perch on one of the sleek sofas in their suite, she turned her head to follow Travis’s progress as he paced around the perimeter of the room. Ever since he’d landed and been told about the scandalous photo of them that had apparently been sold to an American tabloid, Travis had practically been foaming at the mouth.
She couldn’t really blame him, though. As it was, Julie wanted to find a hole and crawl into it. Her mother had seen that picture. And her friends at home. And their parents. And strangers the world over were, even now, standing in grocery lines across the globe, looking at her blacked-out boobs.
She groaned.
“My lawyers are handling the situation,” he insisted and Julie had the feeling that Thomas Henry, wine distributor, was less than impressed with Travis’s assurances.
By the time Travis had returned, Julie had fielded three more phone calls, though none of them had had quite the embarrassing punch of her mother’s. Still, talking to Travis’s brothers, not to mention his lawyer, about the photos had pretty much sapped whatever energy she’d had left.
How was she ever supposed to look people in the eye again? Maybe she wouldn’t have to, she thought frantically. Maybe they could move. To Zimbabwe or something. Yes. That would work. Run and hide until the embarrassment faded away. Shouldn’t take more than ten or twenty years.
They couldn’t hide though. They had to go back to Birkfield. Which was why Travis was on the phone now with Thomas Henry, trying to smooth ruffled feathers. Though what Henry had to be ruffled about, Julie wasn’t quite sure. It wasn’t him splashed across papers, sharing space with stories about headless aliens and fifty-pound newborns.
Oh, God.
“Fine. I’ll get in touch as soon as I’m home. We’ll work this out, Thomas.” Travis hung up and tossed the phone onto the nearest chair. “This is a mess.”
“You think?”
He shot her a quelling look.
She gave him one right back. “Hey, I’m in those pictures, too, you know.”
“Right, right.” He nodded, stuffed his hands into his slacks pockets and walked toward her. “I don’t like not having control. It’s not natural.”
“Welcome to the real world,” she muttered.
“I’d rather have my own. Where I make the rules.”
She knew that. It was in his nature to be in charge. To take care of things himself. To protect those he cared about. Not that she was putting herself in that very select crowd. This was just a special circumstance.
Time for a change of subject. “What did Mr. Henry have to say?”
Travis scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck. “I told you he was eccentric? Well, he’s also conservative. Yeah, and don’t ask me how he can be both. He just is.”
“Okay…” Eccentric and conservative.
“Seeing that picture made him rethink doing business with King wines, but I think he’s coming around. He admits that it’s our honeymoon and hardly our fault!” Travis said as Julie took a tight rein on her runaway imagination. Pay attention, she told herself.
“If we could just settle this marriage thing and get back home, I could tie up a business deal with Henry before he has a chance to back out.”
His features were tight and his eyes were narrowed as if he thought he could solve everything simply by concentrating hard enough. But for the moment, he was stalled. The future he planned was hanging just out of reach and there was nothing he could do to hurry things along.
That knowledge had to be driving him crazy, Julie thought. A man like Travis wasn’t used to waiting or having zero input on what happened to him.
“My lawyer’s tracking down the photographer,” Travis said tightly. “And he’s got a call in to the tabloids, for all the good it’ll do. Now that the picture’s out there, it’s going to be a lot harder to get rid of.”
Great. Julie stood, faced him, then quietly wrapped her arms around his middle, laying her head on his chest.
Travis just stood there. “What’s this for?”
She tipped her head back and gave him a tired smile. “I thought you could use a hug. And Lord knows, I sure could.”
He sighed, then folded his arms around her. “Good point.” As he smoothed his hands up and down her back, he said, “I’ll take care of this, Julie.”