Travis sneered at him, raking the other man up and down with a scathing look that bounced off Jean Claude like bullets off of Superman. Clearly, Travis had come to the same conclusion Julie had. But when he turned that same sneer on her, she made a supreme effort to get past the disgust riddling her and find her own sense of fury.
“I had nothing to do with this,” she told him, meeting his icy gaze. “Travis, you can’t believe I would help him! You know what he did to me. How I felt—”
“Ah, chérie,” Jean Claude murmured. “There is no reason for you to explain yourself to him. And what was between us has nothing to do with this man. You are after all, my wife.”
“Oh, good God.” Julie shot her gaze at the blond man who had once captured her heart, and wondered what she had ever seen in him. Now she looked at him and saw him for what he was. An oily, sneaky, evil little troll.
A troll who looked totally pleased with himself.
“All right,” Travis announced, his voice commanding attention in the otherwise still room. “Cut to the chase here, Pierre—”
“Jean Claude,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” Travis snapped. “What the hell do you want, exactly?”
Jean Claude smiled. “My demands are small,” he said with a slight shrug. “I only wish my due as an abandoned husband….”
“Abandoned?” Julie’s temper finally overcame her humiliation. She charged Jean Claude and would have slapped him silly if Travis hadn’t reached her side in time to stop her. Still, even with his hand on her arm, holding her in place, she hissed at the other man. “You no good, lying snake in the grass. I didn’t abandon you. You left me. Remember? You said you would get a divorce in Mexico. And then you wrote me a month later and told me it was done. That you were ‘free of me.’ Don’t you stand there and—”
“Chérie,” Jean Claude cooed, his pale eyes twinkling as if he were enjoying himself tremendously. “Clearly, you are overwrought.”
“Over—” She hauled her right arm back and Travis gripped both of her arms before dragging her away from the other man.
“Did you ever get a copy of the divorce decree?” Travis whispered the question into her ear.
Julie shook her head, disgusted with herself as much as with Jean Claude. She’d been a complete idiot. Not only in marrying the worm, but also in trusting him to end the marriage, too. Her only excuse was that she’d been so hurt. So totally crushed, she hadn’t really been thinking at all.
“No. He told me he would make me a copy but he never did.” She shot daggers at the man standing there smirking at her.
“And you trusted him.”
“Yes. Damn it.”
Travis’s grip on her arms loosened and when he set her aside, she could see there was still fire in his eyes. His mouth was set and a tic in his jaw let her know exactly how hard he was working to keep his temper under control. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said, then turned to face the other man again. “How much?”
“That’s very crass.”
“It’s expedient,” Travis argued. “Let’s hear it. How much for you to keep quiet?”
Jean Claude nodded once. “Very well, be it as you wish. I believe—” he said calmly as he shot his cuffs “—that one hundred thousand dollars will convince me to not seek out the press.”
“One hun—” Julie gaped at him, then turned to face Travis. “You can’t seriously be thinking about paying him off. You can’t do it, Travis. It’s blackmail.”
“I prefer to think of it as paying for privacy,” Jean Claude mused.
“You stay out of this.” Julie stabbed her index finger toward him.
“Julie,” Travis said. “Let me handle this.”
“No. You can’t.” She grabbed his forearm and felt the corded muscles in his arm bunch beneath her hand. “Travis, he won’t stop. This will just be the beginning.”
Travis lifted her hand off his arm and Julie could only watch as he walked slowly across the room to his desk. Opening a drawer, he pulled out an oversized checkbook and glanced at the other man. “One hundred thousand. And if you go to the press anyway, I will bury you.”
Jean Claude gave him a brilliant smile. “But what reason would I have to slay the golden goose, mon ami? No, your—pardon, our—secret will stay with me, I assure you.”
Not looking at him again, Travis grabbed a pen, scrawled across the check, then ripped it free. He stalked across the room, folded the check in half and tucked it into the other man’s breast pocket. Jean Claude lifted one hand to his suit pocket to pat the check, as if assuring himself it was there.
“Make no mistake, Pierre,” Travis said, pushing his face into Jean Claude’s until the other man pulled his head back and, at long last, looked worried. “Open your mouth and you’ll regret it.”
“But of course,” the other man said and bowed elegantly. He stepped back, then crossed the room to the closed door. He opened it, then stopped and turned to look at Julie. “I’d forgotten, you know.”
“Forgotten what?”
“Just what a lovely bride you make.”
“Get out,” she said, fighting the darkness that was rising up inside her like a toxic spill. The coldness swamped her, cutting off her air, spreading chills along her body until she was nearly quivering. “And don’t come back.”
He smiled again, then left, quietly closing the door behind him.
Seconds ticked past before Julie could force herself to look at Travis. She’d known him her whole life and yet, she had no idea what she would see on his face. When she finally faced him, though, his expression was blank. His familiar features no more than a hard mask, hiding whatever it was he was feeling from her.
And the cold rushing through her turned icy.
“Let’s get back to the reception,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
“Damn right I am,” Travis told her, coming across the room to stand in front of her. “And you’re going to smile and laugh and dance like you haven’t got a care in the world. Understand?”
“I don’t think I can. I’m so furious—”
“You’re furious?” He laughed shortly but there was no humor in it. Just as there was no shine of amusement in his eyes or in the hard flat line of his mouth. “I just found out my new wife already has a husband. A blackmailer no less. And you’re furious? Trust me when I say I’ve got you beat.”