The Millionaire's Marriage Demand(5)

By ten o'clock Julie had the beginnings of a headache, which she used as  the excuse to beg off after-dinner drinks on the stone patio that led  from the dining room. As Brent accompanied her to the dining-room  doorway, she managed to turn her head so that his good-night kiss hit  her cheek rather than her mouth. His fingers digging into her arm with  punitive strength, he said in a voice laden with innuendo, "Sleep well,  darling."

"Thank you …  good night, everyone."

She almost ran up the stairs to her room. Once inside, after a moment's  thought, she locked the door, using the heavy brass key. Brent hadn't  liked her entering the dining room arm in arm with Travis. Brent might  possibly be planning a middle-of-the-night revenge. Well, she'd foiled  that, she thought smugly, and stripped off her clothes.

Accepting Brent's invitation for the weekend hadn't been the smartest  move of her life. But she'd had two fun-filled dates with him, the first  a seafood dinner followed by a movie, the other sailing with two other  couples in the bay; so it had seemed safe enough to come to Manatuck. It  might well have been safe if only Travis hadn't shown up.

Travis wasn't safe.

She pulled on her nightgown and prowled around the room, picking up some  of the heavy marble statuettes and putting them down again. Why was a  bedroom in a fake medieval castle decorated with naked Greek goddesses,  an Elizabethan four-poster and imitation Louis XIV chairs? Travis was  right. Too much hard cash and too little restraint.

She was thinking about Travis again. As the soft fabric of her gown  brushed her nipples, she shivered, wondering what it would be like were  he to touch her breasts. His fingers were long and lean, and his  strength and lightning-swift reactions she'd already experienced. When  had she ever felt such helpless and overwhelming hunger for a man's  touch?

Never. She'd been too busy keeping each and every man she met at a distance. So why didn't that work with Travis?

With an impatient sigh, Julie put a simpering marble nymph back on the  mantel of the Victorian tile fireplace. She'd eaten too much, that was  her problem; and her brain was as restless as a squirrel in a cage. She  carefully opened the glass doors to the balcony, which was screened with  lush Virginia creeper and scented with the climbing roses espaliered  below her window. What had Corinne called them? Evangeline?

The soft swish of waves on the shore soothed her ears; a delicate  crescent moon was couched on an array of sparkling stars. And then she  heard something else: the scrape of chairs on flagstone, and voices. All  too familiar voices coming from the patio two stories down. Her body  tensed.

"I fail to understand why you didn't warn us you were coming," Charles said furiously.

"Because I knew you'd tell me to stay away," Travis said.

"You'd have been right. Don't you realize that tomorrow night all my  friends will be here? That we'll have to make up some kind of story to  account for your presence?"

"Tell them the truth, Dad. That I've come home to make peace with you."

"You must see that your father couldn't possibly do that," Corinne  interposed. "You abandoned us all eighteen years ago, Travis. You can't  expect to walk in as though nothing's happened."

"Abandonment can go two ways, Corinne."

"Nonsense! You always had a home here."

"The minute my mother died, I was parceled off to boarding school. I  wasn't even allowed back on the island the first two summers."

"That was before my time," Corinne said fastidiously.

"Boarding school was the best place for you," Charles snapped. "You  never liked the Boston house. And out here you were running wild.  Spending day after day on the cliffs watching seagulls when you should  have been playing football."                       
       
           



       

"Stick to the facts. You didn't want me around."

"Boarding school made a man out of you."

"Was that what it did? So why did you kick me out of the house when I turned sixteen?"

"You know the answer to that-you'd smeared my name in all the papers,  made a laughingstock out of me. And then to cap it all you stole the  family ring." Charles's voice roughened. "Where is that ring, Travis?  Did you sell it?"

"I never took it."

"It disappeared the same night you did …  I've never forgiven you for stealing it like a common thief."

"If you knew me at all, Dad, you'd know that I might stab you in the chest, but never in the back. It's not the way I operate."

Brent said smoothly, "So your opportune arrival this evening doesn't  have anything to do with the lawyers who are going to rewrite Dad's will  in the next couple of weeks?"

There was a small, deadly silence. Julie held herself painfully still,  knowing she shouldn't be listening, afraid that if she retreated to her  room, they'd hear her. "No," Travis rapped. "This is the first I've  heard of it. I don't need Dad's money, I've got my own."

"What you earn as a doctor?" Brent mocked. "Come off it, brother dear-we're talking big bucks here."

"Are you forgetting I inherited my share of Grandad's money when I  turned thirty? You'll do the same, Brent. Or can't you wait that long?"

Corinne said sharply, "Stop it, you two! This has gone on long enough.  You've come back, Travis, but in view of all you've done, reconciliation  is impossible. You must leave in the morning. I'll order the launch  first thing after breakfast."

"No, Corinne," Travis said, so quietly Julie had to strain to hear him.

"Of course you must leave!" Charles blustered.

"I'll make that unanimous," Brent said lazily.

Travis said evenly, "I left when I was just a kid. Barely sixteen. I'm  thirty-four now, and I've changed. I don't want your money, Dad, I never  did. But I do want my family back. You back. It's that simple."

"You ran away," Charles fumed. "For six weeks we didn't even know if you were alive or dead. And you took the ring with you."

"I'm sorry I didn't get in touch. But I was young, and just as  headstrong as my father. As for the ring, all I can say is that I never  touched it. For heaven's sake, Dad, I knew what that ring meant to you."

"You trashed me in the press."

"You were hiring illegal immigrants in your factories and paying them a  pittance," Travis said, exasperated. "I spoke to you about it, begged  you to increase their wages and approach immigration so they could get  their papers. But you refused. So yes, I went to the press. I didn't  know what else to do."

"You'd do it again, wouldn't you?"

"I'd find some other way of dealing with it now."

"You haven't really changed," Charles said in a hard voice.

"The past is the past. Can't we let it go?"

"Corinne's right …  you must leave in the morning."

"Unless you're prepared to set Bertram and Oliver on me, I'm staying," Travis said with a lightness that didn't quite ring true.

A chair was pushed back. Corinne said briskly, "Why don't we all sleep  on it? I'm sure in the morning you'll have reconsidered, Travis, and see  our point of view. Are you coming, Charles? Bertram will clean up. Good  night, Brent."

"Good night, Dad," Travis said.

"Humph," said Charles. The patio door closed with a decisive click.

"In disgrace again, Travis," Brent said lightly. "Just like old times."

"What did you do with the ring, Brent?"

Brent hesitated just too long. "Nothing!"

"Somebody took the ring, and it wasn't me. That leaves you. Did you hide  it somewhere? Come on, you were only ten. No one's going to hold it  against you after all these years."                       
       
           



       

"It won't wash, Travis. Why don't you just confess? Who knows, Dad might even forgive you."

"He loved that ring. Tell me where it is."

"Lay off," Brent said in a furious whisper. "And lay off Julie as well. She's my date, not yours."

"I don't know Julie very well, but I do know one thing- she's got a mind  of her own. Why don't we let her decide whose date she is?"

"Stay out of my way-I'm telling you!"

"I don't take orders kindly. Especially from you …  good night, Brent."

Again Julie heard the soft swish of the patio door. Then, making her  jump, a glass suddenly shattered, as though Brent had hurled it against  the stone wall. A chair clattered to the floor. Once again, the door  clicked shut.

She took a long, shaky breath. How was she ever going to behave tomorrow  as though ignorant of all she'd overheard? No wonder eavesdropping  wasn't recommended.