“I can’t believe you just did that.”
She lifted her head to see Suzanna emerge through the doorway, her eyes flashing. Rachel wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and took a breath. “It had to be done.”
Suzanna stepped closer and stood over her, her hands on her hips. “He loves you.”
“He loves the conquest.”
“You’re an idiot. If you can’t see that that man loves you, you don’t deserve him.”
Rachel didn’t respond.
“You’re a fool. You just tore that man’s heart out for no reason at all.” Suzanna turned and moved back to doorway, not attempting to hide her huff of disgust. “You’re destined to spend the rest of your life alone, and after that display, I honestly think you deserve it.”
Rachel couldn’t disagree.
Travis held the picture of Jess in his hand, anger and bitterness churning around in his stomach. He’d wanted the men who took his wife to pay, to pay more than just their prison sentence. He’d wanted their lives destroyed, the way they had destroyed his. But he hadn’t gotten that satisfaction and instead had turned to saving the world. Helping those whose lives had also been destroyed. Like Rachel.
That’s what had drawn him to her at first. Her beauty had captivated him, but it was the pain of her past that really got his blood going. He’d wanted to help her forget her degrading childhood, help her say goodbye to the sister she’d never wanted to let go. And hell, he’d succeeded. He’d gotten her the answers she’d needed, handed her a plate of closure on a silver platter.
What he’d never expected was that Rachel’s closure might spark his own.
He’d almost let it go. Thanks to Rachel, he was on the brink of letting it all go, moving past Jess’ death, releasing the torrid anger he felt for the men who took her. For a fleeting moment, he saw his future in the stunning blonde who had found a way into his heart. It wasn’t until they’d walked out of Virginia Forrester’s home with the answers they’d searched for that he’d realized something had changed inside him. Realized he was ready to put the past behind him and start a new life.
Apparently, Rachel wanted a new life too, just not with him.
He wondered how he could have been so wrong about her. He thought she’d cared for him as much as he cared for her. During that last night they’d spent together a week ago, he could have sworn he saw shades of love and affection in her eyes, and the sight had lifted his heart and made him want to sing to the world.
Now he just wanted to hit something.
“Put the past behind me,” she’d said. He’d thought they could have done that together. Hell, he would have moved to New York with her, if that’s what she’d wanted. He had plenty of money to take Rachel anywhere in the world she wanted to go. Plenty of money to buy her the fancy house she’d never had growing up and any luxuries she’d yearned for as a child. The two of them could have made a fresh start together, but evidently, he was just another painful reminder of the past she needed to extinguish.
He guessed he couldn’t blame her. He had been her sister’s boyfriend, and a part of the high school years that had been her darkest time. He wished he hadn’t been a part of any of it, and at the moment, he wished he’d never met the Foster girls. Both of them, in their own way, had given him nothing but pain and heartache, and that was the one fact he would need to grasp onto in order to move on.
If he could move on.
“Let’s go to lunch.”
Travis looked up to see Matt standing in the doorway.
“I’m not hungry. You go ahead without me,” he said, tucking the photo back in the drawer.
“That’s what you said yesterday, and the day before. Come on, man, let’s get out of here. It’s time for you to join the world. Or are you planning on spending the rest of your life sulking behind that desk?”
Travis opened his mouth to answer when Sarah, the woman who worked the front desk, interrupted the two men.
Lingering in the doorway, she turned to him and said, “Travis, there’s a woman here to see you. Her name is Suzanna. She says she’s a friend of Rachel Foster.”
Confusion drained the knot in his stomach. “Send her in,” he said, flashing Matt a glance that told him to leave them alone.
The two disappeared, leaving Travis momentarily alone. He wondered what Rachel’s assistant would want with him, and as he waited, a dozen scenarios ran through his mind.
“You probably don’t remember me,” Suzanna said, poking her head in the door.
Travis rose and extended a hand. “Of course I do.” He waved a hand to the two oak chairs that sat empty in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”
He resumed his seat as Suzanna made herself comfortable.