2

He hovered. Scrutinising her cheeks and the fragility of her bone-structure, he expelled his breath in a sudden sound of derision. “If this is another result of one of those diets of yours, I'm going to lose my temper. When are you going to get it through your head that I like you as you are? Do you want to make yourself ill? I don't have any patience with this foolishness, Freya,”

“No,” she agreed, beyond seeing any humour in his misapprehension.

“See your doctor today,” he instructed. “And if you don't, I'll know about it. I'll mention it to Steven on my way out.”

At the reference to the security guard, supposedly there for her protection but more often than not, she suspected, there to police her every move, she curved her cheek into the pillow. She didn't like Steven. His deadpan detachment and extreme formality intimidated her.

“How are you getting on with him, by the way?”

“I understood that I wasn't supposed to get on with your security men. Isn't that why you transferred Michael?” she muttered, grateful for the change of subject, no matter how disturbing it might be.

“He was too busy flirting with you to be effective,” Travis said with icy emphasis.

“That's not true. He was only being friendly,” she protested.

“He wasn't hired to be friendly. If you'd treated him like an employee he'd still be here,” Travis underlined with honeyed dismissal. “And now I really have to go. I will call you,”

He made it sound as if he were doing her a very special favour. In fact, he called her every day no matter where he was in the world. And now he was gone.

When that phone he'd bought for her did ring tomorrow, it would ring and ring through empty rooms. For tortured minutes she just lay and stared at the space where he had been. Dark and dynamic, he was hell on wheels for a vulnerable woman. In their entire association she had never had an argument with Travis. By fair means or foul, Travis always got his own way. Her feeble attempts to assert herself had long since sunk without trace against the tide of an infinitely more forceful personality.

He was a very rich man. He had started out with almost nothing but formidable intelligence, and he would keep on climbing. Travis was always number one and never more so than in his own self-image. Power was the greatest aphrodisiac known to humanity. What Travis wanted he reached out and took, and to hell with the damage he caused as long as the backlash did not affect his comfort. And, having fought for everything he had ever got, what came easy had no intrinsic value for him.

Only a fool got in Travis’ path... And only a very foolish woman could have given her heart into his keeping.

Her eyes squeezed shut on a shuddering spasm of anguish. It was over now. She would never see Travis again. No miracle had astounded her at the eleventh hour. Marriage was not, nor would it ever be, a possibility.

Her small hand spread protectively over her stomach. Travis had begun to lose her one hundred per cent loyalty and devotion from the very hour she suspected that she was carrying his child.

Instinct had warned her that the news would be greeted as a calculated betrayal and, no doubt, he'd conclude that she had somehow let it happen on purpose. Again and again she had put off telling him. In fear of discovery, she had learnt to be afraid of Travis. When he finally got married to a bride with a social pedigree, a bride who had all the qualifications to be his wife, he wouldn't want any skeletons in the cupboard.

Ice-cold and sick with apprehensions that she had refused to face head on, she wiped clumsily at her swollen eyes and got up. He would never know now and that was how it had to be. Thank God, she had persuaded Michael to show her how to work the alarm system. She would leave by the rear entrance. That would take care of Steven.

Would Travis miss her? A choked sob of pain escaped her. He would be outraged that she could leave him and he had not foreseen the event. But he wouldn't have any trouble replacing her. She was not so special and she wasn't beautiful enough. She never had grasped what it was about her which had drawn Travis. Unless it was the cold intuition of a predator scenting good doormat material downwind, she conceded shamefacedly.

How could she be sorry to leave this half-life behind? She had very few friends. When discretion was demanded, having a lot of friends was impossible. Travis had slowly but surely isolated her so that her entire existence revolved round him. Sometimes she was so lonely that she talked out loud to herself. Love was a fearsome emotion, she thought with a convulsive shudder, but now, two years on, she didn't feel she was much brighter but she didn't build castles in the air any more.

“Thank you so much, Travis. Goodbye” She scrawled the message in lipstick across the mirror in the bathroom.

A theatrical gesture, she thought as she stared at the message she'd written. He could do without the ego boost of five tear-stained pages telling him pointlessly that nobody was ever likely to love him as much as she did.

Travis, she had learnt by destructive degrees, didn't rate love any too highly. But he had not been above using her love as a weapon against her, twisting her emotions with cruel expertise until they had become the bars of her prison cell.

She took nothing with her except a small suitcase containing the few clothes she'd brought with her, her passport and other important documents. Everything she had here, he'd gotten for her, and she didn't have any intention of taking them with her as she didn't want the reminder. She wanted to move on. She wanted to start over.

She didn't know where to go, but she'd figure it out. Taking one last look around the house she'd lived in for two years, she sighed and shut the door behind her.

Goodbye, Travis, she whispered under her breath and didn't try to stop the tears from falling as she turned away.