“I don’t like coincidences,” she muttered, looking at her feet, “but I know they happen all the time. That’s why we have a name for them.”
“I’m not very fond of coincidences myself.”
Her head snapped up. Travis’s mouth looked hard beneath the tawny mustache. His sea-colored eyes were suddenly distant, measuring her as though he had never seen her before.
“Did Harrington tell you that I wouldn’t guarantee you the job until I saw your work?” Travis asked bluntly.
Cat’s eyes narrowed. “You think I knew who you were all along, don’t you?”
He shrugged.
“Well, Mr. T. H. Danvers, you can relax. I’m not one of the females standing in line waiting for a paid vacation with you. If you don’t believe me, ask Harrington. He’ll tell you the simple truth. I never mix men and business.”
“He already told me. It was the only reason I agreed to try out a woman photographer. No chance of involvement other than professional.”
“Exactly.”
Travis smiled slowly. “Yeah. Right. Then I saw this woman balanced like a cat on the rocks above the waves. She was taking pictures as though there was no tomorrow—and no tide. How was I to know that the beautiful redheaded idiot I rescued would be Harrington’s Cochran?” His voice lightly stressed the possessive: Harrington’s.
“Three out of five wrong,” Cat said in a clipped voice.
“What?”
“I have red hair and my name is Cochran.” She held up two fingers. “But I’m not beautiful, I’m not an idiot, and I most certainly am not Harrington’s.”
“He’s very fond of you.” Travis’s tone was cool and subtly probing.
“And I’m fond of him. I owe him more than I can repay.”
“What’s wrong with the usual method?”
“Sex?” Cat asked.
“Like I said. The usual method.”
Her mouth thinned to a line of distaste. “A simple business transaction, so many minutes at so much per groan? No thanks, Travie-boy. Not now. Not ever.”
Travis simply looked at her, unconvinced.
Cat bent over, picked up her camera bags, and shrugged the straps into place on her shoulders.
He waited, watching her.
“I’ll call Harrington tomorrow,” she said, “and tell him to find you another photographer.”
Surprise flickered over Travis’s hard face. “No. Not yet.”
“Not yet? What are you waiting for? A definite ‘go to hell’ from me? Fine, I’ll make it definite. Go—”
With a swift motion Travis put his mouth over Cat’s, smothering her words.
His quickness gave her no chance to object. Nor did she really want to. The feel of him on her lips, his breath sweet around her, his warmth stealing into her bones . . . she enjoyed it all with an intensity that should have frightened her.
Instead, it tempted her unbearably. Each time Travis touched her, he made her understand all over again how much she had been missing without him. Whether or not he realized it, he had taken her habit of honesty and used it as a weapon to get through her defenses. Cat couldn’t tell herself that she was responding to Travis only because of long abstinence or temporary hunger, that she would react the same to any man. She responded because he was Travis, unique; and she was Cat, vulnerable to his uniqueness.
And she was very much afraid he knew it.
“Stop,” she whispered.
“Such a prickly little cat,” Travis whispered against her lips. “Are you angry because I won’t guarantee you the job?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Very carefully, Cat eased out of Travis’s arms. He let her go, but so slowly that the act of releasing her became another kind of caress.
“I’m angry because I don’t mix men and business,” she said. “And suddenly I find out I’ve done just that.”
The corner of his mouth turned up in a sardonic smile. “And I have a rule against mixing women and anything but business.”
The look on Cat’s face almost made Travis laugh out loud. “What an expression. You can’t be that innocent.”
“I’m not innocent at all.”
“Good. Then you know that men want sex and women want money. There’s no reason both can’t have what they want. A simple business transaction.”
“You’re talking about boys and females, not men and women.”
“You’re dreaming, Cat. Wake up. This is the real world.”
Travis bent his head again and traced the sensitive outline of her lips with the tip of his tongue. Her breath broke in surprise as a rush of pure heat flushed her skin.
“But the real world has real compensations, doesn’t it?” he asked softly.
Cat couldn’t conceal her response, but she could refuse to give in to it. And she did.
She jerked her head away. “I’m not a prostitute.”
“Who said anything about prostitutes?”
“You did.”
Travis sighed and straightened. For a time he simply looked at Cat with brooding eyes. When he spoke, his voice was gentle and oddly sad.
“I’m not naive or selfish,” he said. “I don’t expect a woman to be my lover and get nothing in return.”
“She’s getting the same thing you’re getting.”
He shrugged. “That’s not enough for a woman. More important, if it’s a business transaction, both parties know exactly what to expect. No accusations and no nasty surprises.”
Cat’s mouth thinned as though she had just tasted something bitter, but she didn’t say a word.
“Despite what your expression says,” Travis continued mildly, “it’s not prostitution. The women I’ve enjoyed weren’t prostitutes. Mistresses for a time, yes, but never whores.”
Cat looked at him for a long, silent moment. “Your wife really burned you to the bone, didn’t she?”
His eyes narrowed until almost no color showed through his eyelashes. “She completed my education.”
“And just what did you learn, that women are whores?”
“No. I learned that I’ll never be able to trust, much less marry, a woman who has less money than I do. And I’m very rich, Cat. Very, very rich. If I find a woman who appeals to me, I put it on a business basis. Frankly, it doesn’t happen very often. I’m too old to be ruled by my dick.”
Cat barely heard above the echoing of her own past words in her head. Win some. Lose some. Some never had a chance. If you’re rich, Travis, we fall into the third category.
She was appalled at the sadness she felt, and the pain, a razor of regret turning inside her. It told her how terribly easy it would be for her to fall in love with Travis Danvers.
And how terribly stupid.
She closed her eyes, unable to look at the face of the man she could have loved. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve done nothing to be sorry for,” Travis said, surprised by the sadness that thickened her voice.
She laughed a little wildly because it was better than crying.
“Cat? What’s wrong?”
“You’re rich.”
Travis said nothing. He didn’t understand why rich was a curse on her lips. He tried to gather Cat against his body and comfort her, but she stepped out of his reach. With a tired sigh she readjusted the weight of her camera gear and faced him.
“Do you want to call Harrington or should I?” she asked.
“Why should either of us call Harrington?”
“To tell him to get another photographer.”
Surprise and something like anger swept through Travis. He kept on misjudging Cat, yet in the next instant he was certain he knew her as well as he knew himself.
Wrong again.
“You’re quitting just like that?” he asked in a clipped voice. “Just because I won’t guarantee you the job until I’ve seen some photos of my ship taken by you?”
“Of course not. You have every right to decide whether my images fit your needs
.”
“Then why are you quitting?”
Cat’s false calm went up in a flash of anger. “It’s simple, rich man. You have no right to turn my world inside out, breaking my rules, making me feel—” She stopped abruptly. “I don’t mix men and business, period.”
“I’m not ‘men,’ I’m just Travis,” he drawled in a reasonable voice that made her want to scream. “And I’ll try to make working with me more pleasure than business.”
She gave him an icy gray look.
“Cat, I’m not Blake Ashcroft. I won’t make life hell for you if you don’t sleep with me. Besides,” Travis added neutrally, “can you afford to turn down work?”
Her lips thinned. She needed money and he knew it. She had told him herself.
Fool.
“If I agree to do the book,” Cat said in a clipped voice, “it’s the publisher rather than you who pays me. A simple business transaction, Mr. T. H. Danvers, something you should be able to appreciate. Nothing personal at all. Certainly nothing intimate.”
“And no possibility of . . . intimacy?”
“We both have our rules. You don’t have a woman unless you buy her, and I’m not for sale. What could be clearer than that?”
“The fact that you want me as much as I want you,” Travis said ruthlessly.
Cat looked up and saw herself focused in his brilliant blue-green eyes. She saw him look at her hair, her lips, the shape of her breasts against her cotton pullover, the curve of her legs below her cutoff jeans.
His desire was almost tangible. Her response was all too tangible. Her nipples tightened against the cloth as though it was wet.
“No,” she said. “It wouldn’t work.”
Yet her husky, yearning voice denied the words even as she spoke them.
“Bullshit,” Travis said politely.
His hands snaked out, lifting the camera equipment off her shoulders.
“Travis, I’m not—”
“We’ll argue about it over dinner,” he interrupted. “My treat this time. Think of it as a business meeting.”
He started walking toward Cat’s house, carrying the heavy camera bags with an ease she envied. Then she realized that nothing had been settled. She ran until she was ahead of him, stopped, and turned to confront him.
“That’s exactly what it will be,” she said. “Business.”
“Business, huh?”
Travis’s slow smile sent heat shimmering through her body. She swallowed. “Yes.”
“Whatever you say, sweet Cat. Business it is.”
Too late Cat remembered what kind of business Travis conducted with his women.
SEVEN
THE RESTAURANT was Italian, but not a spaghetti parlor. It had exquisite leaded-glass windows whose frames were painted a glossy forest green. The heavy carpet was woven in patterns of deep red, cream, and a dark green that matched the window frames. There were red linen tablecloths, fresh flowers, gleaming china, spotless silver, crystal glasses dividing light into rich primary colors. And over all was the hushed ambience of wealth.
Cat didn’t have to look at the menu to know the place was expensive. Really expensive.
“No,” she said, turning on Travis.
“You don’t like Italian?”
“I don’t like the cost.”
He blinked, surprised. “Sorry, but it’s too late to change now. I can hear your stomach growling. When did you eat lunch?”
“I didn’t.”
“Cat, be sensible. You have to eat.”
She took in a deep breath.
It was a mistake. The scent of food made her dizzy. Breakfast had been a long time ago. Too long.
Get more sleep, Cathy. Eat regularly and eat well. I’ll see you in a week.
Cat sighed as she remembered Dr. Stone’s words. There wasn’t much she could do about the sleep, but eating well was all around her.
“I let you cook last night when I didn’t want to,” Travis pointed out neutrally.
“Look at me. I’m wearing slacks, a blouse, and sandals. They won’t even seat me in a place like this.”
“Want to bet?”
The hostess approached with a professional smile. Though she was wearing a floor-length black dress, high heels, and pearls, she obviously had no problem with seating more casually dressed patrons.
“Two?” she asked.
Travis looked at Cat.
It was the incredible aromas that undermined her will. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten a good meal prepared by someone else.
“All right,” she said, sighing. “Just this once. Right now I’m too tired and too hungry to argue about how much the meal costs.”
Travis smiled slightly. He had seen Cat breathe in the food-scented air, rich with garlic and oregano, roasted chicken and lamb. His own mouth was watering and he had eaten a big, late lunch.
Taking her arm, he followed the hostess to the private booth he had requested. Instead of sitting across the table from Cat, he slid in beside her.
“So tell me,” Cat said as she settled into the lushly upholstered booth. “What does a ship designer do?”
“Design ships.”
She gave him a sideways look.
Travis opened a menu. “If you like scallops, I’m told there aren’t any better in Southern California.”
“I love scallops.”
“Good. Anything you can’t or don’t eat?”
“Vegemite.”
“What?”
“Australia’s answer to peanut butter. Nasty stuff.”
Travis grimaced. “Now I remember. One of my crew comes from Australia. Said he left just to get away from Vegemite.”
“How many men do you have on your ship?”
“Enough to get the job done.”
Cat looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “You’re not helping me.”
“What do you mean?” he asked without looking up from the menu.
“How can I plan my shots if you won’t tell me what you need?”
“Right now I need food. You can shoot me later.”
“Don’t tempt me. This is a business meal, remember?”
“I don’t conduct business on an empty stomach. You shouldn’t either. Leads to bad decisions.”
After the server took their orders, Cat tried to bring the conversation back to business. Travis promptly took it away again.
“You’re determined to turn this into a date, aren’t you?” she asked tightly.
“I’m determined not to talk about anything that matters until you’ve eaten.”
The silence that followed was uneasy at first, but Cat was too tired to sustain anything, even frustration. When the meal came she gave the food the attention it deserved.
By the time Cat ate her fill, she knew that Travis was right; she had been too hungry to be particularly reasonable about anything, especially food. She took a final bite of buttery scallop, sighed, and sipped her wine.
The Chardonnay tasted like sunlight. Eyes closed, she savored the intense, complex flavor. It had been years since she had tasted a wine that suited her so exactly. Long ago she had discovered that wines praised by other people often were bitter, sour, or acid to her. At first she thought it was her untrained palate. Later she realized that her body chemistry was simply different.
“Still mad?” Travis asked quietly.
Cat glanced at him. His eyes were very dark, reflecting only the graceful dance of candlelight. With a faint smile she shook her head.
He smiled in return and watched candlelight run like melted rubies through her auburn hair.
“Good,” he said. “I didn’t choose this restaurant because I thought it was a way to buy you. I didn’t even think about it. If I had . . .” He shrugged. “I’d have taken you somewhere else. The last thing I wanted tonight was a fight with you.”
Cat remembered the intense pleasure and hunger in their shared kiss and wondered if Travis was remembering it too. She suspected he was.
“I know,” she said. “And you were right, the food here is wonderful.” She smothered a yawn and looked longingly at the scallops she was too full to eat. “I just wish I could finish it all.”
“That good?” he asked, smiling lazily.
“Don’t take my word for it. Try one.”
With a skill left over from years of feeding the younger twins, she slid her fork under a plump scallop and popped it into Travis’s mouth.
Too late Cat realized the unthinking intimacy of her gesture. Frowning, she looked back at her plate and wished that Travis didn’t seem so very familiar to her. She had to keep reminding herself that she had known him only one day, and that everything she had learned about him was a clear warning not to become involved.
Rich men just didn’t know how to love.
If she knew that and was fooled by him anyway, then she was indeed a fool. As her father had always told her: Fool me once, damn you; fool me twice, damn me.
Travis’s tongue licked up a stray bit of sauce from his lower lip. “Mmm. Incredible. Again.”
He opened his mouth slightly, waiting. She hesitated, then deftly fed him another scallop.
“You’re very good at that,” he said. “Do you have children?”
Cat’s fork made a ringing sound against the china plate. Instead of answering the question, she took a sip of wine.
“Cat?”
“No.” Her voice was low, almost savage. “No children.” She looked up at him with pale eyes. “More scallops?”
Travis hesitated, curious and cautious at once. He knew his question had hurt her, but he didn’t know why.
“Yes, please,” he said finally.
He waited for Cat to feed him another scallop; the intimacy of the gesture was like a caress. And like a caress, it aroused him. Yet instead of offering to feed him from her fork, she switched plates with him. A single look at her eyes told him that he would have to feed himself.
Cat watched in silence while Travis finished her dinner. If she had hoped to cool the sensual heat by not feeding him, it wasn’t working. Seeing him eat from her plate, sip from her glass because his own wine was too assertive to drink with scallops, use her fork, lick the silver tines clean . . . all of it gave her a feeling of intimacy with him that was as hot as the flame dancing at the tip of the scented candle.
To the Ends of the Earth / The Danvers Touch Page 9