Julie sat beside him, but they might as well have been in two separate cars. He felt her nerves like a living thing in the limo and he was feeling just cold enough himself to do nothing to dissuade them. She should be nervous, damn it. Hadn’t been his fault they’d had to trek to Mexico to clear up her past before someone in the media found out.
He closed his eyes as that thought settled in tight. He could just imagine the field day the press would have blasting this little piece of news across the front pages of their rags. The King family name would be trashed and any hopes he had of moving his winery into the upper echelon of the business would have to be put on hold for years.
He simply wouldn’t allow it.
He’d worked too hard, come too far for his plans to be disrupted by an oily Frenchman with a penchant for greed.
Slanting a look at the woman beside him, Travis watched her face as she stared out the window at the passing landscape. The streets of Cancún were nothing more than a colorful blur, shaded by the tinted windows as the limo sped through traffic.
But he didn’t need to look at the scenery. He’d been here so many times, there was nothing new or interesting to catch his attention. Yet, Julie sat there like a kid at the circus, her gaze flitting over everything, despite her nearly palpable anxiety.
His last words to her repeated in his mind. I don’t know that I can trust you, do I? He’d seen her face, the shocked hurt in her eyes, and still, he hadn’t called those words back. It was just too neat that she had agreed to marry him so quickly only to have her soon-to-be ex-husband show up on their wedding day.
She had to have been in on it with the Frenchman.
The question was why?
With the agreement they’d made, she stood to make considerably more than a hundred thousand dollars at the end of their marriage. So why would she risk it all for a quick fix?
“It’s beautiful here,” she said now, and her voice shattered the silence.
“I guess.” He didn’t want to talk to her right now, but he also was tired of thinking, so he supposed he was grateful for the reprieve.
She turned to look at him and exasperation glittered in her eyes. “Y’know, Travis,” she said quietly, “I’m not the enemy.”
“Well now, that’s yet to be decided, isn’t it?”
“Apparently.” Julie sat back against the seat, crossed her truly great legs, shook her head and flashed him a glare. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“So you say,” he admitted with a nod even as his gaze locked on the slide of her legs.
“That’s right, I do. We’ve known each other since we were kids, for crying out loud. Do you really think I’d blackmail you?”
“We used to know each other,” he pointed out, still trying to look away from the legs she kept crossing and recrossing in an obvious show of nerves.
“What I can’t figure out is why you’re so willing to believe Jean Claude? You’ve never seen him before but you’re willing to take his word over mine?”
“Why would he lie?”
“He’s a blackmailer and you think lying is beneath him?”
“Why bother?”
“To make you pay him?” she asked.
“He didn’t need to name you as a conspirator to get the cash. So why would he?” He watched her and saw a flash of fire in her eyes. So she wasn’t all nerves. There was temper there, too.
“Because he’s a creep and he wanted to do everything he could to make sure I was miserable and you were furious.” She crossed her arms under her br**sts and that movement was enough to pry his gaze from her legs. Her crossed arms plumped up his already excellent view of her cle**age. His gaze lingered for a long minute, until she was uncomfortable enough to ease her arms away.
“Seems like a lot of trouble for him to go to,” Travis mused.
“Didn’t take much on his part at all to turn you into an über-jerk,” she said.
Now his own temper flashed and his was a hell of a lot more intimidating than hers. “Jerk? I think I’ve been pretty damn considerate, considering,” he pointed out. “We’re here, aren’t we? Going to get you that divorce and get married again so that the deal still holds and nobody else is the wiser?”
“Yes,” she said, turning her gaze from him to stare out at the passing sights. “And you’ve been a delightful companion so far, too, so thanks very much.”
He fumed silently. She wanted him to be a companion now? Friendly banter? He’d had potential disaster tossed at his feet on his wedding day and she wanted good company? To hell with that.
Thankfully, their debate ended soon after that. Travis sat up as the limousine approached the hotel. Castello de King, or King’s Castle, was opulent, over-the-top luxurious and owned by family, so it would give him exactly the privacy he required.
It was a huge building, taking up half the block. The walls were a soft pink stone that seemed to shimmer in the late afternoon sun. There were round tower rooms on every corner and leaded glass panes of the windows winked with the sun’s reflection. Built more than a hundred years ago by an American businessman who’d imagined himself royalty, the castle had been purchased by the King family several decades before and turned into a hotel.
But it was only in the last five years or so that the castle had been “discovered” by the famous and infamous.
Travis had always liked the place, and since his cousin Rico had taken over the castle, it had become one of Travis’s favorite vacation spots.
Cameramen and tourists lined the front of the hotel, each of them trying to get a picture of someone interesting, and they all moved reluctantly out of the limo’s way as the driver steered the car onto the property.
Travis imagined how Julie was seeing the place and took it in himself as if for the first time. The driveway was wide and circular, and swept past banks of tropical flowers in every imaginable color. A towering fountain stood in the center of the courtyard and water fell from its tip to dance in its base in an unceasing cascade. Doormen in full white livery waited to serve the wealthy guests who flocked here looking to be spoiled in secure, lavish comfort.
Travis could almost feel the lenses of the paparazzi stationed on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Their cameras were no doubt focused in to help them in their quest for an embarrassing or incriminating photo of celebrity lives. But they were kept off hotel property by a fleet of security guards, who protected the guests privacy at all costs, which was only one of the reasons Castello de King was such a popular resort for the wealthy.