And the solution to this predicament was to sleep with her boss? Or appear to? What kind of world was this?
She looked around, but there was nowhere to go. She might as well have been trapped in a prison cell with Vittorio.
He swore under his breath and withdrew her phone from his shirt pocket, scowling at it. “This thing is exploding.” His frown deepened as he looked at whatever notification was showing up against her Lock screen. “Who is Travis?”
His tone chilled to below freezing and his handsome features twisted with harsh judgment. She could practically see the derisive label in a bubble over his head.
“My stepbrother,” she said haughtily, holding out her hand, not nearly as undaunted as she tried to appear. Her intestines knotted further as she saw that she’d missed four calls and several texts from Travis, along with some from old schoolmates and several from former coworkers in Charleston.
All the texts were along the lines of, Is it really you? Call me. I just saw the news. They’re saying...
Nausea roiled in her. She clicked to darken the screen.
Travis had been vaguely amused with her concern over not having every skill listed in this job posting for Milan. Do you know why men get promoted over women? Because they don’t worry about meeting all the criteria. Fake it ’til you make it, had been his advice.
Really great advice, considering what such a bold move had got her into, she thought dourly.
But his laconic opinion had been the most personable he’d ever been around her. He was never rude, just distant. He never reached out to her, only responded if she texted him first. He didn’t know that she’d overheard him shortly before her mother’s wedding to his father, when he’d cautioned Henry against tying himself to a woman without any assets. There are social climbers and there are predators.
Henry had defended them and Gwyn had walked away hating Travis, but not really blaming him. Had their situations been reversed, she would have cautioned her mother herself. It had still fueled her need to be self-reliant in every way.
She had been so proud to tell Travis she’d landed this job, believing she’d been recognized for her education, qualifications and grit. Ha.
“I guess we can assume the photos have crossed the Atlantic,” she muttered, cringing anew.
It was afternoon here. Travis would be starting his day in Charleston, and the fact that he’d learned so quickly of the photos told her exactly how broadly these things were being distributed. Maybe reporters had tracked down the family connection and were harassing him and Henry?
Damn that Kevin Jensen. His headline name was turning her into a punch line.
She set her phone on the table, unable to think of anything to say except I’m sorry, and that was far too inadequate.
She swallowed back hopelessness, realizing a door had just closed on her. She could go back to America, but she couldn’t take this mess to Henry’s doorstep. He’d been too good to her to repay him like that. Travis might make her cut off ties for good.
“You’re not going to call him?” Vittorio asked.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.
“Tell him you’re safe at least.”
“Am I?” she scoffed, meeting his gaze long enough for his own to slice through her like a blade, as if he could see all the way inside her to where she squirmed.
And where she held a hot ember of yearning for his good opinion.
“He’s not worried,” she dismissed, feeling hollow as she said it. “We’re not close like that. He just wants to know what’s going on.” So he could perform damage control on his side.
She had worked so hard to keep Travis from seeing her as a hanger-on, so he wouldn’t think she was only spending time with his elderly father in hopes of getting money out of him and possibly cut her off. She was vigilant about paying her own way, refusing to take money unless it was a little birthday cash which she invariably spent on groceries, cooking a big enough dinner to fill her stepfather’s freezer with single-serve leftovers. She always invited Travis to join them if she was planning to see Henry, never wanting him to think she was going behind his back.
Now whatever progress she’d made in earning Travis’s respect would be up in smoke. But what did that matter when apparently no one else would have any for her after this?
“Do you have other family you should contact?” Vittorio asked.
“No,” she murmured. Her mother, a woman without any formal training of any kind, had married an American and wound up losing her husband two years into her emigration to his country. He’d been in the service, an only child with elderly parents already living in a retirement home. They had died before Gwyn had been old enough to ask about them.