I don’t know what Travis is doing here or how he found me, but it’s as if the world has picked up speed and slowed down at the same time. My pulse zooms even as it crawls to a near stop.

He’s here. Actually here.

His hands are fisted at his sides, his gaze just as full of rage as Gary’s, and he doesn’t hesitate for even a second as he surges inside the house.

My blood blasts through me, animating me with the first joy I’ve felt since I last saw him.

Somehow, some way, he found me…

Gary shoves me away, and I hit the floor, my hair over my face. But I can still see him taking up a fighter’s stance, his fists in front of him as he bounces on his feet. There’s a terrible smile on his face, and just before Travis reaches him, I yell a warning.

“Travis, he knows how to fight!”

Gary starts winding up in one of his karate moves, but Travis is still moving fast, and when Gary turns around, whipping out his leg, I shrink back at the expected impact.

But Travis coolly grabs Gary’s leg with both hands and yanks him off balance, sending him crashing to the floor.

As Gary huffs out a shocked breath, it’s as if time has split open at the seams. No one moves. Gary only seems to be processing that he just got his ass partially handed to him by a suave man in a suit who’s as cool as a snow drift.

Travis is stalking around Gary, surveying him. Then he breaks the silence.

“Just what did you have in mind to do with her?” he says in a voice so even that it sends chills down my spine.

Or maybe they’re thrills, because this isn’t a dream. Travis is here protecting me.

My Travis…

Gary’s already getting back on his feet. “She’s my daughter, and you’re in my house, dickhead. Who the fuck are you to—?”

Travis slams a fist into Gary’s jaw, sending him hurtling back against the wall. Travis follows up with another punch, and Gary shakes out his head, holding up his fists again.

“I’m waiting,” Travis taunts. He isn’t even breaking a sweat. “You can fight back whenever you feel the urge.”

“I’m getting my black belt soon.” Gary’s so angry that his eyes are pure darkness. “I’m lethal, so you’d better get out of here while you can.”

“I’m not leaving Nova here with you.”

Gary sends me an unfocused, befuddled look; it’s as if he’s wondering how it’s possible that I might be worth this much to anyone. At the same time, Travis gazes at me, and there’s worry in those dark green eyes. There’s even more than that, but my pulse is thundering, my breath packed into my lungs so that I can’t breathe. I can’t think.

All I know is that he really did come here for me.

As Travis keeps looking at me with that depth of emotion in his gaze, I faintly see Gary recovering. He braces his hands back against the wall, and I realize that he’s getting leverage so he can attack Travis. But Travis is still focused on me as if I’m the only person in the room.

I think he’s about to say something to me, but a yell rises up my throat. Dammit, it won’t come out, so I point to Gary.

He’s launched himself at Travis, and just in time, Travis snaps out of it, scooping one of Gary’s arms up before firmly turning him around. He jams my father against the wall, the side of his face smacking it with a sick clap. Gary grunts as Travis pushes up his arm.

Fleetingly, I remember how Travis told me he goes to the gym. I think it wasn’t just to lift weights.

“Nova said you want to be a war hero or a cop,” Travis says. “Let me tell you something—heroes don’t pick on their daughters. They don’t send their wives and children running from them because they’re fanatical creeps who can’t get into the military or get hired by law enforcement.”

“Fuck off.”

“No, Gary Summers, you fuck off.” Travis is putting more pressure on Gary’s arm, turning my father’s face red. “You see, I employ a security team, and they gave me the resources to trace Nova’s whereabouts first to her new apartment, then here.”

Happy tears threaten me, but I’m also afraid that Gary’s going to get his shit together and rebound, hurting Travis.

But Travis doesn’t seem worried in the least. He’s still got my dad well in hand. “Of course, I wanted to be prepared for you, Summers, so I did some checking into your past. I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for a clown who’s pathetic enough to take his frustrations out on his family like you do.”

With a muffled roar, Gary pushes Travis back, but Travis seems to have predicted this. He crooks an elbow and, with a decisive swing, clocks Gary in the jaw once again. He follows up with a fisted blow to the gut that brings my dad to his knees.

Then Gary gets vicious, swiping at Travis’s legs, baring his teeth as if he’s going to tear off his trousers and bite into his flesh like a rabid dog.

Travis merely backhands my dad, and Gary holds a palm to his face.

“Stop humiliating yourself,” Travis says.

Gary doesn’t quit. “I’m going to hurt her so bad that you won’t recognize her.”

And that does it. Travis lets loose with a barrage of punches that lays my dad out on the floor, his face bloodied. After Travis is done, he backs away, his chest rising and falling. My father is clawing at the carpet with one hand, and he’s moaning, almost as if he’s trying not to…

And then the pathetic sobs rattle from his throat.

My god, Travis has revealed what I’ve always known to be true about Gary Summers—he’s an absolute coward at heart and doesn’t have any real courage. He’s a bully, and it’s only when he’s come up against a real deal like Travis that he’s fully exposed.

Travis hunkers down, one arm resting on his thigh as he lowers his voice to a dangerous edge. “I have ways of ruining people that you can’t even conceive of. If you ever come within even a mile of Nova, her brother, or their mom again, you’ll see what I’m talking about. In fact, I sort of hope you try because it will give me great pleasure to make every second of the rest of your life a living hell.”

Gary tries to say something, but Travis merely gets to his feet and looms over him.

“You threatened the woman I love, you sorry sack of shit. You’re lucky I didn’t break every bone in your body.”

My head is ringing. The woman I love.

As Gary cowers on the floor, Travis comes to me. He reaches a hand out, and after I look up at him to see the true affection blazing in his eyes, I grab him and the warmth of his touch flows through me.

The woman I love.

So why did he treat me the way he did?

Hurt consumes me, still fresh, still sharp, and I let go of his hand. His gaze seems wounded, and this time…

This time he doesn’t seem able to hide it.

“Can you get your things, Nova?” he asks quietly.

I nod, and as I leave the room to gather what little I need, I realize that, for the first time, Travis Star didn’t command me to do something.

* * *

On the ride to the same private airport where Travis flew in on the first night we met, we don’t say much to each other. As he drives the car, I’m still in shock, and he seems to know that. He’s giving me space, and I even get the feeling that he’s letting me set the pace for what needs to happen next.

I keep remembering his confession of love, rolling it over and over in my mind until we reach the airport and he brings me to his waiting jet.

We’re as wary of one another as I was the first time I climbed on this plane, and he buckles me into my seat. As we taxi down the runway, he sits in the chair across from me.

“I got word from Clarice this morning,” he says, watching the landscape go by out the window. “My security team found your mom and brother. They’re fine, and they’re on their way to the Plaza Hotel.” The muscle in his jaw tenses, then he adds, “I’m going to make sure they’re safe and kept out of your father’s clutches from now on.”

“Thank you. I mean that.”

As I look out the window, too, I can feel him shift his gaze toward me. Warmth infuses me, mingling with my wild heartbeat.

The jet speeds up, and soon we’re in the air.

“I assume I’m staying in the hotel with my family?” I finally ask.

“That’ll be up to you.”

Does he think he can just stroll back into my life and I’ll simply forget how he crushed me?

When I open my eyes, he’s watching me with an expression so bare and intense that everything inside me twists up in a confused tangle. Heat burns my throat.

“Nova,” he says, “I’ve been looking for you because I wanted you back. God, the minute I let you go, I knew I should’ve stopped you, but it took me a while to come to my senses.”

My defenses rise as memories of that last day with him dig into me, hurting me like fresh stabs. “Don’t tell me—you didn’t want me to be a distraction, so you waited until I wasn’t one anymore. Now you want me back as if you didn’t drop me like hot trash.”

“Nova…”

“Why can’t I help thinking that, once we’re back in New York, the same thing will happen? You’ll blame all your problems on me and I’ll be devastated again.”

He looks pained, as if he’s taking my anguish into his own body so I don’t have to feel it anymore. I only wish he could do that, because I want Travis to really feel what he did to me.

“Tell me,” I say, “just to catch me up, Travis. Am I convenient now because the robberies have been solved?”

His knuckles are white as he clenches the armrests. “While you were gone, the police and my team were able to stop the jewel thieves. But as relieved as I was, I found out that I couldn’t care less that the threat to my business was gone.”

He watches me as if hoping I’ll give him a sign that I’m opening up. Then he stiffly looks out the window again.

The jet levels out. Tonight there’s no attendant to serve us champagne. There’s just him and I and all the hard feelings that fill the space between us.

He stands from his seat, and I shiver at the way his muscled body dominates everything around me and inside me. Damn him for making me feel this way.

His voice is shredded. “All I could think about once you were gone was that I’d lost the love of my life, Nova.”

My god.

But he’s not done. “Goddammit, I would sell every one of my stores just to be with you again for one more night.”

There’s such torment in his tone that I can’t watch him walk away. I can only try to save myself as I drown in his words.

The love of his life.

And, god help me, I’ve tried to deny it, but he’s the love of my life, too, and I can’t let him go, not after the way he just revealed his soul to me.

The grief I’ve been pushing back into a deep place suddenly springs free, and I unbuckle my seatbelt and stumble to my feet, going after him.

“Travis?” I say to his back.

When he turns to me, the oxygen cuts out of my lungs, because here he is—a man with a longing fire in his eyes. A man who’s no longer hiding the certain “something” that I could never identify.

It’s true love, and I rush to him, wanting it more than anything.