VINA IN VENICE (THE 5 SISTERS) (10 page)

Vina jerked her head back, a wide-eyed look of horror on her face.  “Oh
!  Oh,
Travis
…
what have I done?
 
I never should have
kissed you like that! 
You have to forgive me, you just have to! 
Oh God,” she groaned, “tell me I haven’t jeopardized our friendship.”

“
No…yes…I mean…”
What
did
he mean?  After the way she’d just kissed him, the last thing Travis expected was an apology!

“Travis, please, please forgive me.  I don’t know what possessed me to act that way, but I swear it won’t happen again.  I’m so embarrassed, I could just die,” Vina
cried
, color flaming in her cheeks.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.  I kissed you first, remember?”

“Yes, but you were just playing the part, and I…well, I threw myself at you and behaved like a…a…sex starved maniac!”

His lips curved into a wolfish grin.  “
Are
you a sex starved maniac?”

“Please don’t make fun of me,” she wailed.  “I’ve never done anything like that in my entire life, and if I could undo it, I would.”

“Why?”

Vina blinked.  “Why have I never done it before?  I should think that’s obvious.”

“No, I meant, why would you undo it?”

“Because I…we…that is, you and I are friends, and I don’t
want
you to think that I have
…you know,
those
kinds of feelings for you.”

“
Those
kinds?”

“Oh, you’re being just horrid about this,” Vina snapped.  “You know what I mean.  Obviously, you think it’s funny that I threw myself at you.”

“You didn’t throw yourself at me, Vina.”

“
No, I just morphed into a limpet and plastered myself to you, that’s all!  I’m sorry.  I don’t know what more to say.”

“Well,
I’m
not sorry,” he said.

“Of course, you’re not,” she replied tersely
, pulling away from him
.  “Your
male ego is no doubt bolstered by the idea I couldn’t control myself
and was only seconds away from…” Vina clamped her mouth her shut and looked away, her blush
deepening to a furious red.

“Seconds away from what?” he asked.

“Nothing.  Look, Travis, I think it would be best if we both forgot this ever happened.”

“Easier said than done, sweetheart.  I can still taste you…”

“
Stop!  I don’t want to talk about it anymore.  If you can’t forgive me for crossing the line and move on from here then I…I have no one to blame but myself.
”  She
tilted her head back and met his gaze
, the shimmer of tears in her eyes nearly gutting him.  “If you don’t want to go to Venice with me, I-I’ll understand,” she choked out, then
whirled around
and
fled towards the mansion.

Travis stared at the empty space
where Vina had been standing
and
wonder
ed
how the hell things had gone so wrong when it seemed so promising just a few, short minutes ago.  Shaking his head, he started after her, but she was already slipping inside the door before he’d even reached the columned porch.  Travis called out for her to wait, but Vina didn’t hear him.  Or maybe she just pretended not hear, he thought ruefully.

With purposeful strides, he crossed the porch to the door and
started to press the doorbell.  His finger hovered over the button for several seconds before he slowly pulled it back and let his arm drop to his side. 
What was he going to do, lay on the buzzer until she opened the door so he could demand they talk it out?  Vina was too emotionally
distraught
to discuss it tonight, and he didn’t want to risk pushing her in the wrong direction.

Logically, Travis knew it was the right decision to turn
around
and walk away.  But that didn’t
make him feel any better about it, or
ease the
hollow
ache in his chest
.

***

Vina sagged against the door and pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.
  She was mortified by her behavior
,
and cringed
at
the shameless way she’d
pressed
herself
against him.  Oh God, she’d actually
been
g
yrat
ing
her hips
like
some
exotic dancer
!  And poor Travis had been worked into such a
state of
arousal
, he seemed to have forgotten who he was kissing
.
  But she’d seen the look of regret flicker behind his eyes
right
before he
attempted to mask it
by saying he wasn’t sorry it happened.

“I can still taste you…
” she heard his husky voice inside her head.

Oh, this was simply awful! 
How could she ever look him in the
eyes
again
and not die from sheer embarrassment?
  How could
she
go anywhere near him without remembering how it felt to be held in his arms
and kissed senseless?
  Vina
touched her lips with
trembling fingers
.  They felt swollen and tender, which wasn’t too surprising considering
how feverishly they’d gone at each other. 

And wasn’t that so typically male
, she thought scornfully,
kissing me like that when he hasn’t an ounce of sexual desire for me? 
The wretched man took full advantage of the situation just because…because…
I was convenient!

“And so painfully easy,” she said with a groan.

It was wrong to shift the blame onto Travis.
  He’d merely responded to the
signals she was putting out, and it wasn’t as if he’d tried to get her into bed.  So she was suffering from embarrassment and shame
, and would probably continue to do so for several days.  All she needed to do was avoid being with Travis for awhile until she had her emotions sufficiently under control
.  Everything
would
eventually
g
et
back to normal
and they could both forget the whole regrettable incident
.

Easier said than done
.  Wasn’t that what Travis had told her? 
Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be easy, Vina admitted to herself.  Maybe she would always remember the way her lips tingled when he kissed her, and how warm his hands had felt as they’d curled around her waist. 
And she could forget about erasing the memory of being crushed against his muscular chest or the ripples of pleasure from the feathery kisses he’d delivered to her neck.

Vina squeezed her eyes shut. 
I am
in big, big trouble
.

She heard
the
shuffle of soft soled slippers on the marble floor and opened her eyes to see Sophia hurrying towards her. 
Shoving herself away from the door, Vina
made a valiant effort to smile before
covering her face with her hands and
dissolving into tears.
  Sophia put her arm around Vina’s shoulder and ushered her into the sitting room, pausing just long enough to flip on the light before guiding her to one of the sofas.

“Here,” Sophia pressed a tissue into Vina’s hand.  “Mop up so we can talk.”

“I d-don’t want to talk,” Vina sniffed.

“Travis
knew
you’d say that.”

Vina looked at her twin through a blur of tears.  “He called you?”

“A few minutes ago,” Sophia nodded. 
“He said you needed someone to talk to and that I should ignore it when you insisted you didn’t.  Your Travis…he sure is something else.”

“He’s not
my
Travis,” Vina denied
a little too passionately.

Sophia
quirked a skeptical brow.  “Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I am.  We’re friends; that’s all we’ve ever been.”

“
Then why did he kiss you?  More importantly, why did you kiss him back?”

“He told you?” Vina was incredulous.

“No.  He said it was up to you to tell me what happened.”

“Then how did you know?”

“Well, we…uh…sort of saw you from the window.”

“
We?
”  Vina rubbed her temples where a throbbing headache was beginning to form.
  “Who else was spying on me while I made a fool of myself?”
 

“Just me and Kels
e
y
.”

“I suppose I should be glad I only h
umiliated myself in front of the two of you.”

“Yeah, um…there’s some good news and some bad news about that.”

Vina
rubbed more vigorously
at her temples.  “
Go ahead; kick me while I’m down.”

“The good news is that we didn’t invade your privacy the
entire
time you were lip locked
.  I mean, sure we watched until we knew you weren’t going to bolt on him,
but then we kind of felt bad and went back to our rooms.”

“
So you and your snoop partner deliberately left the lights off so
we wouldn’t know you were there.”

Sophia grimaced.  “I don’t guess you’d believe we were already in Dad’s study and it was just coincidence that we turned off the light when you drove up?  No, I didn’t think so,” she sighed when Vina rolled her eyes.
  “At least we didn’t keep spying on you, so that’s good, right?”
 

“If that’s the good news, I’m not sure I want to hear the bad news.”

“
Honestly, i
t’s not
that
bad,” Sophia tried to downplay it.  “It really was just Kelsey and I to begin with
,
but Victoriana heard us talking and came in.  She did take a peek, but only because we tried to fib our way out of why we were in the study without the lights on.  Vic lit into us about it, and that’s when Maria showed up.”

“Oh God, this just gets better and better.”

“Don’t worry
;
Maria refused to look.  She said we were silly for romanticizing it
and
then stomped out of the room.”

“That’s great,” she grumbled, “now you all
kn
o
w what an idiot
I’ve been
.
”

“First of all, none of us think you’re an idiot for kissing the hottest hunky dunky this side of
the equator.  I know you’ve been friends forever, but I can’t believe you’ve never felt attracted to Travis or wondered what it would be like to kiss him.”

“Maybe,” Vina admitted, “but I never would have acted on it.”

“Why not?  And don’t play the friends card on me, because I won’t believe it.”

Vina thought about it for a few minutes.  “I guess it’s because I knew it would never go anywhere.  I would end up as just another casualty in the love life of Travis Malone
, and I didn’t want to take that risk.”

Sophia disagreed.  “You don’t know that.  You get along so well
on both a business and personal level, there’s no reason to believe you wouldn’t fall madly in love with each other if you only gave it a chance.”

“Come on, Sophia, you know as well as I do that a loaf of bread has a longer shelf life than any woman Travis dates.  Besides, if he was interested in a relationship with me, don’t you think he would have
said something?”

“Not necessarily.  Maybe he was afraid
you would reject him.”

Vina laughed.  “Travis scared of rejection?  Not in a million years.”

“Okay, then maybe he was waiting until he felt the time was right.  Like tonight.”

“No, that was just an act.”

“A pretty convincing one if you ask me,” Sophia said.

“You don’t understand.  Travis was only
acting out the part as if it was a real date.  It…it was my fault it got out of hand.  I encouraged
him to take it further by kissing him back.”

“So you kissed him back
,” Sophia shrugged
.
  “
He could have stopped you anytime if he really wanted to.”

“It’s not just that I kissed him,” Vina
wailed
miserably, “it was the
way
I kissed him
.  I practically invited him to
make love to me right there!”