Page 64 of Secret Revenge

EMILY

I’d love to meet your parents…

Those were the last words I’d expected to hear from Travis Ross. Yes, he had made his feelings known to me and I believed him. Regardless, meeting my parents still felt like a gigantic leap in our new relationship.

Nonetheless, he kept asking until I called my parents and arranged a time for them to meet me and the man I still could not believe was describing himself as my boyfriend.

“Hello? Mom?” I started, my voice shaky.

“Hi my baby, how are you? It’s rare for you to call. You usually just text.”

“I’m fine mom… I wanted to come home to introduce my boyfriend to you and… dad.”

“A boyfriend?!” I pressed my lips together at my mom’s excitement. “David! Emily has a boyfriend she wants to bring home!”

“Really? That’s such great news! Finally!” I heard my stepdad’s voice.

I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. They were acting like it was a miracle that I was in a relationship. They agreed to see Travis and I pretty easily.

They knew nothing about Travis, and I wasn’t about to tell them who he was. I wondered if they’d recognize him when they saw him.

Two weeks had passed since we nearly died, and I was finally starting to feel like myself again. Most of the injuries I’d suffered had turned to barely visible bruises, and my headaches had completely disappeared. I still had to be careful how I moved my shoulder, but I was getting used to moving in ways that avoided the pain.

The small scar it left was physical proof to me of what I had survived. Every time I looked at the scar in the mirror, it reminded me of how strong I was.

Travis had been a model partner while I recovered. While the doctor had said I was good to go, Travis insisted that I got off my feet and allow him to take care of me.

I attempted to recall the last occasion when someone else had taken care of me. It had been during my childhood, before the actions of Ross senior.

For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t have any deadlines bearing down on me. It felt strange. I’d been so focused on destroying the Ross brothers, it’d become an identity for me. It had fueled me, it drove me. It gave me purpose.

Now I had Travis. I washappy. But what would I do with the rest of my life?

For now, I just focused on being happy. Travis made himself as available as he could outside of his work duties, and he made sure I had everything I could possibly want. It was both charming and annoying when he doted on me, but he looked so happy, I couldn’t possibly ask him to stop.

We spent a lot of time just talking and getting to know each other better. There were parts of him that were completely alien to me, and it was shocking to realize how much I didn’t know about him. He seemed to have the same realization about me, realizing he knew very little about my early career or my past love life.

I giggled in shock when I learned about some of his youthful escapades, when he and his rich kid friends had liked to test the limits of what they could get away with. He could spend hours talking about his plans for his foundation, and his face always lit up when he did it. He knew that he could not go back in time and change the things that his father had done. However, he intended to do his best to give those families a chance to try again.

I’d been trying to bury the man for the sins of his father. I’d been too blind to see that the man had spent his adult life fixing another man’s mess. Just like I had spent mine trying to bring the same man to justice. In a strange way, we had a lot in common.

I felt a small sadness every time I realized how close I’d come to selling him out to Jonathan and Bryce Blackwell. When I said as much to him, he casually brushed it off.

“It’s not your fault,” he'd said. “You had no reason to think better of me. And when you found out what that drive contained, you were willing to protect me with your life. That’s what I choose to see. That’s all that matters to me.”

Oh, Travis, I thought to myself, blushing,you sweet, charming man.

Finally, the big day came: time for Travis to meet my parents. I was in the bathroom of his luxurious penthouse, fidgeting with my hair, when he knocked on the door.

I turned to see Travis poking his head through. “Well, are you ready yet? We really need to get going.”

“Err, sure. Give me five minutes?”

He nodded and shut the door softly behind him. In all honesty, I’d been ready over thirty minutes ago, but I was terribly nervous. My mother had lost at least as much as I had to Travis’s father, and I couldn’t imagine her reaction upon realizingwhichTravis was dating her daughter. My mother, having suffered as much as I had at the hands of Travis's father, would be shocked to discover that her daughter was dating that very Travis.

I’d told her I’d gotten injured on the job, but not that I’d been saving Travis Ross in the process. I was too afraid to explain to her who he really was.

I took a deep breath and grabbed my purse from the counter. There was no point delaying anymore, I just wanted to get the afternoon over with. The sooner I got out there, the better.