you that I almost feel I know her. Look at that.’
She held up the snap taken in the hotel restaurant, showing Charlene convulsed with laughter.
‘I’d bought her some pearl earrings,’ Travis recalled, ‘but I’d also bought some Daft Doody earrings for a friend, and I got muddled and gave her the wrong ones.’
‘And she saw the funny side of that?’ Julia asked, amazed.
‘As you see.’
‘Then she’s a real jewel.’ She eyed him with motherly suspicion. ‘You do realise that, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured. ‘I realise that. Mom, can we talk about this later? I have a lot to tell you.’
‘And I’ve got a lot to tell you. Paris was fantastic, and guess what! I bumped into your father. I was invited to some big reception, and there he was. Marcel was there too. Poor soul, he’s so sad since he broke up with Cassie. He sent you his good wishes.’
‘I’ll bet my father didn’t send me any good wishes.’
‘Actually, he was on his best behaviour because Freya was there.’
‘Freya? She’s his stepdaughter by his new wife, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, and she’s really very nice. Amos has set his heart on marrying her to one of his sons. He failed with Darius, so now he wants it to be Marcel. You should be careful. If he fails with Marcel he’ll get you in his sights.’
‘Hey, c’mon!’
‘Really. “The Falcon” never gives up. That’s what they say.’
‘Then I’ll have to set Charlene onto him. If that doesn’t fill him with fear, nothing will.’
Which left Julia regarding him oddly and mulling over the conversation long into the night, so that Eric was roused to ask if anything was wrong.
‘Nothing wrong,’ she murmured. ‘Just something I can’t make up my mind about.’
‘Would a cuddle help?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
NEXT day Charlene paid Julia a visit. The two women liked each other. Julia was no actress. The cheeky kid she’d played as a starlet was simply her real self, and after thirty years she still existed. For much of the meal they swapped witticisms, but they both wanted to talk about Travis, and at last Julia said, ‘He was always a lovely boy. So sweet-natured and full of feeling. I used to wish he didn’t have so many feelings, so that his father couldn’t hurt him so much.’
‘He really minded about that, didn’t he? He didn’t say much but I could sense rivers running deep underneath.’
Julia nodded, then went to a cupboard and brought out a large book, which she opened, revealing a portrait photograph of Amos Falcon.
‘I took this shot of him when we knew each other, years ago,’ she said.
Amos had been an attractive man, not conventionally handsome, but with a fierce purpose in his face that proclaimed him one of life’s winners. Many women would find that appealing, as the young Julia had done.
As she still did, Charlene thought, watching the other woman as she surveyed the photograph. After all this time, there was sadness and longing in her face as she flipped over the pages to find pictures of the two of them together. Amos and Julia, a young girl, her face full of love, happy in the conviction that she had found her man and they would be together for ever.
More pictures: Julia with baby Travis in her arms, but never the three of them together.
‘Are there any of Amos and Travis together?’ she asked.
‘None,’ Julia said. ‘That’s one thing I can’t forgive Amos for. He paid maintenance for Travis, but he never took any real interest in him. He’d visit, talk to him about how he was doing at school, criticise him. But he wouldn’t pose for a picture or become really involved with him. But look at these.’
At the back of the book were newspaper cuttings showing Amos with some of his other sons.
‘Darius, Jackson, Marcel,’ Julia said bitterly. ‘But not Travis. I’ve seen him looking at these pictures with such sadness. Just imagine what he must have been thinking.’
‘That they were a complete family without him,’ Charlene whispered. ‘How well I know that feeling.’
‘Then you understand how it’s been for him. I’m so glad.’
‘It was much the same for me,’ Charlene said.
Briefly she outlined the situation in her own family.
‘I’m lucky in my grandparents. I get on with them wonderfully, and thank goodness I do because they’re all I’ve got.’
‘And I’m all Travis has got,’ Julia said. ‘I have no relatives. I’m an orphan, raised in an institution.’ She gave a grim laugh. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, would you? The big star, the world at his feet, women pursuing him, but it breaks his heart that he’s never felt really included in a family.
‘I haven’t been as good a mother as I meant to be,’ she added wryly. ‘At one time I thought I’d marry and give him a father, but none of my relationships ever quite worked out and…well, it didn’t increase stability, if you see what I mean.’
Charlene nodded, liking Julia even more for the honesty with which she admitted her own failings.
‘But he’s got you,’ Julia went on. ‘He hasn’t said much, but I gather you’re protecting him from the people who are out to harm him. I can see that he’s close to you, much closer than to women he sleeps with. Sometimes sex can actually form a barrier to closeness.’
She took Charlene’s hand. ‘Just be there for him,’ she said. ‘I know you will be, and I thank you with all my heart.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Charlene promised.
Soon after that Travis arrived to collect her, looking from one to the other, smiling when he sensed the warmth and friendliness.
As soon as she could, Julia drew him aside, murmuring, ‘Now I can have an easy mind about you. And I never thought I’d say that.’
‘Mom, it’s not like that. She’s a friend.’
‘A friend who happens to be living with you. A friend the whole world is talking about.’
‘That’s just it. We want the world to be talking about her so that they forget what happened in the nightclub. I couldn’t face losing all I’d gained. Luckily Charlene agreed to help me.’
‘How much does she know?’
‘Everything. I didn’t lie to her. That’s the most wonderful thing about her. You can be completely honest and trust her to understand. It’s such a relief.’
‘Someone you can be completely open with. That’s more luck than most people ever have. And you actually persuaded her to put on a big performance for the cameras?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the fact that you’re living together isn’t-?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re not-?’
‘And you haven’t even tried to-?’
She surveyed him, half cynical, half amused.
‘I don’t think you’re my son at all. You’re an impostor. What have you done with the real Travis?’
He grinned. ‘He decided to lie low for a while. He reckons he isn’t so clever.’
She patted his hand. ‘Well, getting Charlene to help you was really clever. She’ll do you the world of good. You might start appreciating other things about women than the shape of their behinds. Why, darling, you’re blushing!’
