Billionaire Undone ~ Travis (Billionaire’s Obsession #5)(5)
Author: J.S. Scott

Ally looked at Travis in surprise. “He is a very good temp, and that would mean I’d have to go on vacation next week.”

“Then go.” Travis shrugged.

“What are we doing in Colorado?” she asked curiously.

Travis grimaced. “A fundraiser. I need an escort.”

Ally gaped at him. “I’m not going as your date to a fundraiser. That’s personal. I thought you had business there.”

“I do. And you aren’t technically my date. I have to attend this function, and I don’t want to go alone,” Travis rumbled. “It’s not that difficult. You go. You talk nicely to people and try not to call them self-centered bastards. And then you eat and drink whatever they have to offer. Tate Colter has been a business associate and a friend of mine for years. He agreed to do this charity ball only if I’d come to Colorado because I haven’t visited for a while. He wants me to be there. Going alone would be—” Travis coughed before finishing. “Awkward.”

“Why?” Ally crossed her arms in front of her. There was nothing strange about going to a fundraiser alone. There had to be something Travis wasn’t telling her. “You attend these types of things all the time. You don’t need me there.”

“This one is…different,” Travis said hesitantly. “I just need you to be there, Alison. It is technically business. Your presence is required. The temp can stay and hold down the fort with Kade while we’re gone.”

Ally eyed Travis curiously, wondering what he wasn’t saying. “I don’t have the necessary attire for that kind of function. I’ve never needed anything but office attire.”

“I’ll provide it. You’re dismissed back to your duties.” He waved a hand at her like she was a pesky fly.

God, Ally hated it when Travis did that. She felt like a naughty schoolgirl. “And how long will we be gone?”

“Leave Friday, return Monday. The actual ball is on Saturday night,” Travis answered absently, as though he had already put the whole thing out of his mind.

Ally stood, brushing imaginary wrinkles away on her tight skirt and tugging it down her hips. “Diet,” she reminded herself, turning to leave the office. She wanted to argue with Travis, but she couldn’t. He’d never asked her to travel with him, and it was part of her job as his assistant. The fact that Travis was a loner, and preferred it that way, was one of the reasons she was actually able to work a second job. He was usually alone, and didn’t feel the need for an entourage. And he never required anything from her outside of work hours. She’d do this for him just because he wasn’t demanding in that way, and he very well could have been. Somehow, although he was making light of it, it seemed important to him, and he’d never asked her to travel to events with him before.

“Totally unnecessary, Alison,” Travis said in a low, graveled voice so quietly that Ally almost didn’t hear him.

She turned back to him. “What’s unnecessary?”

“You don’t need to diet.” Travis scowled at her.

Ally rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Sure. My gorgeous body certainly didn’t keep my fiancé from banging another woman in our bed,” she answered facetiously, surprising herself again by the words that popped out of her mouth. She might do battle with Travis fairly often, but it had never gotten this personal.

Travis rose slowly, his liquid, fierce gaze never leaving her as he crossed the room unhurriedly, stopping right in front of her. Ally stepped back, trapping herself between Travis’s massive body and the door as he stepped forward again. His masculine scent filled the air around her and she almost sighed when she inhaled the intoxicating smell. She didn’t get this close to him very often, but whenever she did, her knees got weak just from the virile, musky male scent that emanated from his body like pheromones, beckoning her to get close enough to wallow in him. Travis might be a stubborn ass most of the time, but one thing Ally couldn’t deny was that he was a gorgeous, potent, testosterone-overloaded male ass.

Travis placed a palm on each side of her head, leaning down until Ally shivered as his warm breath caressed her ear.

“Your ex-fiancé was and is an idiotic fool. You, Alison, have the kind of soft, feminine body any man wants beneath him when he sinks his c**k into a woman’s body. Every single thing about you is perfect.” His voice was husky, warm, and mesmerizing. “If he’d been smarter, he would have made you come, given you exactly what you wanted until you were so addicted to him that you’d never walk away, and he’d never want another woman when he had you in his bed.”

Ally nearly moaned against Travis’s shoulder, the seductive voice in her ear enthralling her. “He didn’t do that,” she admitted, leaning her head back against the door. Rick hadn’t given a shit whether she was satisfied or not.

Travis straightened, looking down at her from his towering height, his face changing to a mask of indifference. “Then he didn’t deserve you. Actually, he never did.” He stepped back, allowing space to open the door.

Ally fumbled with the door, flustered. What the hell had just happened to her? She scurried out, not looking behind her as she closed the door to Travis’s office, her hands shaking, her ni**les hard and sensitive just from the sheer eroticism of Travis’s low, seductive voice whispering naughty words into her ear.

She sat down at her desk, dazed and confused, wondering if her overactive imagination had just conjured up that particular moment in time. Travis Harrison had never looked at her with anything other than irritation. And he’d certainly never said anything that made her hot and bothered in less than a few seconds.

Sipping her lukewarm coffee, she put her reading glasses back on and turned to her computer, giving herself a mental slap to stop thinking about Travis. After all, he hadn’t even touched her. It was nothing to make a big deal over. So, he’d thrown her a very strange compliment, but at the end of the day, it didn’t really change anything. Travis was just…different today, and in a very odd mood.

Shaking her head, she got back to work.

Chapter 2

Jason Sutherland was in an excellent mood as he strolled into Travis Harrison’s top floor office, and he smiled when he saw a pretty blonde woman sitting behind a desk right inside the door. She had to be Ally, Travis’s assistant with whom he’d spoken earlier that morning. Her looks were just as appealing as her voice. Not that he’d ever notice her in a romantic way. But she appeared to be just as charming as she’d sounded on the phone.