Langton had taken a bottle of congratulatory champagne to her flat, and she had opened it, admitting only to him how proud she was. He’d been there a short time before she announced that she had a previous arrangement. He’d been hoping to take her out to dinner but downed the remainder of his glass. As he left, he cupped her face in his hand and kissed her forehead. He felt her body tense away from him.
“You’ve grown up, Travis. Sometimes I look at you and hardly recognize that girl I lived with. I have always reckoned you were special in every way, but now you have a big career ahead of you.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He hesitated. “Don’t make your whole life your career, darlin’. You’ll get over this and you’ll—”
She smiled and put a finger to his lips. She said she didn’t intend to; she was going out for dinner with some friends.
“Good. Well, onward and upward.”
She closed the door behind him and breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t have any dinner date, she didn’t have any other friends but him, and she fully intended to make her career the focus of her life. Nothing was going to stop her. DCI was just the beginning, and she had no intention of ever allowing anything or anyone to muddy the waters.
She carried her half-filled glass of champagne into the bedroom, lit a cigarette, and let the smoke drift from her mouth, forming a perfect ring. She placed the champagne flute between the photographs of her father and Ken. She had decided that she would not be able to form a relationship with anyone. Ken would be enough. Losing him had been as painful as losing her father. She picked up the glass and lifted it in a toast.
“I made it, Daddy. You never got further than detective inspector. I’m DCI Travis now, and I am going to make you so proud of me.”
She sipped the champagne and then looked at the funny photograph of Ken as a little boy in his clown’s outfit. No, there would not be time for anyone else now. The ambitious streak that had always been inside her was now full-blown — and she would allow nothing to stand in her way.