A Forever Love (4 page)

“You know my feelings on it, they’re similar to Dad’s. Kind of surprised you kept this from Max this long. I mean, he’s the only living heir to one of the biggest fortunes in the world.”

Aubrey dropped into her desk chair. “But I don’t want him to be the heir.”

“Right.” Nina rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “You’ve gotten what you wanted for Max’s entire life. You’ve kept him to yourself on this farm, an hour from the nearest city—”

“He goes to school, he has friends.”

“Yes. Yes, he does. All I’m saying is you’ve kept him to yourself and now he wants to know who he is and obviously from last night he’s going to get answers from whomever he needs to get them. Yesterday he went to Dad, today he goes to the Internet. Tomorrow, who knows? I think you’re really missing out on an opportunity here. I mean come on, just for a minute, remember who you were at fourteen, okay? Think about if it were you finding all this out and that Mom and Dad hadn’t told you the truth.”

Aubrey’s chest tightened. “Shit.” Her eyes flicked toward Nina, who leaned against a shelf filled with cookbooks.

“Right.”

Aubrey pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “I’m going to be really lucky if he doesn’t hate me.”

“He’s a pretty great kid with a really sharp brain in his head. You might get by with six months, maybe twelve, of his hating you.”

Aubrey’s fingertips tingled. “What if Max wants to meet his father?”

“Oh, that’s a gimme, isn’t it? I mean he’s totally going to want to meet his dad.”

“But … I mean … I never …”

“I know.” Nina pushed away from the bookshelf and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s going to be a tough summer all the way around.” She pulled her pink bandanna from her head. “I’m gonna go say good-bye to Maxie. I’ll see you later tonight.”

A vise gripped her ribs as Aubrey nodded.

“Hang tough, big sister. Max loves you and so do I. Change isn’t always a bad thing, it’s just hard to get used to.” Nina walked out of Aubrey’s office.

She stared out at the rolling hills that led to the Kaw River. What had she done? Had she really believed that Max would never need to know his father? What had seemed for years like a good plan to keep her son safe now seemed like a foolish fairy tale.

She’d kept pushing off the questions from Max. Dad and Nina were right—she’d been in a solid state of denial, which had allowed her to keep thinking Max was a baby, a child, her little boy, and not an adolescent getting ready to tip into adulthood.

He did need his father, and of course he would be angry. She only hoped he would understand the choices she’d made, that he wouldn’t become intoxicated with all the glitter and money and power and access that the Travati name provided. That Max wouldn’t forget about his mother and Rockwater Farms and forever leave her for the heady world of New York and finance.

She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. Who was she kidding? He was a Travati. She could hope, but that wouldn’t be the case. Max had his father’s competitive streak as well as the compassion that came from her side. He was a Travati, and he would be in business most likely, no matter what she did. At the very most, she had him for another four years until he was eighteen.

She walked across the room and opened the office door. How could she convince Max not to reach out to his father, not yet, not now? She needed Max to wait until he was eighteen to contact Justin. Max contacting Justin now was simply too dangerous for her and for Max and for the safe, comfortable life she’d worked so hard to create for them both at Rockwater Farms.

Her heart hammered. She closed her eyes, pulled in a deep breath, and stood. The thing she remembered most about working with Justin Travati, aside from a desire that had consumed her entire being, was that Justin always got what was his.
Please God, don’t let Justin Travati find out about Max.

*

While The Red Barn at Rockwater Farms might be one of the best restaurants in America, and potentially would become one of the best restaurants in the world, this place definitely wasn’t easy to get to. Justin’s plane landed at the tiny airport in Lawrence and then drove to Hudson, Kansas, population five thousand.

Fury pulsed through his heart. This was where his only child lived? He stared out the window at the miles and miles of wide-open space containing nothing but wheat. His lips thinned and his eyebrows pulled tight when they drove into town on Main Street. Backward-looking people in Walmart duds walked along the sidewalks. What kind of education could Max possibly be getting here? What connections was he making? A waste of time and talent for Max to spend his formative years in Hudson, Kansas.

He checked into his hotel, which was really a motel with a lobby. His room had a musty odor, twin beds, and a view of the courthouse brick wall. He walked toward the other window and pulled back the drapes. He didn’t like this place. He didn’t like Hudson, Kansas, or the people who walked down the street in shorts and tank tops, wearing trucker caps with seed-company logos and athletic shoes. No, the most middle of America he would ever feel remotely comfortable in was Chicago, and even there he sensed a Midwestern familiarity that made him cringe. A backwardness really. People constantly smiled and said hello. Give him a New York state of mind. Keep to yourself. You don’t bump me, and I won’t bump you. We’ll be all good. Even L.A. was a bit too touchy-feely. He didn’t trust a place without seasons.

Justin pulled his laptop from his bag. He didn’t intend to stay long. Work would be his focus until his nine p.m. seating. He had more information to review about Max and Aubrey and what they were doing out here in the middle of nowhere.

Of course, once he’d received the file from Roger, Justin remembered that Aubrey was from this tiny town in the middle of Kansas. When he’d hired her, fresh out of business school, she’d by then been six years in the Ivies and he’d thought, erroneously, that a pedigreed education complete with East Coast friends and a job had rinsed this entire background from her blood.

Obviously he’d been wrong. Once Aubrey discovered her pregnancy, she’d run for home like a salmon swimming upstream. She run away from him and his money and his power. Why? Most women, even professional women such as Aubrey, would have thought a one-night stand resulting in a Travati heir to be their golden ticket to eternal financial security. But not Aubrey. Instead, she’d fled, financed a very difficult business, and spent night and day building a business and raising her son … possibly his son … their son.

He set his laptop on the desk and walked to the window. Down the street on the other side of the town square, three streets over, kids swarmed around a public pool. Was Max there right now? Was his son actually swimming in that pool with his backward-looking Midwestern friends? Thankfully, aside from the very cheap shirt that his son was wearing in the school picture Roger had found, Max looked good. You could picture him at any East Coast private prep school, which was just exactly where he’d be by the end of summer. Liza was already on it. She had contacted Exeter, Roxbury, Andover. Justin would donate a new multimillion-dollar library if needed, but a Travati would get the best education on the planet. Of that Justin would make certain.

He wasn’t about to let the opportunities that he’d worked so hard to provide slip by his son. Justin hadn’t attended prep school. He’d scratched and clawed and gotten his start by hustling hard. Junior college and then Fordham. But he came from a long line of shrewd and keen businesspeople, and with a couple of breaks, a touch of insider trading, and some very questionable loans, he was now on top with billions. He was also aboveboard. Money could buy that; money could scrub you clean if you let it, and he had. Sure, you needed to cut some corners to make the fortune, but once he’d amassed his money, he’d gone legit, completely legit.

He sat on several charitable boards. He was now the crème de la crème, whereas when he graduated college he wouldn’t have been allowed to polish a
Fortune
500 CEO’s shoes. Now he was one. Golfed with them. Yachted, dined, played tennis, and vacationed with the business elite. So yes, he was deeply ensconced in the well-heeled set.

So would be his son.

He slipped out his phone and pressed 1. “Liza, did you contact the attorneys I wanted you to speak with?”

“Yes, sir. They’ve begun all the necessary paperwork to file when the test comes back positive.”

“Excellent.” Justin’s eyes swept around the room. “So you’re telling me this is the
only
hotel available to me in Hudson? The only thing close to The Red Barn at Rockwater?”

Liza, who was usually quick to reply, paused. “Well, sir, there is one other place, but I was certain that you wouldn’t want to stay there because—”

“What’s the other place?”

“Rockwater Farms has three guest suites.”

Heat bubbled through Justin’s blood. He squinted his eyes. “Excuse me?”

She cleared her throat. “Sir, I assumed with the details of your trip that you wouldn’t want to stay at Rockwater Farms …” Her voice trailed off. “I apologize, sir. I think I may have overstepped.”

And overstepped she had. “Book it. Now. If the rooms are available, book them all for the next three weeks. Use my pseudonym and call me back.” He pressed End Call on his phone. He understood Liza’s logic, why she’d neglected to give him Rockwater Farms as a possibility for what she thought were all the right reasons. But Liza was wrong. He’d much rather be in the same camp as his enemy. Know them, stay with them, see how they actually worked and lived and played. Personal knowledge was always much more valuable than speculation or what was gleaned through a third party.

Aubrey had taken what was his. Stolen from him his very flesh and blood and not had the decency to let him know he had a son in the world? With such an egregious offense to him and his family, the very least she could do was open up her home to him. He supposed it might be nice for Max to have both his parents in one place, even for a short while. At least before Justin took his son back to New York.

Camp Willow was only ninety-six miles from Rockwater Farms, but for Aubrey it felt as though she were driving to Alaska. The car was silent. Max sat beside her in the front seat, but his eyes were glued to the screen of his cell phone, which was the one concession Aubrey had made to the fact that Max was no longer a little kid. She turned off I-70 and took the frontage road north. The terrain was hilly for Kansas, lush and green and not at all what you’d expect, which was what, in part, at least according to Nina, made Camp Willow so fabulous. The lush timber, the cabins, the lake, the long hikes, canoes, campfires, and friends. Plus the food had been pretty awesome from what Aubrey remembered, but she’d simply missed Mom too much to stay. She glanced at Max. Nina was right; he wouldn’t miss her. He’d be fine at Camp Willow.

“So listen, buddy, there are a couple of things we need to talk about.”

Max grunted but didn’t pull his gaze away from the screen of his phone.

She reached out her hand, anticipating the groan that came from Max’s mouth when he placed his phone into her palm. Except for the computer lab he could visit for half an hour each day, he wouldn’t have access to electronic devices while at Camp Willow. Snail mail and weekly phone calls with Mom, unless of course he asked the camp supervisor for a special call home.

She placed Max’s phone in the cup holder and turned off the frontage road onto a poorly maintained partially hardtop, partially gravel road. Nothing like waiting until the end of the trip to have an important conversation. Nina would tell her just how horrible a job Aubrey had done today because of her choice to put off talking to Max about his dad.

Her stomach twisted and her palms felt moist against the steering wheel. “I talked to Grandpa last night.”

Her eyes flicked from the road toward Max. He was truly half Travati, because his face didn’t flinch. He kept his gaze glued to the gravel road. He lifted his thumb to his mouth and bit a hangnail, the only giveaway that he was bothered or nervous about the topic.

“He mentioned that you had questions.”

Again no motion from Max. Only silence greeted her words. Wow, this was worse than the first time she’d discussed sex with Max, the mechanics of which he’d been fully aware of, having spent his entire childhood growing up on a farm.

“Max? Do you have questions?”

“He answered them.”

Aubrey squirmed and pulled at the seat belt strap. She deserved Max’s silent and sullen response, didn’t she? For the past decade, whenever Max had questions about his dad she’d told him as close to nothing as possible. Why now would he think she would start to answer his questions?

“Max.” Aubrey softened her voice and downshifted. The Jeep took a tight turn around Lake Willow. The pavement ended, and they bounced onto gravel. The entrance to the camp would come up soon on her left. “I want you to know that I’ll answer any questions you have about your—” She swallowed. She didn’t want to say the word to Max. To say it was to acknowledge it and give it power. “Your—”

“You can’t even say it.” Disgust tinged Max’s voice. He shook his head and his gaze landed on Aubrey.

Those damn Travati eyes.

“My father, my dad, the guy you’d be happy if I never met.”

“Max, that’s not true. I do want you to meet him, I do want—”

“Really? You’ve spent my entire life pretending he doesn’t exist. You won’t talk about him, you dodge my questions. His name isn’t even on my birth certificate.”

“You saw your birth certificate?”

“Mom, seriously, yes, I’ve seen my birth certificate.” He leaned forward and lifted his backpack onto his lap and unzipped the front flap.

“Max, it’s not that I don’t want you to meet your father. I just always wanted you to meet him at the right time, when you were older, more formed, more—”

“Why?”

Her heart kicked in her chest. How to answer that question? Honestly? Because he could easily take you away from me? Because he has a billion dollars and an army of lawyers, but I’m concerned he doesn’t have a soul? Because I don’t want you contaminated by the lifestyle he leads? No. No she wouldn’t say any of those things to her son with the confusion in his eyes and the hint of judgment edging his face.