A Forever Love (19 page)

There was Max. Heading down the steps. He wouldn’t expect Justin, as he’d been riding home with Dolby all week, but Justin had contacted Dolby’s mother to tell her that he’d pick up Max today. He pressed the button and lowered the window of the Range Rover.

“Max!” Justin called and waved to his son.

Max’s head swiveled toward the sound of Justin’s voice and a smile flew over his face. Justin’s heart exploded with the look on Max’s face. Of course they were developing a relationship and they seemed to be getting on well, and yes, Max did call him dad, but it was in this moment with the effortless smile that Justin thought he might for the first time understand what it meant to be a father. Max walked toward the car, waving good-bye to his friends, the smile still plastered to his face.

Then it hit Justin like a full load of bricks to his head. He would cause that smile to fade and possibly fall. He would cause his son, in this next few minutes, to question his newfound father’s devotion and his importance in Justin’s life. Then Justin would leave him and fly away in his private jet, and Max would most assuredly wonder if Justin would return for him as he’d promised. But they had no history, there was no precedent upon which Max could rely. He’d only have his father’s word, a man he’d just met. Justin suddenly understood all the things Aubrey had said and why. Suddenly it was all painfully clear.

“Hey, Dad,” Max said and pulled open the car door. He slid into the seat and plopped his books onto his lap. “Thanks for picking me up. I didn’t expect you.” He said it as though it were a pleasant surprise, as though Justin had made his day by simply showing up, and perhaps he had.

Justin’s chest tightened, and dammit, a lump thickened his throat. Max pulled at the seat belt and thrust it into the clasp.

“So what’s up?”

Justin put the car in drive. Suddenly this conversation didn’t feel as though it was easy or painless or uncomplicated. Suddenly the very idea of disappointing his son simply for business seemed like the worst decision in the world.

“Max,” Justin started and cleared his voice. “There’s something I need to ask you.” He carefully pulled into traffic.

“Okay,” Max said. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and scrolled down the screen, looking for any important text or picture he might have missed during his three-hour enrichment program.

“It seems there’s a problem at home.”

“The farm?”

“No, I’m sorry. Not that home. My home, your other home, or what I hope someday you’ll think of as your other home.”

“Uh-huh,” Max said, his focus still obviously divided between his phone and his father.

“There are two major deals falling apart, and it would seem one of your uncles needs help. Leo, my brother, can’t get back from Dubai until end of week, possibly next, and Anthony is in China for another seven days.”

“Guess it’s good we’re going back in three days.”

Justin took a deep breath. How to explain to a fourteen-year-old boy that seventy-two hours was seventy-two hours too long? “Yes, well, that’s the problem. This problem in New York can’t wait.”

Max looked up from his phone. Slowly his face turned toward Justin. And the smile was gone. The happy, effervescent smile that had indicated how much Max loved his father had disappeared from his face, and with it came the horrible guilt Justin had never felt before, a deep, leaden creature that collapsed his belly and tightened his limbs. Never had he ever felt as though disappointing another human could cause him so much personal pain.

“If it’s okay with you, I need to return to New York today. Now. After we go back to the farm.”

“Oh,” Max said. He set his phone on his books and stared out the windshield. “Right. I mean sure. I understand.”

He was a good kid, and he said all the right words.

“Do you? Because Max, I wouldn’t leave now, before we’re meant to leave together, unless it was important.”

“Dad, I get it. You have a big business to run. I understand. Really.” Max pulled at the chest strap of his seat belt. “If you can’t wait, you can’t wait.” He turned toward Justin and pushed a smile to his face. A false smile. A smile he’d seen on his mother’s face so many times before this, but in Max’s eyes was disappointment and sadness and so many things that Justin didn’t want to see.

“I will be back as soon as the matter is settled. It should take four days to a week tops, and then I’ll come back and we’ll go to New York or I’ll send for you.”

“Right,” Max said, his voice trailing off. “Guess we won’t get too much time in the city. You know football practice starts in a couple of weeks.”

“But we will get time. We’ll have time together. We’ll do all the touristy things you want and you’ll meet your uncles.”

Max nodded and swallowed his words. Justin could see him doing it, not wanting to show how disappointed he was, not wanting to disappoint his father, wanting to be strong for his dad.

“Your mom didn’t think it would be right for you to leave your enrichment program early.”

“Sounds like her,” Max said. His voice dripped with bitterness.

“I agreed with her.”

“Yeah, right. I’m sure you did.”

Justin turned down the gravel road that led to Rockwater Farms. There were other things he wanted to say, maybe even things he needed to say, but he didn’t know how, the words didn’t seem to form. Instead, he drove in silence, knowing that he had, for the first time, deeply disappointed his son.

Four days turned into seven and seven turned into twelve, and with each passing day Aubrey watched Max deflate. Sure, Max and Justin Skyped on the fancy new phone with fancy new service that Justin had sent upon his return to New York. A guilt present, as Aubrey thought of it. As Max deflated, Aubrey simply fumed. Her anger grew larger and larger and ate at her insides. She didn’t speak to Justin, didn’t text or e-mail. This was her old fear come to life, that Justin would abandon Max and her and everything that was important for Travati Financial. Hadn’t he proven that making money was the most important thing in his life? Not making a family or taking care of their son. And while she wanted to feel vindicated, as though Justin’s actions proved to her and the world and her family that her decision fifteen years before had been the right one, instead she simply felt angry for Max and weirdly sad for herself and even for Justin.

“You going to sit in here and fume all day?”

“Why not? Seems to be the only place I can sulk.”

“He knows you’re mad.”

“Which one?”

“Both,” Nina said. “Max mentioned it yesterday and Justin did today.”

Aubrey’s head popped up. “Justin? You’ve been speaking to Justin?”

“Well, you won’t, and he does want to know what’s really going on with his son. Whether Max is just putting on a brave face or is incredibly devastated by his father’s disappearing act.”

“Traitor,” Aubrey mumbled and looked back at her computer screen. She wouldn’t ask, she didn’t want to know, she didn’t even care how worried Justin was about Max, or whether he was finally going to return to Rockwater Farms before school started as he’d promised Max. The man was running out of time as far as a New York trip was concerned.

“Have you even looked at the news? Seen why he went back?”

“I don’t care.”

“Maybe you should. Hostile-takeover attempt out of the Middle East. Brother accused of running a prostitution ring out of two of the Travati clubs. Justin acting as the solid big brother trying to save them all.”

“His monkey, his circus. He can clean up the messes he’s made. He left one here for me to deal with.”

“Really?” Nina set a piece of key lime pie on Aubrey’s desk.

“What do you want?” Aubrey eyed the pie with suspicion. Nina didn’t bake. She wasn’t a baker. Never. Not that she couldn’t, because she could. In fact, pie crusts and cinnamon rolls and
tres leches
cakes made by Nina were to die for, but she didn’t unless it was a birthday, Christmas, or Nina desperately wanted something.

Aubrey eyed the pie. She could taste it without lifting a fork, and her salivary glands were suddenly working overtime. But if she touched that plate, took one bite of that pie, her favorite pie, any resistance she had to whatever request her little sister was about to make would evaporate into the air.

Aubrey pushed back from her desk and away from the pie. “Again I ask, what do you want?” There was too much at risk now that she knew her sister was a spy working for Justin Travati.

Nina folded herself into the chair opposite Aubrey’s desk. Uh-oh. The alarm bells in Aubrey’s head started to clang. Pie and Nina was sitting down. Digging in for the long haul of a conversation. This didn’t look good.

“I hear there’s pie.”

“Dad is here too?”

Nina nodded with a wicked gleam in her eye. Oh no. This was bad. Very, very bad.

Dad walked into the office, already halfway through his first slice. “My God, Nina, why do you waste your time being a chef when you can make pie like this?” Dad took another big bite and sat in the chair next to Nina.

“Why are you both here?” Aubrey asked. She could count on one hand the number of times Nina and Dad had been in her office at the same time. Two were coincidence and the other was when Max fell off the jungle gym at school and broke his arm.

“Try the pie,” Nina said and raised one eyebrow. The wicked little-sister gleam remained in her eyes, and the corner of her lips lifted into a half smile.

“Not falling for that one.” But Aubrey looked at the pie and then at Dad taking the final bit of his slice.

“If you don’t, Aubrey, girl, then I will,” Dad said and reached for the plate on her desk.

“That’s mine,” Aubrey said and lifted the plate. The moment her fingertips touched the porcelain, she knew she was a goner. She might have resisted with the piece an arm’s reach away, but now that she had the plate, the pie, and a fork, the end was inevitable. She took her finger and swiped through the fresh whipped cream that dotted the slice of key lime pie’s surface. My God, that was good. She lifted the fork and slid it through the thick, rich goodness. One bite. Heaven. Pure, wonderful, sweet-tart heaven.

“So why are you here?” She didn’t even care why these two were in her office now that she had started eating this delicious pie. A look passed between Nina and Dad. Dad nodded toward Aubrey, and Nina cleared her throat.

“We want you to take Max to New York.”

Suddenly the pie tasted like wet paper.

“What?”

“He needs to go to New York, and we want you to take him,” Dad said. “Pretty clear, isn’t it? The plane will be here tomorrow and you’ll go.” Dad stood and scraped his hands down the front of his pants. “See, Nina, told you that you didn’t need to bake a damn pie, but I’m glad you did. Is there more?”

“Wait? What? You two think that you can come in here and order me to take Max to New York? With a piece of pie?”

“Order’s an awfully strong word, honey,” Dad said. “More like encouraging. We need you to do this.”

“For Justin? I’m not doing this for Justin. He promised Max he’d come back and get him, and he can haul his ass back to Kansas and do exactly what he said he’d do.”

“Aubrey.” Dad settled his gaze on her face. “We’re not asking you to do this for Justin. I wouldn’t give much more than a rat’s ass about that guy except for one thing.”

Aubrey stared at her father. “And that is?”

“He’s Max’s dad. Max needs this, Aubrey. We’re not asking you to go for Justin. We’re asking you to go for Max.”

“Neither one of us want him to go alone, especially with everything going on at Travati Financial. Max might get lost in the shuffle, but if you go—”

“Then none of us, including you, have to worry about Max.”

“Are you kidding? No way,” Aubrey said. “I’m not taking Max to New York. Why should I help to fix Justin’s fu—” She glanced at her father, who raised an eyebrow. “Mess. Why should I clean up Justin’s mess?”

“Because anything having to do with Max is our mess too,” Nina said. “Hudson isn’t a big city, Aubrey. He’s already gotten some heat for not going to Justin’s when he thought he was. You know he told all his friends he’s going to New York. You don’t want him to start high school with his tail between his legs, having to explain to every kid that’s heard just who he is why his dad didn’t take him to New York like he said he would.”

“Peer pressure, plain and simple.”

“Don’t act like you were immune,” Dad said. “I remember a freshman who burned her scalp trying to make her curls straight so she could look like all them other freshman girls at Hudson High.”

Aubrey touched her curls. That was a bad memory. Loads of tears and a trip to the salon with Mom to try to fix that mess. Aubrey took a deep breath. Max would already have a target on his back because he was now the “different” kid with a “different” family. Sure, he’d been different before because of not having a dad around, but single-parent households weren’t all that uncommon, even in Hudson, Kansas. Billionaires were uncommon. Dammed uncommon, and now her son was a Travati, heir to a billion dollars, with a dad who had a private jet, a couple of sports teams, and mansions around the world.

“Being a freshman is already tough, but he’ll have hell to pay.”

Aubrey closed her eyes. Max had been putting on a brave face, but she could see the disappointment in his eyes. Even after he spoke to Justin nearly every night, Max still seemed sad because his big trip to New York to meet his uncles and see his dad’s place hadn’t materialized.

“Fine.” Aubrey crossed her arms over her chest. “I suppose Justin is complicit in this plan?”

“You leave at eight a.m. on the Travati jet tomorrow,” Nina said.

“What, is it already here?”

Dad looked at Nina and a sly grin started across his face. “Let’s just say your transportation is en route.”

“Glad to see everyone just
knew
I’d say yes to this little trip.” She lifted her plate of pie and forked the final bite into her mouth. She hadn’t returned to New York City since her exit when pregnant with Max.

A shiver raced down her spine. The city would be the city, but many things had changed in her life since then. Max. Max’s father. She didn’t even have to ask where she and Max were expected to stay. Justin’s place was most likely big enough that they could stay a week and not bump into each other.