by Maggie Marr
He glanced at his watch. A few minutes and he’d make his entrance at The Red Barn. He walked into the tiny kitchenette and poured a glass of pinot noir. The wine, a good wine, actually a very good wine, had greeted him on the counter. There’d been other little gifts about the room. A cheese plate, fresh fruit, a pinot gris and champagne chilling in the wine chiller.
Finally, two thousand miles from New York, he’d arrived at a location that seemed civilized. No musty odor, no damp carpet or comforter with holes on a lumpy bed. This place, the suites at Rockwater Farms, was world-class and the rooms were indeed for a discerning guest who would travel long distances for a first-rate meal. Rockwater was an entire experience. They had tours of the organic farm, horse rides, boat trips on the Kaw River, and hikes and Jeep trips.
Aubrey had taken the sour lemons of a Midwestern existence and made a freshly squeezed glass of lemonade with mint and lavender served in a hand-cut crystal glass. Light faded and Justin could make out the shadows of the timber that led to the river in the distance. Perhaps not a bad place for a boy to grow up? Wide-open spaces with world-class food. He’d examined the guest library that Rockwater maintained. The university was fifteen miles away, a state school, but still … A long sip of wine. His gaze swept out over the long, open landscape.
No. Rockwater Farms was lovely, but his son was growing up in Hicksville, USA. Not making the necessary connections and friendships. Not becoming the future of Travati Financial simply by virtue of being surrounded by the other children of the elite. According to what Roger had found regarding Max’s birth certificate, Max had no knowledge of his family. Unless Aubrey had told Max of his lineage, which he doubted based on Max’s e-mail. Max knew only what he’d learned on the Internet of the Travati wealth and power. Nor did Max know that one day he would be required to step into the position of leader of Travati Financial. Max’s training could not begin too soon. Already, Aubrey had robbed Justin of Max’s formative years. Justin would miss no more time with his son. He took a long drink of his wine and set the glass on the counter. He flipped off the light, opened the door, and walked toward the dining room where he would soon see the woman who haunted his dreams and who’d stolen his son and the future of his family.
He’d soon see Aubrey Hayes.
*
Aubrey arrived back at Rockwater Farms well after the nine p.m. service began. She’d lingered at Camp Willow, hoping to speak to Max once more about his father, but Max hadn’t wanted to talk. He’d walked with his friends to his cabin and given her a quick good-bye. She’d talked to the parents of his cabinmates, most of the kids the same boys who had been on Max’s junior high basketball team. He settled into his bunk, and she’d overheard the boys devising a scheme to keep their contraband electronics hidden from the Camp Willow counselors. Good luck with that, because she remembered Nina saying she never got anything by the counselors at Camp Willow.
The return trip to Rockwater was long. Melancholy, held tight in the hand of remorse, clutched her heart. Max wasn’t a child. He wasn’t a little boy. He definitely wasn’t the little chubby-faced child who lingered in her mind and whom she missed with each passing day. How had she failed to notice him becoming a young man? She’d firmly held on to the warm cloak of denial even while Dad and Nina kept trying to pull her out of her mommy slumber and into the present. A present that contained a soon-to-be high schooler with a very rich and powerful father.
How would she go about setting such a meeting? Simply send Justin an e-mail or put in a call? He wouldn’t believe her. He’d think she was making some sort of pathetic attempt to extort money from him. He’d demand tests and lawyers and papers and court documents. What kind of damage would all that do to Max’s psyche? She supposed she could send Justin a picture. Could he possibly deny those Travati eyes? Once he saw Max, could Justin question that the boy was his?
Once home, she quickly changed into a slim black pencil skirt and a blue blouse that glanced over her round curves. She swept her auburn curls up into a chignon and secured them with an emerald clip. Fire-red tendrils framed her face. A quick touch of blush, a swipe of mascara, and a dash of lipstick and she was out the farmhouse door and down the path to The Red Barn.
Nina texted that the early service went well, but the nine p.m. was a bumpy ride. The guests were on their third course and Nina had yet to leave the kitchen. Aubrey pushed open the glass door and walked into the main room. The bar was pristine with its hammered copper and hardwood and lovely river rock stone. Brandon, one of two bartenders at Rockwater Farms, nodded to her. She forced a smile to her lips. Fear about Max’s future exacerbated by fatigue pitted her stomach, but she had no time for self-indulgence. She’d taken off the entire day to get Max to camp, and Nina and The Red Barn deserved her focus.
She walked through the bar and past the kitchen and into the giant dining room with high rafters, floor-to-ceiling windows, low lighting, and candles. Wooden sculptures by Dad and clusters of branches decorated the main room and provided privacy and sound blocks for the forty-eight diners, tonight forty-nine with the plus one who had joined them for the late-dinner service.
She pulled in a long breath, focused her attention, and attempted to center herself. Her gaze skimmed the room. She searched for flaws in service, hints of anxiety in the staff, empty wineglasses, any little detail that could throw off the experience for a guest at The Red Barn. Each of the twelve tables appeared happy. She skirted the edge of the dining room, smiling and nodding and stopping to speak with the many guests who’d made the pilgrimage to The Red Barn to experience Chef Nina’s amazing cuisine. Repeat business was pulling them out of the red. Repeat business and weddings.
Once past table twelve, she looked up. They’d brought in an extra table this night for the Times’s food critic’s friend. The special guest. The VIP. Aubrey looked over past the branches and the hanging wooden mobile titled Flight by her father, toward this special guest.
Her heart stopped.
Golden-brown eyes locked with hers.
His jaw tightened.
Not a flicker of a smile. Not a hint of kindness.
She forced air into her lungs.
He raised an eyebrow.
Justin Travati could only be here for one reason … because he already knew about his son.
Chapter 5
The pull of Aubrey’s beauty held Justin’s gaze. She walked toward him, her green eyes sparkling in the candlelight. Her figure was still full of curves that she chose to embrace and not hide. Her breasts were a little fuller, her hips a bit rounder, but there was still her lush mouth, her fair skin, and that damn red hair. Fire red, curls framed her face. Desire thrust through him.
Damn Aubrey. A man’s body was a betrayal. How unfair that he could be angry and certain of his dislike for this woman, a onetime lover who’d stolen the one thing he could never have, and yet still want her. His sex grew thick. Desire thrummed between them as it had when they’d worked side by side years ago.
“Justin.” Her voice was cool and firm, but her eyelashes fluttered. She patted her hair with her hand. He remembered both movements. He’d watched her negotiate deals, and both were tiny tells he remembered. While her eyes and her voice didn’t betray her nervousness, the touch of her hand to her vibrant hair did. That damn hair. His eyes roamed over the red he remembered running through his fingertips, mesmerized by the color, the feel of her curls against his skin.
“Aubrey.” He stood and leaned forward. He pressed his lips to her cheek, a European greeting, but in that moment the press of his mouth to her flesh held more meaning than hello.
Her body stiffened. Heat thrilled through him and also through her. This attraction was too intense for her not to feel. A wicked smile pulsed around the corners of his lips. Yes, let her be uncomfortable. He wanted her off-balance. Perhaps even with a hint of fear. She’d taken from him, lied by omission, kept him away from his son.
He held her upper arm and kept her close. Her breathing was short
, and the pulse in her neck fluttered like a hummingbird escaping a cat.
“You’re looking well, Aubrey.” The desire that he didn’t want to feel for this woman throbbed through every cell of his body, and his maleness pressed hard. He’d touched every inch of her skin. Her unchanged scent of lavender with a hint of lemon filled his nose.
Who smelled like that? And how, after this many years, did she still? A long, deep breath and he filled his lungs with her scent.
He leaned down, his fingers still pressing through the fine silk of her blouse, his lips near her ear. Her body quivered as though she were a doe in a wolf’s jaws. She deserved to be afraid. Very, very afraid. No one stole from a Travati.
“I believe you have something of mine,” he whispered in her ear.
She pulled back and her eyes pierced him. Her head cocked to the side and there was a fierceness in her eyes like a lioness with a cub. “Really, Justin? I never thought you’d want what I have.”
Years of closing tightrope, high-finance deals provided him with the discipline to maintain a face like stone while his body reeled and his pulse shot through the stratosphere. Was it fair, her assessment? When they’d worked together before, his lifestyle had been more similar to what Devon’s was now. He’d partied. He’d pursued women. He’d had no desire to settle down, make a family, create a legacy, but then, fifteen years before, he’d thought he had an entire lifetime for a wife and a family. Since then, his entire life had changed.
“It would seem you miscalculated my desires.” Justin returned to his seat and held out his hand, an invitation for Aubrey to sit and join him. They had much to discuss and he guessed most of their talk would be uncomfortable for her.
“Thank you for the invitation.” She nodded her head. “Unfortunately I’m needed here with our guests and then also in the kitchen.”
“After.” Justin lifted his wine and took a drink. “I’m in the Rockwater Suite.”
Her eyes widened. She hadn’t known, but she quickly recovered. “Lovely, isn’t it?”
Deft and charming and still well trained in the art of obfuscation. If Max didn’t know who his father was until recently, he couldn’t be blamed, not with all the ducking and weaving at which Aubrey seemed so adept.
“I’ll expect you around eleven.” Not a demand and not an order, but more than an invitation. Let her fail to arrive at his suite to begin discussions about his only son and see how quickly he traveled up the path to the farmhouse she shared with Max. His restraint at this moment, he thought, was exemplary. The urge to rush to the farmhouse and find his child was nearly impossible to ignore, but he’d give her more respect than she’d given him. More respect than she deserved. Speaking to her and telling her of the decisions he’d made for Max was more than she’d done when she’d stolen their son. Now he held the leverage and the power, and he wasn’t afraid to exert force if necessary.
Aubrey smiled and tilted her head. A yes? He guessed so.
“Enjoy the rest of your meal. The ravioli is superb. Family recipe.”
His chest tightened. The smile he struggled to maintain froze on his lips. “Family? How interesting that you use the word family now, with me. Here.” He leaned back in his chair, and his eyes trailed up from her ankles, over her legs and hips and waist, and lingered on her breasts. “Did you nurse our son?”
Red flamed up her neck and cascaded into her cheeks.
He held her with his gaze. “I’m curious, because I have no memory of him as an infant. The ability to create such memories was stolen from me.”
She swallowed. Her gaze slid about the room. Embarrassed? Perhaps, or perhaps, as when she was younger, she considered her personal affairs private. Whatever the reason, he didn’t care. His temper shook the cage in which he’d thought to lock the feelings of anger that threatened to consume him when he considered the many years he’d not known of Max.
“Service should finish by eleven.” Aubrey’s voice was stiff and controlled. “I’ll see you immediately after.” She turned, and her head raised, she walked to another table and smiled and charmed them.
If he didn’t know Aubrey, if he hadn’t pressed his cock deep into her once upon a time and made her shriek his name, he might believe her practiced nonchalance. But he had fucked her. He’d seen her lips quiver around his cock. He’d heard her call his name as he thrust into her hot entrance and propelled her into the stratosphere of orgasm upon orgasm.
Aubrey didn’t fool him. She was terrified. She did another sweep of the dining room. Not rushing, not acting as though anything was out of the ordinary. Not behaving as though she were a caught thief who’d stolen from him a priceless piece of art. No, Aubrey remained the perfect hostess, the premiere businesswoman. Finally, after a last circle around the dining room and without turning her head to look at him, she exited toward the kitchen, her firm round ass making a spectacular exit.
He lifted his napkin and pressed the linen to his lips. Yes, the physical want for her body, the attraction was still there, but he didn’t have the luxury of indulging his desire for Aubrey. He wanted only one thing from her—not to rekindle their affair but to get what was his, to take home to Manhattan his only son.
*
Crickets chirped in the cool night air. A deep breath. The scent of wet grass and the earthy scent of animals and timber. She remembered nothing of walking from the dining room and down the long hall, through the kitchen, past her office, and out the back door to the small secluded area where waitstaff hid to grab a smoke. She turned the corner past the line of maple trees and stopped at the corner of The Red Barn.
Justin was at Rockwater Farms. He was here for Max. He knew of his son and wanted to take him from her. Her intention to give Max a quiet life filled with substance mattered little to Justin. She’d seen the fury in his eyes. The anger of a Travati who’d been wronged.
A roar pressed between her ears. She bent forward at the waist, and her hand caught the rough wood to steady herself. She could run. Her Jeep was at the house. She could pack a bag, drive to Camp Willow, pick up Max, and disappear long before Justin even realized she was gone.
“Aubrey?”
Nina’s voice rushed to her through the roar of sound in her head.
“Aubrey, are you okay?”
The pressure of Nina’s hand against Aubrey’s back. Aubrey couldn’t stand upright. She turned her head and her eyes met her sister’s gaze.
“He’s here. Justin is here.”
“What?” Nina’s eyebrows crinkled. “Justin—”
“Is here. In the dining room. He has the Rockwater Suite. He’s the VIP the Times critic called about.”
“Not a coincidence?”
Another deep breath and finally she stood. She planted her hand on her hip and pressed the other one through her hair. “Not a coincidence. He’s in Kansas, a thousand miles from New York, and Max just asked Dad about Justin. I do not believe my life to be that coincidental.” Her tongue chased across her lips. Her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t seem to swallow.
“Why now?”
“Wasn’t it you who said I was naive about what Max knew and didn’t know? One Internet search, one e-mail or phone call, and look who’s here. Daddy in his private jet with a dozen well-trained lawyers all ready to take away my son.”
“You don’t know that’s true.” Nina pressed her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Service is nearly finished. Go. Talk to him. Figure this out. At the very least make certain he’s not planning on taking Max. You can be persuasive. He’ll understand that Rockwater Farms is still the best place for Max.”
Guilt fluttered through Aubrey. How many lies had she told to even her family to try to protect Max? Would Justin understand? His eyes didn’t hold any understanding. No, she’d seen only anger and contempt and barely contained rage. Part of her already felt a weary defeat. The heat that thrummed through her body in Justin’s presence combined with fear and the feeling that she deserved everything she got; she deserved Max’
s anger and Justin’s rage because of her dishonesty and her failure to tell her son the truth. Her motives really didn’t matter, did they?
She stood and followed Nina into the kitchen. She pulled herself together and watched from the back window as the guests slowly left the restaurant. Finally Justin walked out of the front door. A stark, strong figure, he walked along the path toward his luxury suite. He was … he was still gorgeous, and he was her son’s father. How could she ever explain to him what she’d done? She couldn’t. There were no words to help a father understand why he’d never met his fourteen-year-old son.
A fierce desire to protect Max pummeled her. She could pack two bags, get in the Jeep, and be at Camp Willow in under two hours. She had cash squirreled away in different hidey-holes at Rockwater. Her nightmares had always included a Travati security team descending upon Rockwater Farms and taking Max. Not too far-fetched when dealing with one of the wealthiest men in the world. Her Jeep, Max, the open road. He wouldn’t complain too much once they hit the Rocky Mountains. He’d always loved Colorado with the cool fresh air, the mountains, and the aspen trees. She’d tell Max this was a last-minute summer trip or that Nina had asked her to check out a couple of new restaurants she’d heard about in Colorado.
Yes, she wanted to escape with her son, but running away now would only confirm what Justin believed. He would never stop until he had Max. Now that it seemed he had interest in being a father, Justin would hunt them down.
She walked through the kitchen again and waved good night to the staff. She so desperately wanted to escape instead of confronting the new reality that would include Max’s father. Her heart crumpled. This quiet, lovely life had ended tonight when she saw Justin. Regardless of her reasons, whether sound or flawed, she’d taken the memories of Max’s childhood from Justin. Now her baby boy was ready to enter high school, and Justin was here to claim his son.
