“I e-mailed my dad.”
Her heart stopped. Her chest tightened. A roar started in her ears. The smile, the smile she’d so carefully crafted and plastered to her face, was slipping, sliding like a pile of dirt in a rainstorm.
“Mom? You okay?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” She nodded her head and tried to look calm. Panic would help neither of them or their relationship. “And did he respond?”
“Dunno, I mean, I think so. I thought I saw an e-mail with the name Travati on it, but that’s when Purcell, our CA, walked in, saw the phone, and took it.” Max set his elbow on the desk and leaned on his fist. “Are you mad?”
Aubrey shook her head. “Nope. Not mad. Surprised, maybe, but not mad.” She was breathing again. Words were forming in her mind … but what to say … what to tell him … that Justin was here? That not only had he responded to Max’s e-mail but immediately flown to Kansas to track down his son?
“Okay, well, in case you hear from him, I thought you should know. I …” He looked away and then turned back toward the screen. “I love you, Mom. I just … I just … I need to know.”
Aubrey nodded. She fought the tears that were flooding her eyes. Of course he needed to know. This was Max’s father. The man that should be in his life. The man she’d intentionally kept from him for no other reason than her own fear.
“Max—”
A voice sounded from across the room.
“Gotta go, Mom. They’re calling for dinner. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Max—” But the screen went black. Gone. Max was gone. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. What had she done? What had she done to her son?
*
The knock on the door surprised Justin. He’d just shut down his laptop and was heading to bed in his pajama bottoms and nothing else. He certainly didn’t expect anyone, and not the woman who stood at his doorway when he opened the door. He’d given her three days’ distance since the last time she’d arrived at his suite.
“May I come in?” Aubrey held her head high and her chin jutted forward, but a softness inhabited her eyes and gave away her apprehension over being here and seeing him again.
Justin stepped away from the doorway. “Of course.”
She walked in and patted her hair with her hand, then clasped her hands and walked to the living room. She didn’t sit but instead paced forward and back, keeping a tight grip on her hands. “Okay. Here’s the thing”—she took a deep breath—“you have a right to be here.” She turned toward him and paused, her gaze tangled with his. “In fact, a part of me”—she took another deep breath—“is thankful that you’re here. Because at the very least it proves that you have a strong interest in your son.”
Justin settled on the arm of the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. He remembered this Aubrey, the woman who didn’t admit that she was wrong. Fresh out of grad school, when working for him, the few mistakes she’d made, her type A personality had demanded she find the reasons for her errors, catalog those reasons, and learn from them. Which she did, and it seemed she was doing the same now.
“Your assessment was correct.” She stopped pacing and looked straight into his eyes. “I was afraid. I was afraid of what your reaction would be if I told you I was pregnant. Scared that you’d assume I’d done so intentionally, to get at you, to get at your money, to trap you. I couldn’t live with that. Also, I didn’t want the pressure that I assumed would come from you.”
“Pressure?”
Aubrey looked away from him, her gaze turned toward the floor. “To terminate the pregnancy.”
Justin’s heart nearly burst from his chest. Heat seared through his soul. “Why would you assume such a thing? Why would you think that I wouldn’t want my own child?”
Aubrey pulled at her hands and started to pace once more. “Do you remember who you were then? Do you truly remember your lifestyle? Justin, please. You may now be willing to become a parent, but fifteen years ago? I think you bedded a different supermodel nearly every night.”
He tilted his head to the side. He did remember those days. Filled with frivolity and hedonistic pleasures. Wine, women, and loads of parties. He’d been young and sowing his oats. Her eyes filled with melancholy, her full lips turned down, her chest heaved as though she’d just finished a forty-yard sprint.
“Aubrey, you were different than those women.” His eyes traveled over her body, and again his gaze locked with those brilliant green eyes. “You knew you were different.”