A boy needs his father.
The words flew through her mind, unbidden and unwelcome, and yet there they were. An idea that she believed to be the truth, perhaps the very reason Max had chosen to go to Dad this time with his questions and not her.
The more she’d considered what Max had done, the more her heart had broken. He’d come to her before, but he’d not trusted that she would tell him the truth because she never had. She’d merely dodged and weaved through his questions, employing the tactics of misdirection and evasiveness.
“Let’s get to bed.” She placed her arm on her son’s shoulders and wove through the furniture and the main part of the house to the door that led to their private quarters. Once they were in Max’s room, Scout circled and fell with a satisfied groan onto his bed. Max crawled into his own bed, and Aubrey tucked him beneath a light blanket. She relished these moments and realized they would grow more and more infrequent. Soon, not long from now, he’d tell her to stop tucking him in. Even now she could only get away with this maternal endeavor when he was half-asleep and it was late in the evening.
She bent forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. She pulled back and his eyes, those eyes of his father, gazed at her. A question, a thought, seemed to linger deep within his expression.
“Mom? There’s something … I mean, I need to tell you something.”
“I know, sweetie, but it’s late. I promise we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
He nodded and his eyes fluttered closed. The conversation she’d dreaded having was about to happen. Once she told him … Once she let him know that he was the only living heir to one of the world’s biggest fortunes, what would happen then? Would she lose her son? Would he become a true Travati, bent on pleasure and self-destructive tendencies? Wanting to taste every delight life had to offer? Would he leave her and Rockwater Farms and their quiet, provincial existence far far behind? How could she protect him, how could she prevent his leaving? But he already knew … he knew some of what he was, because of Dad. Again she took one long look at her son, her one and only son, who for one more night, one final time, was her one and only, belonging to no one else, her little baby boy.
*
Justin was always prepared. Preparedness had made him hundreds of millions of dollars, which in turn had made his family billionaires. He wouldn’t arrive in Hudson, Kansas, unprepared. To do so would be negligence. He scrolled through photos that Roger, the head of security for Travati Finance, had sent to his tablet.
“What you’re saying is, the dates match up?” His gaze landed on a photo of a boy.
His breath stalled in his lungs and his nostrils flared. This picture, this child, aside from one feature, looked identical to him. The green eyes. The green eyes of his mother.
An acid combination of rage mixed with pain pulsed through Justin’s chest. Aubrey had kept him from his one living heir. She had become pregnant and swept away his son, had hidden this child from him. Why? What kind of monster did she suppose him to be?
“The sister is a world-class chef. Struggles with some anger issues and got tossed from a number of top-ranked kitchens around the world before she and Aubrey started The Red Barn at Rockwater Farms.”
Justin pulled the digital image of his son into the upper right corner of the screen and continued to scroll through the pictures of Rockwater Farms. He was an urbanite but could appreciate the beauty of Rockwater. A small organic farm nestled on the side of a hill, made lush green by the river that ran through their property.
“Financials?” Justin asked. Through years of business acquisitions, he’d learned that many things could be determined about a person based on their financials. Their desires, what was truly important to them, what they wanted most from life, all could be discovered by what they spent their money on.
“Last page.”
He scrolled and perused what was highly detailed and personal information about Rockwater and Aubrey and Nina and Roy. Information he would never ask Roger where he’d gotten it from or how.
“Making a slight profit this year but running very close to the line. Capitalization is good. Looks as though Miss Hayes remains as risk intolerant as she was when she worked for me.” Justin scrolled to the next page. “Any substantial relationships?”
His feelings were confused. This cocktail of anger mixed with jealousy and desire with hints of melancholy was hard for him to choke down.
“No, sir.” Roger shook his head. “Maybe a date here and there over the past few years, but nothing serious, nothing substantial. It would seem that the only men in Miss Hayes’s life are her father and her son.”