Justin raised a brow. “She sent the recipe to my chef.”
“You have your own personal chef?”
“So do you,” Justin said and handed Max a spoon.
Max dug into the mashed potatoes cold, taking huge chunks and eating them as though he’d not plowed through three separate sandwiches and a piece of cake on the plane.
Aubrey’s stomach whirled. The idea of food caused a sour feeling to swirl through her belly. She’d never experienced motion sickness, but since they’d climbed onto the plane, she hadn’t felt right. She sat on one of the leather barstools beside the gargantuan granite kitchen island.
“You okay?” Justin asked. Concern pulled at the corner of his lips. “You look a little green.”
“Maybe a little water,” she said and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Please don’t let her be sick. She couldn’t be sick. This was her time with both her guys. Perhaps the only time they’d all spend together. This was the first time that Max would experience New York. See the sights. Be a true tourist. Because eventually this city would claim Max Travati as its own. It might not be now and it might not be during college, but one day he would live here, most likely permanently, and he would take over Travati Financial.
Justin pulled a glass from the cabinet, filled it with water, and handed the glass to her. “You okay?” He lowered his voice and leaned in closer to her. “Maybe you should lie down? Take a rest?”
“So what’s up for tonight?” Max turned to them. He still held the container of mashed potatoes in one hand but now also had a rotisserie chicken leg grasped tightly in the other.
Justin smiled. “It would seem the trip has exhausted your mother. I was thinking tonight we might lie low. We could go see a show or even head to the Yankees game.”
“That’s lying low?”
Justin nodded. “Travati Financial has a box. You want to go?”
“Do I want to go? To a Yankees game? Heck yeah!”
Max’s grin split his face. Even with her stomach sour and her head pounding, she loved seeing her son so very happy.
“Mom? You going to be okay?”
So sweet that he would even stop to ask, considering how excited he was.
“I’ll be fine. That’s perfect because I can take a long bath. Read. Relax. I’m sure it’s jet lag and fatigue. That way I’ll be one hundred percent for tomorrow.”
Justin nodded and smiled. “Go get ready. We’ll leave in twenty minutes.”
Max bolted from the kitchen then stopped. “Uh, which room?”
“The one with the signed jersey from A-Rod on the wall.”
Max’s eyes widened. “A-Rod? Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.” Justin smiled. “Go check it out.”
Max raced from the room and even here, in this giant penthouse, she heard the pounding of his feet going up the stairs.
“You okay?” Justin leaned in and pressed his hands to the back of her neck and started to rub in slow circles. The tension eased out of her body with his touch, but a different kind of heat now pulsed through her muscles with his continuous rubbing of her neck. She leaned back into his touch.
“Mmm, that feels so good.” She closed her eyes. She wanted his hands all over her body, his lips on her sex, him deep inside her. She wanted all of him and she wanted him now.
“Wish I could stay here and take that bath with you,” he whispered in her ear, his voice sandpaper rough with need and want.
“Me too.”
“Maybe later. After our son is in bed.”
“Maybe.” She leaned deeper into his touch, and his lips pressed to the side of her neck. The hot touch caused her nipples to tighten and ache against her bra. Yes, for a moment again she wished that Max were asleep in his new room in his father’s penthouse so that she and Justin might escape to his room and she could release her sexual frustration and want for her husband.
Husband?
Her body stiffened. Justin wasn’t her husband. She pulled forward and turned to him. His eyes searched hers as if to ask again if she was all right.
“What is it?” That raised brow.
“Nothing … I just …” She stood and pulled away from his touch, sliding her hands into the back of her jeans. “I just keep picturing us all together.” She watched Justin. “When we’re together, at the end of your trip to Rockwater Farms and now, I keep picturing us as a family. That’s confusing to me because I know with your work and my work and with everything in our lives that us being a family simply can’t happen.”
“Why not?” Justin asked. His voice was low. So sexy. Energy thrummed between them. “Why couldn’t we be a family? I love you, I love Max, and now you’re telling me that you love me too? Families have been formed for worse reasons.”