Aubrey closed her eyes and released a long stream of air. She placed her palm on the desk. “This is a huge deal, isn’t it?”
“You know my feelings on it, they’re similar to Dad’s. Kind of surprised you kept this from Max this long. I mean, he’s the only living heir to one of the biggest fortunes in the world.”
Aubrey dropped into her desk chair. “But I don’t want him to be the heir.”
“Right.” Nina rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “You’ve gotten what you wanted for Max’s entire life. You’ve kept him to yourself on this farm, an hour from the nearest city—”
“He goes to school, he has friends.”
“Yes. Yes, he does. All I’m saying is you’ve kept him to yourself and now he wants to know who he is and obviously from last night he’s going to get answers from whomever he needs to get them. Yesterday he went to Dad, today he goes to the Internet. Tomorrow, who knows? I think you’re really missing out on an opportunity here. I mean come on, just for a minute, remember who you were at fourteen, okay? Think about if it were you finding all this out and that Mom and Dad hadn’t told you the truth.”
Aubrey’s chest tightened. “Shit.” Her eyes flicked toward Nina, who leaned against a shelf filled with cookbooks.
“Right.”
Aubrey pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “I’m going to be really lucky if he doesn’t hate me.”
“He’s a pretty great kid with a really sharp brain in his head. You might get by with six months, maybe twelve, of his hating you.”
Aubrey’s fingertips tingled. “What if Max wants to meet his father?”
“Oh, that’s a gimme, isn’t it? I mean he’s totally going to want to meet his dad.”
“But … I mean … I never …”
“I know.” Nina pushed away from the bookshelf and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s going to be a tough summer all the way around.” She pulled her pink bandanna from her head. “I’m gonna go say good-bye to Maxie. I’ll see you later tonight.”
A vise gripped her ribs as Aubrey nodded.
“Hang tough, big sister. Max loves you and so do I. Change isn’t always a bad thing, it’s just hard to get used to.” Nina walked out of Aubrey’s office.
She stared out at the rolling hills that led to the Kaw River. What had she done? Had she really believed that Max would never need to know his father? What had seemed for years like a good plan to keep her son safe now seemed like a foolish fairy tale.
She’d kept pushing off the questions from Max. Dad and Nina were right—she’d been in a solid state of denial, which had allowed her to keep thinking Max was a baby, a child, her little boy, and not an adolescent getting ready to tip into adulthood.
He did need his father, and of course he would be angry. She only hoped he would understand the choices she’d made, that he wouldn’t become intoxicated with all the glitter and money and power and access that the Travati name provided. That Max wouldn’t forget about his mother and Rockwater Farms and forever leave her for the heady world of New York and finance.
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. Who was she kidding? He was a Travati. She could hope, but that wouldn’t be the case. Max had his father’s competitive streak as well as the compassion that came from her side. He was a Travati, and he would be in business most likely, no matter what she did. At the very most, she had him for another four years until he was eighteen.
She walked across the room and opened the office door. How could she convince Max not to reach out to his father, not yet, not now? She needed Max to wait until he was eighteen to contact Justin. Max contacting Justin now was simply too dangerous for her and for Max and for the safe, comfortable life she’d worked so hard to create for them both at Rockwater Farms.
Her heart hammered. She closed her eyes, pulled in a deep breath, and stood. The thing she remembered most about working with Justin Travati, aside from a desire that had consumed her entire being, was that Justin always got what was his. Please God, don’t let Justin Travati find out about Max.
*
While The Red Barn at Rockwater Farms might be one of the best restaurants in America, and potentially would become one of the best restaurants in the world, this place definitely wasn’t easy to get to. Justin’s plane landed at the tiny airport in Lawrence and then drove to Hudson, Kansas, population five thousand.
Fury pulsed through his heart. This was where his only child lived? He stared out the window at the miles and miles of wide-open space containing nothing but wheat. His lips thinned and his eyebrows pulled tight when they drove into town on Main Street. Backward-looking people in Walmart duds walked along the sidewalks. What kind of education could Max possibly be getting here? What connections was he making? A waste of time and talent for Max to spend his formative years in Hudson, Kansas.