He checked into his hotel, which was really a motel with a lobby. His room had a musty odor, twin beds, and a view of the courthouse brick wall. He walked toward the other window and pulled back the drapes. He didn’t like this place. He didn’t like Hudson, Kansas, or the people who walked down the street in shorts and tank tops, wearing trucker caps with seed-company logos and athletic shoes. No, the most middle of America he would ever feel remotely comfortable in was Chicago, and even there he sensed a Midwestern familiarity that made him cringe. A backwardness really. People constantly smiled and said hello. Give him a New York state of mind. Keep to yourself. You don’t bump me, and I won’t bump you. We’ll be all good. Even L.A. was a bit too touchy-feely. He didn’t trust a place without seasons.
Justin pulled his laptop from his bag. He didn’t intend to stay long. Work would be his focus until his nine p.m. seating. He had more information to review about Max and Aubrey and what they were doing out here in the middle of nowhere.
Of course, once he’d received the file from Roger, Justin remembered that Aubrey was from this tiny town in the middle of Kansas. When he’d hired her, fresh out of business school, she’d by then been six years in the Ivies and he’d thought, erroneously, that a pedigreed education complete with East Coast friends and a job had rinsed this entire background from her blood.
Obviously he’d been wrong. Once Aubrey discovered her pregnancy, she’d run for home like a salmon swimming upstream. She run away from him and his money and his power. Why? Most women, even professional women such as Aubrey, would have thought a one-night stand resulting in a Travati heir to be their golden ticket to eternal financial security. But not Aubrey. Instead, she’d fled, financed a very difficult business, and spent night and day building a business and raising her son … possibly his son … their son.
He set his laptop on the desk and walked to the window. Down the street on the other side of the town square, three streets over, kids swarmed around a public pool. Was Max there right now? Was his son actually swimming in that pool with his backward-looking Midwestern friends? Thankfully, aside from the very cheap shirt that his son was wearing in the school picture Roger had found, Max looked good. You could picture him at any East Coast private prep school, which was just exactly where he’d be by the end of summer. Liza was already on it. She had contacted Exeter, Roxbury, Andover. Justin would donate a new multimillion-dollar library if needed, but a Travati would get the best education on the planet. Of that Justin would make certain.
He wasn’t about to let the opportunities that he’d worked so hard to provide slip by his son. Justin hadn’t attended prep school. He’d scratched and clawed and gotten his start by hustling hard. Junior college and then Fordham. But he came from a long line of shrewd and keen businesspeople, and with a couple of breaks, a touch of insider trading, and some very questionable loans, he was now on top with billions. He was also aboveboard. Money could buy that; money could scrub you clean if you let it, and he had. Sure, you needed to cut some corners to make the fortune, but once he’d amassed his money, he’d gone legit, completely legit.
He sat on several charitable boards. He was now the crème de la crème, whereas when he graduated college he wouldn’t have been allowed to polish a Fortune 500 CEO’s shoes. Now he was one. Golfed with them. Yachted, dined, played tennis, and vacationed with the business elite. So yes, he was deeply ensconced in the well-heeled set.
So would be his son.
He slipped out his phone and pressed 1. “Liza, did you contact the attorneys I wanted you to speak with?”
“Yes, sir. They’ve begun all the necessary paperwork to file when the test comes back positive.”
“Excellent.” Justin’s eyes swept around the room. “So you’re telling me this is the only hotel available to me in Hudson? The only thing close to The Red Barn at Rockwater?”
Liza, who was usually quick to reply, paused. “Well, sir, there is one other place, but I was certain that you wouldn’t want to stay there because—”
“What’s the other place?”
“Rockwater Farms has three guest suites.”
Heat bubbled through Justin’s blood. He squinted his eyes. “Excuse me?”
She cleared her throat. “Sir, I assumed with the details of your trip that you wouldn’t want to stay at Rockwater Farms …” Her voice trailed off. “I apologize, sir. I think I may have overstepped.”
And overstepped she had. “Book it. Now. If the rooms are available, book them all for the next three weeks. Use my pseudonym and call me back.” He pressed End Call on his phone. He understood Liza’s logic, why she’d neglected to give him Rockwater Farms as a possibility for what she thought were all the right reasons. But Liza was wrong. He’d much rather be in the same camp as his enemy. Know them, stay with them, see how they actually worked and lived and played. Personal knowledge was always much more valuable than speculation or what was gleaned through a third party.