“Leslie. This will be the third one in a row that you’ve canceled.”
“Call—”
“I know. Tiffany’s.”
For all his complaining, when Travis glanced at the newspaper article on his desk, he couldn’t help smiling. Edilean, Virginia, had been the site of the happiest memories of his life—which is why when his mother ran away, she went there. Kimberly, he thought and couldn’t help the feeling of peace that came over him. He was twelve and she was just eight, but she’d taught him everything. He didn’t know it then, but he was a boy living in prison. He hadn’t been allowed to be with other children, had never watched TV or read a work of fiction. He may as well have been living in a cave—or a past century. Until he met Kim, he thought. Kim with her love of life. On his desk was a little brass plaque, the only personal item in the room. It read: I’M GOOD AT HAVING FUN. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SHOW YOU HOW? Kim’s words to him. The words that had changed everything.
Penny was watching him. She was the only person he trusted to know the truth about his life. “Shall I make your plane reservations, or do you want to drive?” she asked quietly.
“Drive where?” When she didn’t answer, he looked at her. “I . . .” He wasn’t sure what to say.
“How about if while you’re at dinner tonight I buy a normal car—something that’s legal to drive on the streets—and you pack a bag full of normal clothes? Tomorrow you can drive down to see your mother.”
Travis still wasn’t sure what to say. “Leslie . . .”
“Don’t worry. I’ll send her enough diamonds that she won’t ask questions.” Penny didn’t like Leslie, but then she didn’t like any of the girls Travis dated. “If you can buy her off, it’s not love,” she’d said several times. Penny wanted him to do what his dad had done and find a woman who loved her family more than the contents of any store.
“All right,” Travis said. “Get Forester to handle this merger.”
“But he can’t—”
“Do it?” Travis said. “I know it but he doesn’t. Maybe it’ll fall through and Dad will fire the ambitious little twerp.”
“Or maybe he’ll succeed and your father will give him your job.”
“And you said you didn’t believe in fairy tales,” Travis said, grinning. “All right, where’s this reunion?”
She gave him the time and address.
He stood up, looked at his desk, and all he could think of was seeing his mother again. It had been too long. On impulse, he picked up the brass plaque of Kim’s words and slipped it in his pocket. He looked back at Penny. “So what do you call a ‘normal’ car?”
As she left, she gave him one of her rare smiles. “Wait and see.”
That evening a Town Car and driver were waiting downstairs for Travis. It stopped at his apartment building, the doorman opened the door, and the elevator was held for him. He spoke to no one.
His was the penthouse apartment, with views all around. The same decorator who’d done his office had filled his apartment with her idea of good taste. There was a huge antique Buddha in an alcove, and the couches were upholstered in black leather. Since Travis was in the apartment as little as possible, decorating it had never interested him.
There was only one room that held truly personal items, and he went to it now. It had originally been a walk-in closet, but Travis had requested that it be filled with glass shelves. It was in this small room—which he always kept locked—that he put his trophies, awards, certificates, those symbols of what Kim had taught him about having “fun.”
It was those two weeks in Edilean, spent with feisty little Kim, that had given him the courage to stand up to his father. His mother had tried, but her sweet nature was no match for a man like her husband.
But Travis had found that he could hold his own. The first time he saw his father after having met Kim, Travis said he wanted physical instruction as well as academic. Randall Maxwell had looked at his young son in speculation and saw that the boy wasn’t going to give in. An instructor was hired.
As Lucy had said about her son, he was a natural athlete. For Travis, the strenuous activity was a release from the grueling academic work he was given to do, and as Travis learned what they had to teach, the instructors left and a new one arrived. By the time Travis was college age, he was trained in several martial arts. His nose had been broken twice, once in boxing, once by an instructor’s foot in his face.
His father had wanted Travis to continue being tutored for college, but Travis said that the minute he was of age, he’d leave and never return. At that time his mother was still living at home. Her life was as isolated as Travis’s, but then, she’d never been a very social person.
Travis went to Stanford, then Harvard Law, and it was while he was away from the prison that was the only home he’d ever known that he discovered life. Sports—extreme sports—drew him. Jumping out of planes, being dropped by helicopter onto a snow-covered mountain, cliff diving. He did it all.
He passed the bar exam but had no interest in spending his life in an office. Even though his father demanded that his son work for him, Travis refused. In anger, his father shut down his trust fund, so Travis got a job as a Hollywood stuntman. He was the guy who got set on fire.
When his father saw that his ploy didn’t work, that he hadn’t made his son knuckle under to him, he turned his attention to his wife and made her miserable. One afternoon Lucy accidently saw a way to intercept a business transaction of her husband’s. With only a moment’s hesitation, she sent $3.2 million into her own account. She then spent about ten minutes packing a bag, took one of her husband’s cars, and fled.
Randall told his son he wouldn’t go after Lucy if Travis would stop trying to kill himself and work for him.
Travis would have done anything for his mother, so he left L.A., went back to New York, and worked for his father. Whenever possible, Travis relieved his stress by participating in any violent sport he could find.
Now, he looked about the room at the trophies, the medals, the souvenirs. On the wall behind the shelves were many framed photos. The Monte Carlo races. His face was dirty and the champagne he’d sprayed when he’d won had made streaks, but he’d been happy.