Intimate Seduction - Brenda Jackson [55]
Chapter 13
Still furious, Natalie walked into the Racetrack Café and glanced around. It didn’t take her long to spot Donovan standing at the bar talking to another man. Her lips set in a frown, her eyes narrowed to a slit, she walked up to Donovan, got right in his face and snapped, “I’m here. Are you satisfied?”
“If he’s not, I most definitely can be.”
Natalie turned to the man standing with Donovan at the same time his gaze traveled over her features. She inhaled deeply. Did all Donovan’s acquaintances have to look so breathtakingly handsome?
She opened her mouth to apologize for her brash manner when Donovan spoke up. “Get lost, Uri. She’s spoken for. But I guess I will introduce the two of you. Natalie, this is Uriel Lassiter, a good friend of mine.”
Natalie summoned a smile while extending her hand. “Sorry for being rude. Nice meeting you, Uriel.”
“Apology accepted, and please call me Uri. And it’s nice meeting you, as well, Natalie. Now I guess I better get lost before Donovan forgets just what close friends we are.” And then after giving her one last smile, Uriel walked off.
“Come on, let’s get a table,” Donovan said, recapturing her thoughts while grabbing his beer off the counter.
“You may want to make it someplace private so others won’t overhear what I have to say to you,” she warned.
He lifted a speculative brow. “Sounds serious.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “And you didn’t think that it would be?”
“A man can hope. Come on, I know just the place.”
She followed as he weaved through the crowd, and before she noticed just where he was leading her, he’d opened a door and ushered her inside a room that appeared to be someone’s office. “This is my friend Bronson’s office,” he said. “He won’t be here for another hour or so.”
She turned on him with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t mean this private, Donovan.”
“Relax, I promise not to bite. Have a seat and get whatever is bothering you off your chest.”
At that moment he looked at her chest. Except for the lone button undone at the top, her blouse was decent enough. She had dressed appropriately, not wanting to give him any ideas. But right now her nipples were hardened peaks pressing through the material of her blouse. And the man didn’t miss seeing anything.
The darkening of his eyes made her pulse rate increase. “Okay, I’ll sit,” she said. Anything to shift his attention from her chest.
“So what’s on your mind, Natalie?”
She rolled her eyes. “You tell me since you’re the one who demanded this meeting.”
“Oh, yes, the issue of my replacement for a cleaning lady. I expected you to come today.”
“And I told you why I didn’t. We slept together so I can no longer work for you. You can stand here all day and all night and say that you employ my aunt not me, but it doesn’t matter. In my mind I’ve slept with the boss.”
“And that bothers you?”
“Yes, it bothers me.” She wished he would sit down. He was bothering her. Standing made her totally aware of how sexy he looked.
As if he’d read her mind, he moved away from the door to lean against the edge of the desk, facing her. He slipped his hand into his pockets, and her gaze shifted first to his pockets and then to his zipper. Did the man always have to look aroused around her?
“How long have you worked for the agency?” he asked.
“Why?” She returned her gaze back to his face, certain that a blush flamed her features.
“Because you’re a very beautiful woman, which accounts for the reason I’m very attracted to you,” he said. “And I find it odd that none of your other male clients have ever hit on you before.”
The sound of his deep and husky voice sent shivers down her spine. She inhaled deeply, thinking that now would be a good time to tell him that she did not clean houses for a living and that she was a chemistry professor at an Ivy League university. But a part of her couldn’t risk that he would act like all the others and feel threatened by her achievements and see her as an intellectual geek.
“Natalie?”
“Well,