Intimate Seduction - Brenda Jackson [59]
“You have a nice family, Donovan.”
He glanced over at her briefly. “Thanks. What about you? I know you have your aunt. Any parents or siblings?”
She shook her head. “No, I was an only child. However, I was raised by my aunt and uncle. Their son, Eric, is five years older than me. My mother gave me to my aunt and uncle when I was just a few days old and kept trucking back to California. She would visit on occasion but did nothing but cause trouble whenever she did so—usually to get money out of my aunt and uncle by threatening to take me away if they didn’t pay up.”
She paused for a moment, and he figured she was regrouping her thoughts, reliving the past. He couldn’t help wondering if she felt deprived of her mother’s love and attention.
“Her boyfriend stabbed her to death when I was ten,” she said, continuing. “It had been four years since I’d seen her, and when they sent her body back here for burial she was nothing more than a stranger to me. My aunt, uncle and cousin were all the family I had and all that I needed.”
“Where’s your uncle?”
“He died when I was in my teens. And my cousin, Eric, is in the State Department and works for the embassy in Australia.”
When the car came to a traffic light, he tilted his head to look over at her at the same time she glanced at him. Their gazes locked, held for a second. He knew he had to ask what he should have asked her before they’d made love, but he hadn’t because at the time it really hadn’t mattered since it was a one-and-done sort of thing, as she liked putting it.
“Who broke your heart to make you take a hiatus from men?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead she broke eye contact with him and looked ahead through the shield. “Karl, the heartbreaker and manipulator. He practically stripped me of my self-confidence when it came to relationships by convincing me I was lacking in certain areas.” She glanced over at him. “You proved him wrong.”
He remained silent for a moment and then he said, “I’m glad I was able to do so.”
Natalie smiled. “I’m glad, too.”
The interior of the car got quiet again, and she would have loved to know what was going on inside Donovan’s head. Why had he taken her to a place where he’d known his family would be congregating? Everyone had been nice but more than mildly curious. She could tell. That only led her to believe bringing a woman around his family was not his norm. She had liked everyone—his cousins, his sisters-in-law, his brothers and his parents. They’d made her feel right at home. Included. No one had asked her a lot of questions, and she was glad of that. She would not have wanted to lie to them.
She hadn’t lied to Donovan just now. She’d told him about Karl. What was her rationale in doing that? It wasn’t like it would mean anything to him in the scheme of things. But for some reason she had wanted him to know sharing a bed with him had been therapeutic as well as pleasurable.
“Do you mind if I drop by my house a minute to get something before I take you back to the café?”
She glanced over at him and shook her head. “No, I don’t mind.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
The clock on the car’s console indicated it was a little after ten. She figured once she got back to the café she would get her car and go on to Farrah’s where she would be spending the weekend. Tonight they planned to do facials and watch romantic movies until dawn if they could last that long. Usually, they would both fall asleep by midnight.
Moments later Donovan pulled into the garage attached to his condo. He closed the garage door behind them and then turned off the car’s engine. He glanced over at her. “Would you like to come inside?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ll just sit here until you come back.”
“That might be a problem.”
She stared at him a moment before lifting a brow. “And why might that be a problem?”
“I told