Leaving his office he went into his bedroom and began stripping off his clothes deciding what he needed more than anything before coming face-to-face with Natalie was a cold shower. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have any control and would be tempted to try to seduce her for another day and night of pleasure as soon as he set eyes on her.

  A short while later, he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a huge velour towel to dry off. He heard the sound of her moving around right outside his bedroom door and wondered what she would think if she were to see him just as he was. He wouldn’t shock her with his nakedness but would come close. With just a towel wrapped tightly around his middle, he crossed the room and flung the door open.

  The woman let out a scream.

  It wasn’t Natalie. Collecting his wits, he ducked behind his bedroom door, cracking it open with just enough space to talk through it. She was still screaming and he knew he had to take hold of the situation by first calming the woman down. He could just imagine what she was thinking seeing a half-naked man suddenly appear.

  “Would you please calm down, lady? I live here,” he said with a little irritation in his voice. The woman appeared to be in her late fifties. Where the hell was Natalie?

  “You’re Mr. Steele?” she asked once she’d finally stopped screaming.

  “Yes, I’m Mr. Steele.”

  “Sorry that I screamed like that but you scared me half to death. The agency said you would be at work.”

  Donovan knew that in all essence there was no reason for him not to be at work. He had worked at home last Friday with the clear intent of seducing Natalie. Now that he’d slept with her there was no reason for him not to have gone into the office today. But deep down he knew there was a reason. He had deliberately stayed home with the sheer purpose of seducing her again. Sleeping with her hadn’t gotten her out of his system.

  “I decided to work at home today. And where is my regular cleaning lady?” he asked, annoyed.

  “Ms. Darwin hurt her ankle, sir.”

  Out of respect for the woman’s age, he tried not rolling his eyes. She was old enough to be his mother. It was bad enough she’d seen him undressed, and now she was referring to him as sir. Natalie was going to pay dearly for this little fiasco. “I’m aware of that,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. The woman had been frightened enough. “I’m talking about the woman who’s cleaned this place for the past two weeks. I believe she’s Ms. Darwin’s niece.”

  “I don’t know. I’m new. I was told to come here today. Is there a problem, sir?”

  “No, there isn’t a problem.” At least not with you. But I will deal with Natalie Ford. She will pay dearly for this, especially since I told her I didn’t want another housekeeper.

  “Please continue your cleaning,” he said, plastering a smile on his face. “I’m going to get dressed, and I’ll be out of your way shortly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He closed the door. If Natalie thought she’d seen the last of him then she had another thought coming.

  Placing a client’s file aside, Natalie reached out and answered the phone on the desk. “Special Touch Housekeeping Agency.”

  “You’ve underestimated me, Natalie.”

  Natalie pulled in a deep breath. She recognized the deep, husky voice and knew the identity of the man on the other end of the call. And he didn’t sound like a happy camper. “Is there a problem, Mr. Steele?”

  He didn’t say anything, but she swore she could hear his teeth gnashing. And then. “What have I told you about calling me Mr. Steele? If I remember correctly, I was Donovan last Friday night.”

  He’d been a number of things last Friday night, she thought. He was also the best lover she’d ever had, granted she hadn’t had many to compare him with, but the one comparison she could make pushed him off the charts. “Mr. Steele, is there a reason you called?” From his tone she knew there was.

  “Yes, there is a reason. I thought we understood that no one but you or your aunt would be responsible for the cleaning of my home.”

  Natalie smiled politely, although he couldn’t see it. She had received good news earlier from Dr. Stanley and had no intention of letting him ruin her day. “As you know, my aunt is recuperating, and considering our relationship—specifically what happened between us last Friday night—there was no way I could return to your home.”

  “Did I force you to have sex with me, Natalie?”

  His question came as a surprise. “No, of course not.”

  “So there’s no way you can claim there was any type of sexual harassment involved, right?”

  “Right, and neither am I trying to. But the key word is involved. We slept together, of our own free will, but we slept together nonetheless, and in doing so, we’ve taken our relationship from a professional one to a personal one,” she tried pointing out.

  “If I remember, we didn’t get much sleep that night. And one has nothing to do with the other. And you were forewarned what would happen if my requests weren’t followed. I enjoy my privacy and—”

  “For crying out loud, Donovan,” she said, annoyed enough at this point to forego professionalism. “Ms. Harris is old enough to be your mother. She has been married for over twenty years and is not aspiring to become a cougar. She’s harmless. And we did a thorough background check. The woman is trustworthy.”

  “Probably. But still, you defied my wishes. Meet with me at the Racetrack Café at seven tonight to discuss the situation.”

  Natalie frowned. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

  “I think there is. You’ve made me an unhappy client. If you check the files of several of your other clients—namely Jeremy Simpkins, Harrell Kelly, Uriel Lassiter, Myles Joseph and Colin Ashford, they are clients based on my recommendations and referrals. All it would take is a phone call from me and they’ll drop the Special Touch Housekeeping Agency like a hot potato.”

  Natalie’s frown deepened, and she sat up straight in her chair. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest that you try me. I’ll see you tonight at seven.”

  Natalie slammed down the phone.

  Just who does he think he is? How dare he!

  She began pacing the floor. He would ruin her aunt’s company just because he couldn’t have things his way? So, he wanted to meet with her to discuss things. Fine. She’d meet with him, and she’d give him a piece of her mind.

  Donovan drew in a long breath as he hung up the phone. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and he’d just displayed a sign of a desperate man. Of course he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Natalie’s aunt’s business but she didn’t have to know that. Besides, he couldn’t think of any other way to get her to meet with him tonight. And because he didn’t want her to think it was all about sex, he’d decided it would be best if they met someplace other than his home.

  Now that was another mystery to be solved—that it wasn’t all about sex. The intensity of their coming together had been as miraculous as it could get. Even when he hadn’t wanted to think about it, when he hadn’t wanted memories to invade his brain and accumulate in his mind, they had anyway.

  But now he wanted to get to know the woman who had him biting at the bits. What was there about her that he found obsessive? Why had he denied himself the opportunity to bed Jean Carroll on more than one occasion because the thought of being inside any woman’s body other than Natalie’s, was a turnoff?

  Admittedly, he was as intrigued as he was horny, and tonight he was determined to place his highly sexual state on the back burner to find out more about Natalie Ford.

  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, believe it. All my other clients have been nothing but gentlemen.”

  He chuckled. “And I’m sure none of them ever found you in their bed. But still, I’m curious as to how long you’ve been with the agency.”

  She shrugged. “Long enough.”

  “And before that what did you do?”

  She wondered why he was asking these questions. “I was in school,” she said, which wasn’t an all-out lie.

  “Do you ever plan to go back to school?”

  That question was easy enough to answer. “Yes, I plan to go back in the fall.”

  He nodded. “That’s good, because I’m a proponent of education.”

  He didn’t have to know it but so was she.

  “How far along are you in your studies?”

  She tilted her head back and looked at him. “Why all the questions?”

  “I’m trying to get to know you.”

  His response surprised her. “Why?”

  Her question was a good one, Donovan thought. Why did he want to know more about Natalie Ford? And especially now when he needed to stay focused on SC. They’d had another meeting in Chance’s office yesterday, and Bas had reported that suspicious activities were still going on and that the Gleeve-Ware formula was still in high demand.

  “Donovan?”

  His thoughts were pulled back to Natalie. He knew it was insane, totally unreasonable to want a woman so much, but then, maybe it wasn’t. That night his body had responded to her in a way it had never responded to another woman, and even now he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her with a passion that had his heart racing. But the wanting, the desire, had to be mutual. It had to be what she wanted too. There was only one way to find out. She had resisted his seduction once, only to come to him on her own terms. Would she do so again? It was a challenge worth probing.

  “Yes?” he finally answered.

  “Why do you want to get to know me?”

  “Come here and find out,” he said, straightening his stance and holding out his hand in an invitation.

  Natalie sucked in a deep breath, disgusted with the way her body was responding to Donovan. She moistened her lips before saying in a not so convincing tone of voice, “No.”

  “You sure you’re not as hungry to taste me the way I’m hungry to taste you? I want to taste your breasts again, put a nipple in my mouth and make love to it with my tongue. And then the icing on the cake is when I taste you there in your very feminine place. You don’t know how much I want to savor that particular spot again.”

  The man was killing her softly with his words. She could feel herself getting drenched between the legs. “We agreed that night was supposed to be one and done. It was just a one-night fling,” she heard herself say in a breathless voice.

  “Did we? Was it? And don’t we have the right to change our minds if it suits our needs, our purposes and our wants?” he asked.

  Should they change their minds? she wondered. And who would they hurt if they did? They were both adults who had to answer to no one. And there was no way she could deny how much she enjoyed him as a lover. So why was she fighting her desire for him? Farrah thought a full-fledged affair with him was just the thing Natalie needed, an affair that lasted as long as they wanted it to, at least until she returned to Princeton. And like Farrah had said, denying him was easier said than done.

  But then there were those emotions she was trying hard to keep at bay, emotions that swamped her whenever she thought about him, or was around him, like now. She studied his features and saw the intensity in his penetrating gaze. Yes, they had the right to change their minds. She eased out of the chair and took a step toward him and placed her hand in his.

  “No promises,” he said, pulling her closer into his arms.

  She understood and she agreed. “No promises,” she repeated, realizing at that moment with a sinking heart that she was slowly drowning in emotions he was stirring within her. Emotions she’d never felt for another man since Karl. Emotions she couldn’t fight any longer.

  A moan flowed from her throat when he captured her mouth with his. Immediately his taste set her entire body on fire. When he deepened the kiss with a greediness that she felt all the way to her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body closer to his. The bulge behind his zipper was potent, an indication of where things could be headed, and she knew if he led her there she would hopelessly follow.

  The ring of his cell phone had them pulling apart, but he didn’t intend to let her go too far. He held on to her elbow while fishing the cell phone out of his jeans pocket.

  “Hello.” His tone was one of irritation at being interrupted.

  She watched as his eyes widened and heard the concern in his voice when he asked, “When?”

  And then he responded to whatever he was told by saying. “I’m on my way.”

  He quickly put his phone back in the pocket of his jeans and then said to her. “Come on, let’s go.” He had a firm grip on her hand.

  She blinked. “Go where?” she asked, while letting him guide her out of the door with him.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “To the hospital. One of my sisters-in-law, Jocelyn, has been rushed there.”

  Natalie stopped in her tracks, which caused him to do the same. Her eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, my goodness. What happened? What’s wrong?”

  A smile touched the corner of his lips when he said, “She’s having a baby.”

  The rush was on, and within minutes Natalie found herself strapped into Donovan’s two-seat Mercedes convertible sports car. He was racing down the interstate, most of the time not adhering to the speed limit, but she couldn’t help love the feel of her hair blowing in the wind. Adrenaline was flowing through her veins. At the moment she didn’t want to think about how much emission from his car was probably polluting the air. Nor did she want to consider just how the emissions were being absorbed in the upper troposphere at mid-to-high latitudes.

  She glanced over at Donovan. What had he been thinking to ask her to come with him to the hospital where his family would probably be gathered? How was he going to explain her presence?

  One thing she knew about being placed in unexpected situations was to be prepared whenever possible. That propelled her to say, “Tell me about your family, Donovan.”