Falling For A Donovan (The Donovans Book 14) Read online

  Falling For A Donovan

  By

  A.C. Arthur

  An Artistry Publishing Book

  FALLING FOR A DONOVAN, Copyright © 2017 by A.C. Arthur

  First Edition: 2017

  www.acarthur.net

  All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations, events and incidents (in either a contemporary and/or historical setting) are products of the author’s imagination and are being used in an imaginative manner as a part of this work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, settings or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Croco Designs

  Dear Reader

  I’ve been thinking about this and the next book for months. Since beginning this journey of the last books in the Donovan Series, I’ve had a general idea of how to bring this situation with Roslyn Ausby to a close. Now that the time has actually come for me to write those words, it’s a little bittersweet. I love the Donovans. I’ve loved them from the start. So, how do I say goodbye?

  I write the words that bring them all together, that’s how.

  So this is Bailey and Devlin’s story. These two have been with us since the Triple Threat books and I think each of us have been rooting for them to find that forever love and happiness. This story begins a little differently than the others because Devlin and Bailey are already in a semi-relationship. They’ve been thrust together by circumstances and drawn into each other’s arms by an undeniable attraction. But what will happen when the dust settles?

  This story is filled with doubts and personal revelations. It’s a journey, not just for Bailey and Devlin, but for the family as they’re stretched to their breaking points. And while you may not care or may have lost patience with her, Roslyn, will be on her own journey in this story. She’ll realize the past for what it was and embrace her future for what she knows it will bring.

  I invite you to go on another ride with me, to take some time out of your busy daily life to peek into the world of The Donovans, to curse them, root for them, pray for them, and to love them.

  Happy Reading,

  AC

  Prologue

  38 years ago

  Chicago, Illinois

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said as if she really had the capacity to do such a thing.

  Roslyn wished she did. Sometimes, anyway. She wished that she could say what upset her, process that situation and move on to the next. One of her deepest desires was to finally fit in, to be what everyone else was and to feel their acceptance. A glance at the shrink they’d sent in to determine whether or not she could leave the hospital today had her giggling. He was a short man. Even though he was sitting down she could tell because he’d had to point his toes for his shoes to touch the floor. He acted as if that was deliberate, the way he placed the notepad on his lap and held that pen loosely between his fingers. She wasn’t fooled. People rarely fooled her.

  Well, one person had.

  She laughed hard, her chest rumbling with the sound, her arms folding over her midsection because the laughter seemed to bubble up from a place deep inside of her. A place not often visited but cherished just the same.

  “What makes you laugh, Roslyn?” he asked.

  He had lots of questions. Even though he hadn’t written any of her answers on that notepad. That’s what shrinks did. They asked questions. They never answered any. But she’d accepted a long time ago that nobody knew why she thought the way she did, and thus could never truly answer her most pressing inquiries. There was no blueprint to her brain that could be read, deciphered, or understood. So she was stuck like this. It was fine. She’d accepted it. She just wished everyone around her could accept as well.

  “You’re funny,” she finally told the shrink when the urge to laugh at what was obviously not comical subsided.

  “Am I?”

  He was tapping the edge of the pen against his bearded chin now. It wasn’t a neat beard, but scraggly and an odd blend of the copper tone of the thick hair on top of his head, a dingy brown and snowy white. She presumed he was dying the hair on his head because his eyebrows were going white as well. His clothes were baggy, the shirt wrinkled. He could also use a new pair of shoes. The ones he wore were scuffed. And there was no great smelling cologne. No shiny gold watch or cufflinks at the end of his shirt sleeves. Of course she didn’t know this for certain but she was almost positive that when Dr. George packed up and left this office for the day, he would not be going into the parking lot and getting into a silver BMW.

  That was Henry’s car.

  Roslyn clenched her arms tighter around her midsection and licked her now dry lips. She felt chilly and when she closed her eyes, it was dark. Not just in this room but everywhere, even in her soul.

  “It’s not funny,” she said slowly. “Nothing is funny.”

  Her voice was like an echo through the darkness and she shivered before opening her eyes with a start.

  “I’m finished,” she continued. “All of this is finished.”

  “What’s finished?” Dr. George asked as his eyes narrowed.

  It was a suspicious movement, one which she was certain he wasn’t supposed to show. Shrinks were supposed to be non-judgmental, unbiased, and compassionate. They weren’t. That was another lie they liked to tell the ones who ended up sitting on the couch across from them. Roslyn knew that. She’d always known it. So Dr. George and his reactions to her were no surprise. Not like the one she’d received this morning when the nurse had come into her room to see if she was awake.

  “I want to live,” Roslyn answered.

  After saying the words she pulled her arms slowly away from her midsection, letting each one rest on her thighs. She stared down at them, at the white bandages that now circled each wrist. A scent assailed her and she gasped. It was the tangy aroma of fresh blood. Roslyn did not close her eyes because in place of the darkness she knew she would see red. It had seeped all over the white tile floor of the hotel bathroom instantaneously. One stroke of the razor blade. Then another. Then red, everywhere.

  There had been no pain, none other than the heat of betrayal that had stayed with her every second of every day since she’d last seen Henry. His words did not replay in her mind. She’d forbade them from doing so. But the pain remained. It had become a part of her in the last three months, so imbedded in everything she did that she’d signed her name as Roslyn Donovan on the hotel receipt when she’d checked in.

  “I want to live for him,” she told the shrink.

  “Why does your living have to be for someone else? Do you feel like you are not enough alone?”

  “No!” she yelled and shot up from the chair.

  Dr. George dropped the pen, the notepad slipping from his lap to hit the floor.

  “I’m not alone,” she told him through clenched teeth.

  At her sides her fists were balled painfully tight. Her body trembled and she felt the familiar war within slowly beginning to churn into action once more. This is how it always began. The battle between right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, safe and dangerous.

  “I am not alone,” she said in a much calmer tone.

  It was a deceitful tone, she knew that. Whether or not Dr. George recognized that, she didn’t care. Oh, yes, she did. She had to now. And so Roslyn smiled. She let
loose a little chuckle and released her fingers. Moving one hand slowly she placed it on her stomach and the smile grew earnestly.

  “I won’t be alone ever again,” she whispered. “Now that I know he’s in there, living and breathing inside of me. I have him to think about how I’m going to take care of him. He’s mine,” she continued. “He’s all mine.”

  Her hand stayed firmly on her stomach where the baby she’d just learned she was carrying grew. Her mind, however, circled back to the man. The one who took a vow to be with another woman, but who would always belong to her. Now, they were connected by another life and Henry could not deny her. He would not, she was certain of that fact because the Donovans were all about family.

  “He’s all mine,” she said once more, even as Dr. George had stood and helped her back to the chair.

  He was saying something, speaking to someone. Roslyn didn’t know who, nor did she care.

  He’s all mine. She could hear it in her head even though she was certain her lips had stopped moving. All. Mine.

  Four Weeks Later

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Donovan Oilwell Headquarters was located in downtown Houston, but Henry had finally convinced his father and uncles that expanding the company to Las Vegas was a viable idea. To be honest, the move hadn’t taken much convincing since his father, Ike Donovan, had already introduced the concept to his father, Rowan, and Uncle Charleston years before. Then, the thought had been for them to open their own refinery so that they would not only be drilling for the oil and natural gas, but they would be able to produce the final products for sale. Henry recalled his father talking about this before they’d gone to The D Ranch to celebrate Gran’s eighty-first birthday. That had been four years ago, and Gran was gone now. Rowan, Henry’s grandfather, had died that following year after suffering a heart attack while in the middle of a business meeting. And while Henry’s great Uncle Charleston was still alive, after his mother and his brother’s deaths, he’d allowed his sons and nephews to take more control of the business. Henry and his cousin Cephus had immediately pushed for expansion. Cephus headed east to Virginia and Henry went west to Vegas. His other cousin, Gabe, decided that global expansion made more sense for him and went to the UK. Now, Donovan Oilwell was a global company. It was still new, but Henry’s cousins and brothers thought they were moving in a good direction.

  Additionally, Henry was ecstatic about the path his life had also taken. Beverly was due to have their first child in about two months. Married life, even though it had only been three months now, was everything he’d known it would be. He was sitting in his office, behind a rich mahogany desk on the tenth floor of one of several high-rise buildings they owned in the Donovan Corporate Center located in downtown Las Vegas. He wore a black turtleneck beneath a charcoal gray suede Halston jacket, and slacks in a lighter shade of gray. On his desk were stacks of papers, a lamp, a telephone and his wedding picture, with him and Beverly smiling as if it were the happiest day of their lives.

  Soon, there would be another photo. One of his first born. He was anxious to know what the sex of the baby was even though Henry was already certain that he couldn’t love another human being more than he did this child. It was because it was his and Beverly’s, a result of the love they’d shared since day one. The love they’d fought for even when distance, time, and other relationship interests threatened to tear them apart. Yes, the battle had been hard, but they’d won. Thank all that was holy that they’d won.

  Henry smiled at the thought and was just about to delve into the next set of contracts Al had sent by overnight mail for him to review. There was an opportunity for some offshore drilling they needed to consider. He’d read only the first paragraph of the first page when there was a commotion and the door to his office swung open.

  Jalissa, his secretary, pushed past the woman in front of her and rushed to say, “She would not wait, Mr. Donovan. Would you like me to call security?”

  Henry had already looked past Jalissa’s usually jovial freckled face to see the woman now standing a few feet from his desk. She looked better than she had the last time he saw her.

  “No,” Henry said after another moment’s hesitation. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll handle this. Hold my calls and close the door on your way out.”

  His voice was stilted and distant, he knew because he hadn’t been prepared for this interruption. Still, he knew he should remain professional as well as personable. His mother would not have been pleased had he done anything less.

  With a smile towards his assistant, Henry continued, “And if you’re finished editing those last charts I put on your desk this morning, you can have the rest of the day off.”

  Jalissa had given him a tentative smile in return. That was before she glanced at the other woman in his office and frowned. “Thank you, Mr. Donovan,” she said finally, before leaving.

  “Yes, Mr. Donovan. Thank you, Mr. Donovan,” the woman mimicked Jalissa’s tone. “I’ll just bet you love hearing that subservient voice all day, every day.”

  Henry frowned, not giving another thought to how his mother would have wanted him to react to this particular woman.

  “What are you doing here, Roslyn?”

  “I’m visiting Mr. Donovan,” she replied sweetly.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he told her, determined to get through to her once and for all. Hadn’t he thought he’d done that three months ago?

  Regardless, Henry stood and pulled his jacket together, fastening the two double breasted buttons. “We had a discussion about this and I thought it was clear that we would not see each other again.”

  She nodded and pressed a hip against the rich mahogany desk before sitting on the edge. She wore a burnt orange sweater dress with a gold chain link belt at her waist. Henry paused for a moment, then disregarded the thought he’d had and looked Roslyn in the eye.

  Her hair was different. Slicked down in deep waves that touched her forehead and curled around her ears. Her eyes seemed brighter, her ruby painted lips fuller. She looked, for lack of a better word, happier.

  “I know what you said three months ago, Henry,” she told him. “But things have changed since then.”

  Henry shook his head. “Yes, they have. I’m a married man now. My wife is expecting our first child in a couple of months and—”

  “What?” she asked, the light he’d just noticed in her eyes dimming.

  “I’m going to be a father,” he stated simply.

  He was about to walk around the desk to escort her out of his office, when she spoke again.

  “I know you are,” she told him. “Because I’m pregnant.”

  If she had smacked him across the forehead with a brick, Henry would not have been more stunned.

  “You’re what?”

  “Pregnant,” she said with a shrug. “Sixteen weeks today.”

  She rubbed a hand over her stomach. The roundness of her in that area was what had caught his attention when he’d first looked at her. Yes, Henry thought as he looked down to her brown painted nails. Roslyn had a stomach. It was a little pouch, but it hadn’t been there before. He knew that for a fact because the last time Henry had seen Roslyn—in that hotel room just weeks before his wedding—he’d touched her there, he’d kissed her there.

  Now, he rubbed a hand down the back of his head and frowned. Before she could even say it, Henry wanted to dispel the thought.

  “I’m not the father of your baby, Roslyn,” he told her.

  She arched a brow and slid slowly off the desk. He watched as she walked around his desk and stopped in front of him. His mind screamed for him to back up, to put distance between them and keep it that way. His body remained still. Even when she lifted a hand to rub across his chest. She watched her hand moving. Henry kept his gaze settled on her face. When she lifted the lapel of his jacket and leaned in, taking a deep inhale as if she were actually smelling him, Henry spoke again.

  “You should not be here. There is nothing
for you here anymore. It seems as if that’s hard for you to comprehend, so I’ll just keep saying it until you finally get the message.”

  She didn’t appear to hear him because she continued, now with her eyes closed, sniffing him and shaking her head.

  “Roslyn,” he said sternly.

  Henry put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away. He also took a step back, leaving the span of his arm’s length between them. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “No,” she replied and continued to shake her head. “It doesn’t matter what you’re saying, Henry. Those words just don’t matter.”

  “Those words are the truth,” Henry insisted, dropping his hands from her. “They are the undeniable truth. I am married to Beverly. We are starting a family. What you and I had is over.”

  “Oh Henry,” she continued, and was now smiling up at him. “You and I are starting a family. We’re going to have a son. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “No, Roslyn. That’s not true,” Henry told her. “It cannot be true.”

  She tilted her head then, as if she really didn’t understand what he was saying. “Are you sure about that, Henry? Because just a few months ago, you met me at that hotel and what we did…everything we did proves that what I’m saying is true.”

  “No!”

  The one word filled the entire room as Henry began to lose his patience.

  This did not happen to him often. He wasn’t the volatile Donovan brother. That was Bernard and Everette. He wasn’t as mellow as Albert, or as vocal as Reggie and Bruce, but when Henry was pushed, the end result was always the same. Not good.

  “It’s not possible,” he continued. “I was there, remember? I know what we did. More importantly, I know what I did.”

  He did know. He remembered it clearly even though he’d done a damn good job of pushing it out of his mind for the past months he’d been married.