Embraced by a Donovan

by A. C. Arthur

  “Bastard! You sick, vile bastard!” she yelled over and over again, until she was dizzy and out of breath.

  And then, finally, she was lifted into the air, strong arms wrapping around her. She was safe then, even as the sobs came in painful gusts, she knew she was safe and that this nightmare was finally about to come to an end.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” Reginald yelled when he came running out into the hallway.

  Parker had heard her screaming and he’d come running until he’d found her on top of Giovanni, beating the hell out of the guy. He’d pulled her off of him and resisted the urge to kick him in the nuts himself. But Adriana was the priority.

  “Sweetheart, what did he do to you? What was he trying to do to you?” he asked as he held her in his arms, his hands rubbing up and down her back as she cried. If her answer was anywhere near what he thought it was, Parker was going to have to put her down. He was definitely going to resume the ass-kicking she’d been giving this piece of crap if he’d so much as dared to touch her.

  “No,” she whispered softly. “No, no, no!” Her voice grew louder as she looked up at him. “Not that! He didn’t want that. He wanted to hurt me. Said somebody paid him to take us down a notch. He was just going to hurt me because now he’s pissed off. The money stopped and he can’t get a job,” Adriana told him.

  “Sonofabitch!” Savian yelled from beside Parker.

  Parker hadn’t even known he was there, he’d been so concerned with getting to Adriana, to making sure she was safe. He saw his brother now, and his father standing across from him.

  “Are you sure that’s what he said?” Parker asked her.

  She nodded. “Yes. Somebody paid him to do what he did. He hacked into our phones, he sent those messages and those pictures. He did it all. Oh…I can’t believe it, he…he just did it all,” she gasped, looking over to where Giovanni lay on the floor.

  Dion had his foot on the guy’s back while Giovanni cried and blubbered like an idiot, blood from his busted nose mixing with his tears.

  “You need to get her out of here,” Reginald said sternly. “Regan and Gavin are dealing with the press. Bruce had the place locked down before any of them could get out here. But the police have been called and once they get here all hell’s going to break loose. Take her home, Parker. Now!”

  With Reginald’s words, Adriana continued to stare down at Giovanni, her body trembling in Parker’s arms, tears sliding slowly down her face. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to see the moment the cops snapped those cuffs on Giovanni and vowed to watch the man go down in a slow, and hopefully even more painful spiral. But Adriana was the priority. Getting her to safety and making sure she made it through this was more important than any sort of vengeance at the moment.

  “Go,” Savian said. “I’ll stay here with dad and we’ll wait for the police. We’ll make sure he gets what he deserves, Parker.”

  It was an assurance that Parker knew he could trust from his brother and with a look to his father, he thought, with his family. They would protect him, the Donovan name, and the woman he loved, the same way he would do for any of them.

  He nodded then. “Call me the moment it’s done,” he said to Savian. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

  Savian nodded. “I will. Now go. They’ll take you down the back entrance and the car will be waiting. They’ll stay at the house with you too, just to be safe.”

  ‘They’ were the security team the family had hired after the window incidents at the Seniors’ houses. Once the story had broken about Parker and Adriana, they’d both been assigned a guard supposedly to keep them safe from the intruding reporters, but now, he supposed against someone who definitely had it out for him and the family.

  Parker followed the guy’s lead, carrying Adriana in his arms as they ran down the back stairs, busting through an exit door on the basement level of the hotel. It lead out into an alley where the Rolls Royce was just pulling up. The guard opened the back door and Parker hustled them inside, gripping Adriana closer as the door was closed and the car took off just seconds later.

  “Someone paid him to do it, Parker,” she said, her face still buried in his shirt so her words were muffled. “Why would someone do that?”

  “I don’t know, baby,” he told her honestly. “I just don’t know.”

  But he was damn sure going to find out.

  Chapter 15

  Two weeks later.

  “It’s happening again,” Al said through the speakerphone.

  The speaker was positioned in the center of the heavy oak table in the study of Reginald’s house. Bruce was sitting across the table from him and Everette had flown to Miami for the meeting. Henry couldn’t leave because Beverly was having some event at the house, so he was on the phone as well as Bernard.

  “Darla and I had argued about her the night before her car was driven off the road. The children think their mother passed out, was dizzy and disoriented after coming from a chemo treatment. They wanted to know why I wasn’t with her and I had to come up with a lie. I lied to my children because of that woman!” he said vehemently. “She was here in Houston. I knew I’d seen her and the letters kept coming and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t stop her from killing my wife!”

  “Al, calm down,” Bernard told him. “We still don’t have proof that any of your assumptions are true.”

  “She wouldn’t have driven herself off the road, Bernie. She wouldn’t have killed herself. We’d talked about her treatments and then she’d found one of those letters and things just went bad from there. Oh god, what did I do?”

  Al’s despair came through the speaker loud and clear and for a moment none of the Senior Donovans knew what to say.

  “We have to deal with the here and now,” Everette spoke up. “We can’t go backwards and change anything in the past. All we can do now is move forward.”

  “He’s right,” Reginald added with a nod. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do about Roslyn Ausby once and for all. Because if she’s the one that orchestrated the attack on our homes and all that’s happened to Parker and Adriana.” Reginald shook his head, unable to even continue with his thoughts.

  “They’re safe now. That Giovanni guy being found dead two days after the event, assures that he won’t be hurting them anymore,” Bruce said reaching out and clapping his brother on the shoulder. “They’re both alright and they’re moving on.”

  “Did they accept the explanation you gave them?” Bernard asked.

  Reginald nodded and then said, “They accepted that Giovanni was high as a kite that night and could have been saying absolutely anything. The next morning the police took his statement that he’d hacked into their phones and sent those edited photos and messages. He was charged with assault and identity theft and he made bail. And then the maid found his dead body in his house so we may never know who hired him for sure.” He shrugged, hoping that what Bruce had said about Parker and Adriana being safe now was true.

  “The press has dropped the story in favor of something new and juicier so the company’s stocks are up again and promotion is on the way for the show’s upcoming season,” Bruce added. “Like I said, moving on.”

  “They did ask about where we’ve been, about why we had to go to Houston,” Reginald added. “Parker and Savian asked me about that and Carolyn, well, she didn’t ask but she’s looking at me differently. Like she knows I’m hiding something.”

  “Dion and Sean asked me about that, too,” Bruce admitted. “I told them Al had some legal documents that all of us needed to sign in person. Things leftover from dad’s estate. They seemed to take that explanation.”

  “For now,” Henry spoke up. “This is all a temporary fix. We continue to lie to our kids, our wives, and we call ourselves moving on. But really we’re not. We’re harboring this same secret that’s haunted us for the last thirty-eight years. We have to do something about it this time, something permanent.”

  “I�
��ve got an idea,” Bernard told them. “It’s risky, but I think it might work. I think we might finally be able to stop Roslyn and her quest for money and vengeance this time.”

  The Seniors continued their conversation, once again laying out a plan to keep a secret buried for even more years to come. Everything they said, every move they planned to make was with the intent of protecting their family, protecting everything they’d built and loved.

  It was what they had to do, they were convinced of that fact, and nobody or nothing was going to stop them this time.

  #

  Adriana lay back against Parker’s chest, warm water—without the lavender scented bubbles—covering their bodies. His arms came around her and she sighed with complacency, her mind clear, and her optimism about the future soaring.

  “Our flight leaves at three tomorrow and you’re not even packed,” she told him.

  “Not a problem,” he said in that casual way of his. “I’ll take care of it in the morning.”

  “But you said you had to go into the office to take care of some last minute things. How are you going to pack and go into the office and be ready when the car picks us up to go to the airport?” she asked, not at all convinced he’d be able to pull it off.

  “First,” he said, lifting a hand to massage her breast. “We’re flying on the family jet. If I’m late they’ll wait. And second,” he continued. “I won’t be late.”

  She gave up. “If you say so.” And then she moaned, enjoying the way his fingers toyed with her hardening nipple.

  “I do say so,” he told her. “And since you’re now so amenable to what I say. I was thinking that when we return from your audition in Paris, we should start looking for a house.”

  She stiffened and he kissed her ear, licking her lobe, then whispering, “I want us to have our own house. A place where you can decorate and feel like it’s yours.”

  “I didn’t say I needed my own place,” she told him, trying to relax again.

  “You didn’t have to say it,” he told her. “I figured it out.”

  When she didn’t respond he added, “Okay, my mother and my sister suggested it and after I thought about it I had to agree. We should have a place that represents us and the future we plan to build together.”

  Adriana lifted her hands to cover his that were now both on her breasts. “I want children, Parker. I never thought I did before but I know I do now. Briana is adorable and I love seeing her smile. I want to see our children smile, to hear them laugh and watch them playing in a big back yard. I want a family, Parker.”

  He seemed to let out a deep breath. “I am so glad you said that, so glad I didn’t have to try to convince you it was a good idea. You know, to stay with me, get married, and have a couple of kids.”

  She chuckled, even as her body warmed with arousal. “Sure, Parker, what woman wouldn’t want to marry you and have a couple of kids?”

  He moved a little, just enough so that she could look back at him and his lips could touch hers in a soft kiss. “I don’t give a damn about any other woman who might want that. Only you, Adriana. There’s always going to be only you.”

  She kissed him then, letting her tongue dance slowly over his and sighing when she finally pulled away. “I love you, handsome,” she told him.

  He smiled, that Parker Donovan smile that had her hooked from the start. “And I love you, beautiful. I love you very, very much.”

  #

  Savian sat up in his bed, his back to the marble headboard. His tablet was on his lap, the seventy-two inch flat screen mounted to the wall across the room tuned in to the entertainment news channel. He’d just finished going through his emails, noting meeting dates on his calendar and scheduling reminders for when he needed ratings reports and updates on properties in development.

  His father had sworn he was back and ready to focus on work, but Savian wasn’t certain. He wasn’t convinced by the story Uncle Bruce and his father had given about why they’d gone to Houston or why they’d been missing in action so much either. And that email that Sam had attempted to trace and examine, the warning about them living in glass houses, still had him wondering what the hell was really going on. He didn’t believe the assumption that it was someone jealous of the Donovans, of their success, nor did he believe that this was random by any stretch, especially since Uncle Bruce’s house was attacked on the same night and in the same manner. No, Savian was sure there was something else going on. What he wasn’t as certain about was how they were all going to feel once they found out what it really was.

  “We have breaking news in the case of director Giovanni Morelli’s murder,” the reporter from the television announced.

  Savian looked up to the television. The picture of Giovanni in a small block in the left corner of the screen pulled him in first. It was from the end of season cast party, and it was of Giovanni at his car waving to reporters as he drove through the studio gates.

  “Miami P.D. now has a person of interest they would like to speak to regarding this gruesome murder. Sources say that person may be Savian Donovan, executive producer at Donovan Network Television, where Morelli last worked on the hit show Indiscretions.”

  Savian clenched his teeth. He stared at the screen until the picture of Giovanni disappeared and a new story was being reported. Without hesitating he picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. When the call connected he said, “I’m on my way over there now.”

  He disconnected and grabbed his computer from the bed, slipped on the shoes he’d been wearing earlier in the day and headed out of his bedroom. In the next ten minutes he’d made it to the garage and was behind the wheel of his Mercedes SUV. He drove fast, his mind moving even faster as he replayed the events of the last few weeks, of the night he’d gone to Giovanni’s house and of the last time he’d seen the man alive.

  Epilogue

  Dane stood in the doorway of his study staring with mild disbelief and growing anger.

  Carrie, his current part-time lover, who had just left his office not fifteen minutes ago in a huff about the lack of attention he paid to her or their relationship, had apparently found something…or rather, someone else to fix that problem for her.

  Against the navy painted walls Carrie’s fair complexion was like a beacon of light. The short blue dress with the thin straps at her shoulders had been pushed up high on her hips and her long bare-skinned legs were crossed around the back of Harris—Dane’s head of security. Harris was wearing the dress pants and shirt that all his security staff wore while on duty because Dane was very particular about the image he and those who worked for him portrayed to the world.

  Harris’s pants were down at his ankles. More contrast of dark and light as their bodies connected, echoes of their combined moaning sounding loudly throughout the room. So loud that neither of them had heard him approach.

  For another few seconds Dane watched, that infamous muscle in his jaw ticking, signifying his total irritation. Then, at the exact moment he recognized the tilt of Carrie’s head and the completely erotic look on her face, both signs that she was about to come, he spoke, “You both have ten minutes to get the hell off my property. One second beyond that time and I will have you thrown out on your ass.”

  He didn’t stick around for shocked looks, the mortified recriminations and/or explanations, but left the room instead. Pulling his phone from his pants pocket he dialed a number and walked back to his office with long, quick strides as it rang. Walking through the door, he pushed it closed behind him. Not slamming it—Dane never showed his temper in such trivial ways—but blocking out the rest of the world, as he’d so often tended to do.

  “I want them dealt with,” he was saying into the phone hearing the light steps of someone joining him in his office. “You know the addresses. Call me when it’s done.”

  Ending the call he dropped the phone on his desk and took a deep, steadying breath.

  “Is that how you handle everyone that pisses you off?”

>   He’d known she would come. Like the sun in the morning, the moon and the stars at night, Roslyn Ausby always appeared. Turning slowly, Dane leaned back against his desk, crossing his ankles and folding his arms over his chest.

  “Hello, mother,” he said solemnly. “What can I do for your today?”

  With regal movements, she put the big expensive purse she carried on one of the guest chairs and slid slowly into the other. She crossed her legs, toned and well-maintained as the rest of her sixty year old body. With deliberate flicks of her wrist she removed non-existent lint from the bright white pant suit she wore. Her hair was silky and lay in big curls across her shoulders. There was no gray in sight. Roslyn would most likely have choked her stylist if the woman dared let any part of her age be revealed. Her make-up was a little much for Dane’s taste, but suited her polished and astute appearance. Then she looked up at him and the cool, assessing glare he’d become accustom to held him still. She was his mother and his biggest critic. Had always been and because she’d sworn he’d been cursed by his DNA, most likely always would be.

  “You can tell me exactly how big a role you played in the Giovanni Morelli murder?”

  Like Dane, Roslyn did not mince words. When she had something to say, she said it and when there was something she wanted to know, she found out…usually.

  Dane rubbed a hand absently over his bearded chin. “I pay my staff good money to do two things: whatever the job I need done and to be discreet. Morelli messed up on both accounts.”

  “But now the police are going to be investigating his death. We don’t need that type of attention. The Donovans will never cooperate if they think for one moment this situation might go public.”