“Today was challenging only because I had to get familiar with the layout of each home and figure out the best way to utilize my time.” Natalie finally told her aunt. She saw no reason to inform her aunt that she had fallen asleep in Donovan Steele’s bed.
“Mr. Steele was out of town for the weekend and didn’t get your message.” She couldn’t help but smile when she added, “Needless to say, I was definitely a surprise to him.”
“I’m sure you were. He’s very particular about who cleans up his home. He likes protecting his privacy. I understand the woman from his last cleaning service tried coming on to him, and when he didn’t return her advances, she threatened to pass on information about him to the newspaper’s gossip column.”
Natalie lifted a brow, enlightened. No wonder he was such a hardnose about someone else coming in to clean his place. “He wants to move into a weekly slot. Preferably Fridays.”
When she set the cup of tea in front of her aunt, she noticed her frowning. “He wants cleaning service every week?” Aunt Earline asked.
“Yes.”
“Why? There’s not much to do on the days he’s paying us for now. He’s a rather clean man, not a slob like Simpkins.”
Natalie couldn’t agree more. Jeremy Simpkins was a slob, and what was sad was the fact he had a live-in fiancée, so to be fair Natalie wasn’t sure which of the two deserved the title. The house had been a complete mess. And it seemed that the two had had a fight the night before. Broken dishes had littered the kitchen floor when she’d arrived. From the looks of things, the argument had started during dinner and had been a doozy.
“Well, that’s what he wants,” she said, sliding into the chair opposite her aunt with her own cup of tea. It had always been a ritual for her aunt to enjoy a cup of herbal tea in the evening after dinner.
“Then we need to see how we can adjust our schedule to accommodate him. He was one of the first clients I took on, and through him, I got a lot of good referrals. Besides, he pays well and is a generous tipper.”
Natalie nodded at her aunt’s words. “He gave me a twenty-dollar tip, which I put in the emergency fund jar,” she said.
“You should have kept it. You earned it,” her aunt replied.
Natalie shook her head. “No big deal.” A smile then touched her lips. “He thinks I’m a regular employee with your cleaning service.”
Her aunt lifted a brow. “And you didn’t set him straight and inform him that you were a chemistry professor at Princeton University?”
Natalie shrugged. “I saw no reason to do that. He can think whatever he wants, as long as he pays for his cleaning service each month.”
She took a sip of her tea and, deciding to change the subject, said, “Farrah called while you were asleep. She and I are getting together Friday night and going out.”
Farrah Langley was her girlfriend from high school. While growing up they were thick as thieves, and they made a point to get together whenever Natalie returned to town. She was one of the few people Farrah had confided in when she’d suspected her ex-husband was cheating. And when her suspicions proved to be true, Natalie had been the one who’d provided Farrah with long-distance consolation and support during her divorce.
Aunt Earline smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I feel bad about you leaving your job to come help me take care of my business. I promise to do everything I can to hurry up and get better.”
“And I don’t want you to worry about it, Aunt Earline. You need me and I’m here. I had a long talk with Eric last week about my coming here, and staying until you’re back on your feet makes perfect sense.”
Eric was Aunt Earline’s son, who was five years older than Natalie and employed with the State Department as a foreign service officer. He was currently living in Australia.
“Besides, I needed a break from the university anyway,” Natalie tacked on. “I did agree to be back in time to do that lecture at the start of the fall semester, and my department head was grateful for that.”
Her aunt took a sip of tea and then looked at her and asked, “So what do you think of Donovan Steele? Most of the time I’ve cleaned his place he’s at work. However, the few times I’ve seen him I found him to be quite a charmer.”
A charmer? That was the last thing she’d thought of him. And how did they get back on the topic of Donovan Steele anyway? She shrugged. “I guess some women would find him a charmer, but I was really too busy cleaning his home to take notice.”
At that moment the phone rang, and she was grateful for an excuse to get up from the table to escape a conversation about Donovan Steele.
Chapter 3
“And you actually found the woman asleep in your bed?”
The man sitting across from Donovan at a table in the Racetrack Café rarely showed surprise, but he did now. Bronson Scott had to be the most unflappable man Donovan knew, even when he was behind the wheel in a race car going close to two hundred miles an hour. Regardless of his ability to retain his cool, Bronson did have one major flaw that few people detected. He had a stubbornness that he effectively hid behind a billowy cloud of charisma and charm. He was also loyal to a fault to those he trusted and considered friends. Donovan knew he fell in both categories.
“Yes, she was in the bed upstairs,” he responded and watched as Bronson’s eyes widened.
“What did you do?”
Not what he’d wanted to do, Donovan thought as he sighed deeply. “I woke her up…after checking her out first. I liked what I saw.”
Bronson smiled,. “Regardless, you caught her sleeping on the job, and with your stern work ethic I’m surprised you didn’t fire her on the spot.”
Donovan was surprised, as well. But there had been something about his Goldilocks that had given him pause…as well as a hard-on that still had her name wrapped around it. How could he explain to his best friend that when he had gazed down at Natalie desire as hot as it could get, as deep as it could go, had blazed through him? And he doubted he could explain why he wanted her back in his bed with an intensity he hadn’t felt in years, if ever.
“I could have fired her but I didn’t,” he decided to say after taking a sip of his beer right out of the bottle.
Bronson chuckled. “And that, my friend, says it all.”
Donovan raised a brow. “And what exactly is it saying?”
Bronson leaned back in his chair. “The extent of your interest. That finding her in your bed—that particular bed—has given you what you see as a vested interest in her life.”
Now it was Donovan’s time to chuckle. “Not her life, Bron, just her body.”
There. He’d spoken out loud the very thought that had been running through his mind ever since Natalie Ford had walked out of his door. She was a woman, a good-looking woman, a very hot and enticing woman.
A woman he wanted.
He had decided the moment he’d stared down into her open eyes that he wanted her. Sexual chemistry between them had been thick, the air surrounding them charged. Dangerously so. He would go so far and admit he didn’t particularly understand that part of the equation, but he would accept it now and dwell on it later. He knew what he wanted and would act on it. In a way, he already had. She would be in his home at least once a week for the next six weeks. A strategic move that he was pretty damn proud of.
“So what do you know about her?”
Donovan