In The Arms of a Donovan: A Sexy BBW Billionaire Family Series Romance (The Donovans Book 13) (2 page)

Chapter 1

Present

December 26
th

Miami, Florida

Bruce and Janean Donovan’s dining room was full of people. Of family, as they’d all gathered to hear what they thought would be answers to all of their questions. Bruce wasn’t so sure they’d feel any better when they left. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes as he sighed heavily. It was the moment he and none of his brothers had wanted to come to fruition. The time when they’d have to tell the secret they’d all agreed years ago to hide.

His wife, his best friend, and the woman he’d cherished above all else, sat in the cream colored dining room chair, in front of him. The Seniors had decided that last night was the best time to share the secret with their wives. None of them wanted the women they loved to be shocked and upset in front of their children. Janean’s hands were folded on the marble table top, the diamonds from her wedding rings glittering in the streaks of sunshine that filtered through the bay window.  Beside her, because they’d had to bring in extra chairs to accommodate everyone, Carolyn sat with a similarly solemn posture. Reginald, as it seemed they’d always been as the youngest of the Senior Donovans, stood right beside Bruce, his hands in his pockets as he stared out at the rest of the family.

Across the long table the other Seniors stood behind their wives: Henry, Bernard and Everette, with Beverly, Jocelyn and Alma. The chairs along the two sides of the table were also filled with wives and fiancés, their husbands standing dutifully behind them: Savian and Jenise, Parker and Adriana, Regan and Gavin, Dion and Lyra, Sean and Tate. Across the other side of the table were: Linc and Jade, Adam and Camille, Trent and Tia, Ben and Victoria, Keysa and Ian.

More chairs lined the wall as the women sat beneath abstract art portraits in colors matching the soft beige, peach and cream décor. Brynne, Max and Deena, Noelle and Brock, Brandon and Bailey were situated there. Standing beside his daughter was Albert, looking weary and distressed about what was about to happen. Bruce felt more compassion for his oldest brother, knowing that he’d already lost so much because of this secret.

“Why don’t we start with what happened last night,” Trent began when no one else was jumping at the opportunity to speak.

Bruce wasn’t surprised. Henry’s middle son had always been an extrovert, with a good head on his shoulders and a penchant for taking care of business. He hated that this time, the business was about this family and something that the Seniors could have probably prevented.

“Did you find out more?” Dion asked Trent.

“Yeah,” Trent replied. “Dev and I were up half the night going over every inch of that room and talking to the staff there.”

Bruce took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he recalled what had happened last night at Savian and Jenise’s wedding reception. The festivities had begun in grand style as the Donovans arrived at Briza on the Bay, one of Miami’s premiere wedding venues. Then, unfortunately, their celebratory moods had been undeniably darkened.

“It didn’t take long for the event manager to crumble under Dev’s unique interrogating skills. He was paid twenty five hundred dollars to set up the screen and the video and to play it at the time he’d been told,” Trent stated evenly.

“Who the hell paid him to do that?” Savian asked, his hands gripping the back of the chair where Jenise sat.

Trent looked down the table to his father, then back to his cousins. “The guy received all of his instructions via email. The money was wired to his bank account, half two days before the wedding and the other half about ten minutes after the video played. I sent an email from the manager’s account as soon as he told us about it, calling whoever was responsible out.”

“As only my brother could,” Adam said with a nod of his head.

Trent replied with an agreeable nod to his younger brother. “You got that right. I told that sonofabitch to show his face.”

“And did he?” Jenise asked.

She was a lawyer, Bruce thought. So she would have questions and she would be looking at this through eyes of what was prosecutable and what was not. Or rather, in their case, what would be defendable and what would not.

“He replied almost immediately. The clock that came to your house last night, Aunt Carolyn, it was his gift to us. To remind us, he said. Again, he’d only had to pay one of the florists to take it in with the flowers and other stuff they were delivering for the wedding. Money is definitely a motivator.” Trent was the epitome of restraint as he spoke, his broad shoulders squared, eyes level on whomever he decided to look at. His arms were folded over his chest in a stance that also spoke of his military training.

“Remind us of what? Who the hell is this coward and why is he taunting us with vague warnings and cheap gifts? If he has something to say why doesn’t he just confront us and get it over with?” Regan slammed her palms down on the table when she spoke.

Gavin, Regan’s boyfriend, covered her hand with his, pulling it away from the table and holding it securely. “Why don’t we just let him tell us everything he knows,” he said to her calmly.

Regan was pregnant, as was Lyra. They were both in their second trimester. Lyra, because of a previous miscarriage, was at a higher risk of premature labor and ultimately bed rest. While Regan, because of her quick temper and her tendency to do too much in all circumstances, was also at risk of developing high blood pressure and other complications. The family was terribly excited about the pregnancies and even more prayerful that they would make it to a healthy and happy ending for all.

“He wanted me to know who he was right up front, telling me his name was Dane Donovan in the very first line of his responding email. He says his father is one of you.”

Trent’s gaze moved around the room. He turned to look at Albert, who was situated behind him, then he looked to the other end of the table where Bernard and then, his father, were standing.

There were gasps and curses, looks of shock, and heads shaking. Bruce tried to take it all in, then he simply closed his eyes. In two sentences his nephew had taken a load off his shoulders that had rested there for far too long. There was a child, born to a woman who was not married to one of the Senior Donovans. And now that child was here to tell them that he should not be forgotten.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Regan spoke up next. “This is all about this guy thinking he’s a Donovan.”

“Is it true?” Savian asked, his voice laced with that icy edge that only he possessed.

He’d asked the question of his father and Reginald had at first nodded his head.

“Yes, this young man believes he is a Donovan,” Reggie replied.

“If he believes it there must be a reason,” Dion said.

“So which one of you has another child?” Linc asked as he looked directly at his father. “On the screen last night the baby’s name was Donovan Henry. Is he your son, dad?”

The room was eerily quiet now as the Senior Donovans looked from one to the other. Henry did not speak. Beverly, lifted a hand to her shoulder and waited until her husband clasped it. There it was, the Donovan loyalty. Bruce wondered if it would survive.

“There was a woman that I was involved with while in college,” Henry finally spoke up. “Her name is Roslyn Ausby.”

Sean cursed.

Parker shook his head. “Roslyn Ausby is Dane Donovan’s mother. So you got her pregnant and then what, you walked away Uncle Henry?”

“That’s not exactly what happened,” Henry started to say.

“Then for the love of all that’s holy, will one of you please enlighten us?” Savian said before cursing.

“You will remain respectful, Savian,” Carolyn said to her son. “We’re all adults here and I expect everyone in this room to act accordingly. You want to know the story, then be quiet and let them tell it.”

Savian fumed. His wife didn’t reach for his hand the way that Beverly had with Henry, she only stared down to the end of the table, waiting to hear what would come next. They all did.

“Roslyn and I broke up before graduation,” Henry continued. “Then we were together again just before my wedding.”

“You bastard,” Linc said. “You got another woman pregnant, what days, weeks, before marrying my mother?”

Henry met his son’s gaze and held it. He was sorry, but he wasn’t weak. “I made a mistake. We all make mistakes.”

“Some mistakes we shouldn’t make, dad,” Adam said. “‘If you love your woman, you cherish her. You respect and uplift her.’ That’s what you told me when I was sixteen years old. It’s what you told all of us.”

Henry nodded as his youngest child spoke. “It’s the truth.”

“Is it really?” Trent asked. “How much more of this truth do you need to tell us?”

Henry cleared his throat. “I was wrong for being with Roslyn before my wedding. That is for my wife and I to work through. As for the other…for this child…I don’t know if I’m the father.”

“How could you not know?” Trent asked.

Tia turned in her seat now, rubbing a hand over her husband’s arm. He looked down at her but did not speak. When Trent’s gaze returned to his father it was full of heat and accusation.

“He doesn’t know because he’s not the only one that slept with her,” Bernard said.

“What? Wait a minute,” Parker said, shaking his head. The smile on his face was normal, but there was steel in his gray/green eyes. He was definitely not happy. “You’re about to tell us that more than one of you slept with the same woman? What kind of bullshit is that?”

“Parker!” Carolyn admonished.

“Let them be,” Reginald told his wife. “They have a right to be angry.”

“But they do not have a right to be disrespectful. We’re still the elders in this room,” Beverly added.

“Did you sleep with this woman too, dad?” Keysa asked quietly. She was holding her husband Ian’s hand, but looked directly at her father.

Bernard, like his brother Henry, did not falter. “I’m not proud of that fact. I was drunk and she was wearing a disguise and it just happened.”

“It just happened,” Brynne said and then chuckled. “How does something like that just happen? You get drunk and fall between your brother’s ex-girlfriend’s legs.”

“Brynne, there’s no need to be crude,” Jocelyn, Brynne’s mother admonished.

“This entire situation is crude and unbelievable. Do you know how long I’ve had the words ‘Donovan legacy’, ‘Donovan integrity’, and ‘Donovan loyalty’ drilled into my head? Now I get to sit here and find out that it all means nothing. Just a bunch of words repeated by a bunch of lying old men!” Brynne yelled before storming out of the room.

“That’s not all,” Al spoke up then.

“Sonofabitch!” Brandon cursed.

The Senior wives looked to each other, realizing now that there was no way they could hope for a normal discussion in this instance. Their children were adults now and they were angry adults. There was nothing any of them could do about that at this point.

Al stood, wiping a hand down his face. “Darla rushed me to the hospital that night and almost fainted when they told her they’d found traces of some Rohypnol in my blood and urine.”

“Are you about to tell us that this woman raped you?” Bailey asked from where she sat beside him.

“Unbelievable!” Brandon shouted again. “You all are a bunch of hypocritical bastards not only for what you did back then, but for keeping all of this from us.”

“So was it just the three of you?” Dion asked. “Or did all of you get a piece of her?”

Janean leaned over and smacked her son’s face. “You will not! I don’t care how angry you are, you just will not speak that way!”

Everette spoke up at that point. “It was just the three older brothers, but we all knew. We all decided to keep it a secret when that Ausby woman made the claim about one of them fathering her baby.”

“You all decided?” Max asked. “How could you all decide to turn your back on an innocent child? At the very least you could have taken a blood test.”

“She was a tramp!” Bernard insisted. “Why should we be knuckled under by a slut who didn’t know who she was sleeping with from one day to the next?”

“Because she wasn’t a stupid tramp,” Trent said. “She knew she was sleeping with a Donovan man. Three of them to be exact.”

“So it was a set-up,” Jenise said.

Tia was already nodding. “It had to be.”

“What did you give her to keep quiet all this time?” Bailey asked. “Why is he coming after us now? What do they want if he’s a grown man, it can’t be child support.”

“We paid her,” Bruce spoke up. “One time, we gave her five hundred thousand dollars.”

The tension could be cut with a razor in the room.

“You paid her half a million dollars when you didn’t even know if this kid belonged to either of you?” Sean asked. “Why? If she’s as promiscuous as you all say, anyone could have been the father.”

“We couldn’t risk her going to the press,” Everette replied. “Regardless of who turned out to be the father, the Donovan name would have been dragged through the mud before paternity was established. We couldn’t risk that.”

Ben was shaking his head. He’d been quiet all this time, but Bruce knew his nephew was reacting to everything he’d heard. Ben was a defense attorney, so this probably was not the strangest thing he’d ever heard. It was the first time he’d heard something of this magnitude from his family.