Page 21 of Forever His (The Donovans: Secret Son #6)

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.

She’d stopped shaking her head but was now rubbing the small pouch perched over the gold belt she wore. Henry looked away.

“Oh, you think because you made an attempt to not share your release with me, that you dodged the pregnancy bullet.” She made a tsking sound. “Come on, Henry, you know better than that. Pulling out is not a reliable form of birth control.”

Henry almost yelled his frustration at that moment.

How many times had his father told him that very same thing?

Ike Donovan had made sure to have “The Talk” with each of his sons on the day they turned ten years old.

While Henry’s mother had thought they were too young to know about men and women at that point, Ike was insistent.

His boys were to be respectful to women, loving and generous.

They were also supposed to be responsible and protective of any woman they deemed worthy enough to sleep with.

The mere thought that he’d done less than what was expected of him had Henry trembling with anger.

“That is not my child!” he told her, this time as he stared directly into her eyes. “I don’t care what you’ve decided in your mind, that child will never carry my name. I can promise you that.”

“Please don’t make promises, Henry,” she said, her demeanor once again changing.

She was no longer smiling, no longer rubbing her stomach.

Now, she’d taken a step back and was staring at Henry as if he were possibly one of her biggest enemies.

There was clear detestation in her glare, even when she lifted a hand to smooth down the side of her hair.

“You’re one of those men that aren’t good at keeping their promises,” she continued.

“But that’s alright. I hear what you’re saying and I’m going to leave because it was never my purpose to come here and cause a scene.

Before I leave, however, you should probably know that my son will definitely carry your name. At least part of it anyway.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Why are you doing this, Roslyn? I don’t know how else to say this but to just say it, I don’t want to be with you anymore. There is no future for us no matter what you say or think. There’s nothing. It’s done!”

This was the first time Henry noticed the small black purse in Roslyn’s right hand. Her fingers clenched it so tight, it made a noise.

“His last name will be Donovan,” she stated evenly. “Just like his father’s.”

“Roslyn,” he began but she put a hand up to stop his next words.

“Ask your brothers, Henry. Call Bernard and Al and ask them how it’s possible that I will be giving birth to a Donovan son. Go ahead,” she said. “I dare you!”

Henry spoke carefully and slowly, “Get out of my office.” His entire body was shaking, his head had begun to throb. “Get out of my building. My town. My life!”

She’d already begun walking, a slow and sultry swagger that spoke volumes about the mistake Henry had undoubtedly made.

“Words, Henry. That’s all you are spouting is words. They mean nothing to me,” she insisted as she approached and opened the door to his office. “Your words mean absolutely nothing to me. I will have this baby and he will carry the Donovan name. You can’t change that fact. None of you can.”

Henry fell back in his chair the moment she was through the door, dropping his head into his hands.

He tried to take deep breaths, to keep from either passing out or jumping over that desk and running after her to…

to what? What was he going to do about the bombshell Roslyn had just dropped on him?

How was he going to tell Beverly? And his brothers?

What the hell had she meant by saying “ask your brothers”?

Henry didn’t know and he shouldn’t care.

He shouldn’t give a damn about Roslyn or whoever’s baby she was carrying. He just shouldn’t.

But he did. Damn it all, he did care. Because if what she said was true, if she was in fact carrying his child, Henry’s life—the life he’d planned for, the one that his parents had expected him to have—was over.

It was all over.