Surrender to a Donovan

“But her sales are looking good,” he said contemplatively.

“How’d you get your hands on her sales figures?”

It was Sean’s turn to smile now. “I have my connections.”

Dion nodded. “Yeah, I guess the same way she seems to know what’s going on in our camp. Listen, the real reason I stopped by was to ask if you’ve had a chance to speak to Parker.”

Parker Donovan was their cousin, son of Reginald and Carolyn. Uncle Reginald had always had his hands more into DNT, so it made sense that his sons would follow in his footsteps. Parker did a lot of scouting for new programs, while Savian focused on upcoming business ventures and spotlighting entrepreneurs. Regan, the youngest of Uncle Reginald’s children, and the only girl, worked at Infinity, heading up the fashion and entertainment portions of the magazine. She, along with Camille, who was married to Adam Donovan of the Las Vegas branch of the family, were currently developing a reality TV show that would center around the life of a fashion designer. Meanwhile, under Savian’s watchful eye, the men were charged with developing a show that would transform Infinity magazine’s print success to television.

“I had a message from him when I came back from lunch, but I haven’t had a chance to call him back.”

“You actually took a lunch?” Dion asked with another raise of his brows.

Sean was getting tired of his brother’s assumptions and innuendos. “What does Parker want? Since you’re in here at this time of night asking about him, it must be important.”

“He wants to talk to you about adding the relationship column to the magazine show. Says the online version is getting lots of traffic.”

That was true. Sean had seen that for the past three months there had been a rise in the mail coming in for the “Ask Jenny” column. Then eight weeks ago, after their monthly meeting, he’d decided to expand the column from its quarter page to a full page to see what would happen. The change had gone over well.

“There’s a good following there. Do you read the column?” Sean was curious, since his brother usually kept his finger on every inch of the magazine. As editor-in-chief of Infinity, it was his job to know everything that went into the magazine as well as the feedback they received.

“I’ve read it. Jenny sounds like she’s been through a lot—knows the ropes,” Dion said with a slight chuckle. “It’s just what women in the twenty-five to thirty-five demographic are looking for. Honest and brash.”

Sean was nodding as he listened to his brother, thinking about the last “Ask Jenny” column he’d read recently. “Real,” he said. “That’s the tone I picked up when I read it. She sounds like a real woman, with real issues of her own.”

“Right. So let’s think about how that might play out on television. Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz have shows—why shouldn’t we look into putting our own relationship guru out there?”

“It definitely has merit,” Sean agreed.

“Good,” Dion said, standing. “So I’ll tell Parker you’re going to talk to her, and we’ll met up later this week to see if it’s something to really look into.”

“Wait a minute. I’m going to talk to who?”

“Jenny, or whatever her name is that writes the column. Is it really Jenny?” Dion asked with a quizzical look on his face. “That’s probably not smart to have her real name out there.”

Sean was standing now, pulling his suit jacket from the back of his chair and slipping his arms inside. “No, her name’s not Jenny. And why aren’t you or Parker talking to her? Better yet, why not just call her into a meeting with all of us?”

Dion was at the door when he turned to give Sean an appeasing look. “She’s not going to bite you, Sean. You know, if you weren’t my brother, I might start to question this aversion you have to women.”

Sean tossed a teasing jab at his brother, his fist landing on Dion’s biceps. “You know better,” he said. “I can talk to women just fine. I do it on a daily basis.”

“Yeah, but those women aren’t analyzing the good, bad and ugly truths about men. Good luck with that one,” he said, then walked through the door.

“Man, I’m a Donovan,” Sean said, following his brother out to the elevators. “I don’t need luck.”

Chapter 2

Dear Jenny,

I’m confused. I am a 32-year-old woman with two sons living with my 35-year-old boyfriend, who has three children from a previous relationship that also live with us. I work a full-time job and take care of the house and the children. My boyfriend is an entrepreneur—trying to open his own barber shop. We’ve been together for ten years.

I want to get married. He doesn’t understand why what we have is not enough. I want commitment and love and stability for our family. Especially since I don’t mind taking care of his kids as well as the ones we share together. I’m not even complaining about having to pay the bulk of our household bills myself. I am a Christian and have been taking all our kids to church for years, but my boyfriend never comes with us.

There is this life I want with a family and a household built on Christian love and respect. Then there’s this feeling that I’m still shacking up, and as my girlfriends keep reminding me, “settling” for less because he obviously does not want to commit to me.

Last Valentine’s Day my boyfriend proposed. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to show everyone the diamond ring he gave me. I immediately went out and bought wedding books and started writing down my plans for the wedding. But when I asked him about setting a date he said he wanted to wait. It’s been more than a year, and we’re still waiting. Problem is, I don’t know what we’re waiting for.

Can you help?

In love and confused.

Tate Dennison read the letter for the second time. That was her process—Nelia, the editorial assistant on this floor, received the mail and routed each piece to whichever staff writer they went to. The second floor of the Excalibur Building was dedicated to the writing staff of Infinity magazine. Once Nelia had gone through the mail, she brought Tate her stack. Tate then separated the letters into two piles—male and female questions—because she needed a different type of focus when answering each letter.

Was this the way she thought she’d be using the journalism degree she’d received from Morgan State University in Maryland? Of course not, but it paid the bills.

It was nearing five-thirty in the afternoon and already she’d answered four letters, attended a staff writers’ meeting and let the graphics director talk her ear off for about an hour. The one thing she hadn’t done was answer her cell phone again. It had started ringing around noon and continued every half hour. The first couple of times she’d answered the unknown number, but then she grew tired of the hang-ups and turned the ringer to vibrate. Still, she’d kept an eye on the ringing each time, just to be sure it wasn’t the day care calling about her daughter.

To say she was tired would have been an understatement. But she was here trying to get more work done. Recently, the magazine had begun printing ten responses in her column per month. But Tate liked to be ahead of the game. She’d learned there was no other way to be.

Because she’d been sitting so long, her feet had started to go numb, so Tate walked to the end of her small office. It probably used to be a closet, she thought, as she skirted around the desk that took up the bulk of her space. Immediately she was face-to-face with the bookshelf that served as an organizer and held all her mail, past columns, along with copies of the letters she’d responded to and pictures of her inspiration squeezed in for good measure.

Her daughter, Briana Suray Dennison, stared back at her with plump cheeks and a tiny toothed grin. She was Tate’s star and moon, the reason she’d taken this job and lived in Miami. Briana was basically Tate’s reason for living at all. Three months ago, she’d turned two, and her baby chatter was becoming real words like mama and no. Tate rubbed a finger over the picture, touching the chubby cheeks she loved to kiss and nuzzle. She loved her daughter’s smile and the simply joyous look she always had in her eyes. It never failed to make Tate’s heart ache.

They were supposed to be a family living happily ever after. And here she was in another state, thousands of miles away from the only family she had left in Maryland. All because of him. No, she corrected herself, moving here and starting over had been her decision. Leaving their family high and dry had been Patrick’s. She wouldn’t take the blame for what wasn’t her fault.

She’d loved him enough to alienate herself from her relatives because they didn’t care for him. Had loved him enough to marry him and have his baby. And he’d used her enough to take their savings and all the furniture in their house. Now, nine months after his betrayal, she knew Patrick had never loved her. Their three-year marriage had been a complete lie. And that was fine. She’d resigned herself to that fact, even if Briana’s smile reminded her of it every day.

Another reminder of the mess her marriage had turned out to be was writing this damned column. Each morning she came in to another stack of mail, another stack of someone else’s relationship problems. And she was the one charged with helping them, when she hadn’t been bright enough to see the signs of her own union falling apart. If that wasn’t ironic, she didn’t know what was.

“Okay, get it together, Dennison,” she berated herself. Taking a deep breath, she thought about the letter she’d just read for the second time, about the circumstances and the issues she needed to address.

There were a few. For instance, why was “In love and confused” the only one with gainful employment in this household? What she needed to do was make this boyfriend of hers get a job. “A real job at that,” she said aloud and then chuckled and moved on to the next issue.

“Excuse me?”

The deep male voice startled her, and Tate jumped, backed up and slammed her leg into the side of her desk.

“Damn it!” she swore, leaning over to rub her leg and looking up just as the owner of the voice had moved in to catch her.

“Are you all right?” he asked, touching a hand lightly to her shoulder and leaning over slightly to look at the leg she was rubbing.

The full skirt she had on today was a thin paisley material, and it fell between her legs as she rubbed. She realized with a start how much of her thigh she was actually showing and hurriedly pulled it down.

“I’m fine,” she said, clearing her throat. “Just fine. Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. Then he took a step back, stood straight, his eyes trained directly on her.

Tate prayed a big gaping hole would open in the middle of this tiny office floor and swallow her up. Embarrassment spread across her cheeks and down her neck in a heated rush. “How can I help you, Mr. Donovan?”