Tawanda lifted Autumn’s chin with her thick fingers. ‘When people are afraid, they look for comfort. Close bonds are formed in a short space of time when situations aren’t what they would be normally.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Autumn spoke quickly, feeling her cheeks burn.
‘Mr Nathan isn’t the sort of man to have those sorts of feelings about.’
Autumn swallowed. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she repeated. She was completely transparent. There went all her hopes of hitting Hollywood if her next record went sour.
‘You have had a bad experience with a man—that rap man—Alsatian…’
‘Rockweiler,’ Autumn corrected.
‘You need time. Time to get things into perspective. Being at the center of all this trouble is no time to be considering—’
‘I wasn’t considering anything, I just—’
‘I do not understand how your mother could do that to you, child,’ Tawanda said, changing the conversation.
‘You don’t know my mother. I think if she had found out she was pregnant before the cut-off point, I wouldn’t even be here,’ Autumn stated.
‘You miss your father,’ Tawanda guessed.
Autumn nodded vigorously. Yes, she missed her father. There was an ache in her for love and affection, emotions that could only really be provided by the one man who had truly loved her. The only man she had truly loved. She had one photograph of him that she carried in her purse, and if she didn’t look at it, the memory of his face began to fade. She couldn’t remember his voice. She couldn’t recall his scent. The photo was all she had to prove he even existed.
*
Nathan leaned against the wall in the hallway and closed his eyes tight, relishing the cool plaster against his back. What was he doing? Her core was paper thin. He was about to make her have dinner with a woman who felt nothing for her, but was bound to her by DNA.
She’d wanted to know about Marie, too. This wasn’t good. He couldn’t speak about it; he hadn’t ever spoken about it. They’d tried to make him see counselors, but he’d fought it. He eventually had to see one in order to keep his job, and he’d held the guy hostage for forty five minutes until he’d written him a clean bill of psychological health under the threat of a visit to the doctor’s home—and his wife.
The lines were getting blurred. He knew that, and he had to stop it. She was his case, his client. He never got involved in a physical way with clients, and he never got emotionally involved with anyone. Period.
*
‘We should get going,’ he spoke, making his presence known in the room.
Autumn looked up and felt her insides knot together as she gazed his way. Gunmetal-gray pants and a short-sleeved white shirt that clung to his body in all the right places. He looked freshly showered and shaved, his black hair still damp and spiked down onto his forehead.
‘Now? But I haven’t even started to pin her hair yet!’ Tawanda turned toward the clock.
‘You don’t do that for Autumn. You do it for you. I’ll get you a doll,’ Nathan said with a small smile.
Autumn stood and showed him what she wore. ‘Do I look okay? I mean, okay for having dinner with an international security threat?’
*
It was a plain sort of turquoise-colored dress, but it brought out the color of her eyes and the red in her hair. She had less make-up on than usual, too, which was no bad thing. Her pale skin had caught the sun, and she was actually starting to look as if she had some small amount of flesh on her bones. He dropped his eyes to the floor. He couldn’t give away any indication that she stirred something inside him. She wore Riptape sandals.
*
‘The sandals are a bit big. Tawanda lent them to me. There was nothing I could run in in the closet,’ Autumn remarked, flushing.
Tawanda hauled herself up from the sofa. ‘I’m still not so sure this is a good idea,’ she said.
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about. Jazz’s team will be at the restaurant, at a discreet distance. Teo is watching you and the house with three others,’ Nathan told her.
‘I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about the child.’
‘Please, Tawanda, I’m not a child,’ Autumn said.
Tawanda shook her head. ‘You’re a child to me, and you shouldn’t be in this situation.’
‘Well, she is in this situation, and we have to deal with it. And she’s not a child. She’s twenty-seven,’ Nathan commented.
Autumn looked up at him, gleeful that he had defended her, delighted that he saw her as a woman. He met her eyes, his mouth hard, his expression gruff. Her brief excitement evaporated as quickly as it had come to a boil.
‘We should go,’ he said again.
Tawanda passed Autumn her purse. ‘Promise me, Autumn, that you will take care. You remember what I say about guns. They can save your life, but use them wisely… with care.’
‘She won’t need to use it. I’ll be with her,’ Nathan insisted.
His words lost, Tawanda pulled Autumn to her ample bosom and enveloped her in a bear hug, squeezing her tight.
‘When I come back tonight, could you make some of that Caribbean hot chocolate?’ Autumn asked.
She was trying to disguise the apprehension and fear she felt by making light of Tawanda’s sentimental display. The woman managed a nod before reaching into the breast pocket of her blouse and taking out a tissue to put to her nose.
‘Call me, if anything changes here,’ Nathan ordered her.
‘I know what to do,’ she answered.
Her tone was both cold and concerned.
*
He had to get out of the house. All the weighted comments and sentimentality were practically killing him. As was how Autumn looked in that dress. That plain dress, the minimal make-up, her bare, sun-kissed legs.
It was still warm outside. The sun had gone down, but the air was balmy,
