Monica returned her gaze to him and said, “The restaurant is not so crowded now.”
He took the time to glance around himself. “I imagine most people are already on their way to the nightclub to try and dance off their meal.”
She chuckled. “You’re probably right.”
Landon accepted that he felt a deep desire for Monica that he could not ignore, but he wasn’t threatened by the thought. Nor was he threatened by the knowledge that she desired him just as much.
Monica intrigued him because for some reason, he honestly thought she wasn’t aware of how desirable she really was, or how passionate she could be. He could see it in her gaze, every time their eyes met. But it seemed a bit wild, untamed. Could it be that she’d never experienced real passion? It was hard to believe, but the more time he spent with her, the more he sensed he was right.
“So, tell me about you, Monica,” he finally said, when she continued to look everywhere but at him.
The waiter came and poured more wine into their glasses. She took a sip, then asked, “Anything in particular you want to know?”
He had a lot of questions but wouldn’t bombard her with them all at once. He’d go one at a time. First up… “Twice now, I’ve offered you my assistance. Some women wouldn’t have wanted me to interfere, and would likely be angry, thinking I was doubting their ability to handle things on their own. Yet, you didn’t seem to have a problem with it.”
She shrugged. “I really appreciated your help. Maybe I’m just used to it—I have two older brothers. Hansen is thirty-two and Pratt is twenty-nine. They take their roles as older brothers seriously. So, I let them.”
“Are you the youngest?”
“I have a younger brother, thanks to my mom and stepfather. I also have two sisters, one who is only two days older than me.” Apparently detecting his confusion, she placed her wineglass aside and said, “Let me explain my family dynamics to you. It’s a bit complicated.”
“Alright.”
“Well, like I said, I have two older brothers, and a sister, Kelly. We all have the same father, but different mothers. If you wanted to be generous, you could say that our father was a rolling stone. But a more apt description would be that he was a notorious liar and a man-whore.”
It was obvious she had no problem saying how she felt. “Was he married to any of your mothers?” he asked.
“Yes, he was with Kelly’s mom for close to twelve years. My brother Pratt was born on their wedding day. But Kelly’s mom hadn’t known a thing about it. Nor had she known he had gotten another woman pregnant three years earlier. That was Hansen’s mom. And Mrs. Perkins definitely hadn’t known my mom was pregnant with me at the same time she was expecting Kelly. Mr. Perkins had led my mom to believe he was single.”
He lifted a brow. “You call your father Mr. Perkins?”
“We all do. Kelly used to call him Dad, since she lived with him, but when she discovered the things he’d done, he became Mr. Perkins to her as well. The man has never done anything that would make any of us call him Dad.”
Landon nodded. “Did Kelly’s mom stay with him when she found out about all of you?”
“She had left before that point. She’d caught him in bed with another woman, but he was contesting the divorce. So she hired a private investigator to find out if that woman had been the only one he’d been with. I can’t imagine how she’d felt when she’d discovered that not only had he had several other affairs, but also that he had three illegitimate kids he’d kept well hidden.”
“You and your siblings get along?”
She smiled. “Yeah, we do. Once we found out about each other, we decided that we wouldn’t deny ourselves the chance to be a family. Hansen is a FBI agent and currently lives in Houston. Pratt finished medical school and is doing his residency at Emory Hospital in Atlanta. My sister Kelly also lives in Atlanta and is working on her PhD at Clark Atlanta.”
Monica took another sip of her wine, then continued, “I have two other siblings from my mom. There’s my little brother and my sister Sebrina. Sebrina is three years older than me and is a heart specialist at St. Paul General. We share a house.”
She leaned closer to him, and he figured she had no idea of the torture he was going through, sitting across from her and inhaling her scent. “Now this is where it gets really complicated,” she said in a low voice, as if she was about to share a top secret with him.
“Michael Bennett had been adopted into the Bennett family as a baby, something he didn’t find out until he had finished high school. He was about to go into the military and needed his birth certificate. The truth bothered Michael so much that for years, he rarely came home.”
“The fact that he’d been adopted?”
“Yes. He felt betrayed since nobody had told him. He got married and had a little girl and made his home in St. Paul. Years later, Michael’s wife died in a car accident, and he and his thirteen-year-old daughter Kennedy returned home to Atlanta to be near his family. The Bennett family.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment and Landon figured she was thinking about that time in her life. “My mother, Taye, and Michael had always been close when they were growing up and once they were adults, they discovered they had always loved each other.”
“Loved each other? Like in love with each other?” Landon asked, wanting to make sure he had heard her correctly.
“Yes.”
He lifted a brow. “But they were cousins.”
She smiled. “Yes, but since Michael had been adopted, it wasn’t as if he was a blood relative. Less than a year after returning to Atlanta, Michael and my mom got married and they, along with me, my sister, Sebrina and Michael’s daughter, Kennedy, became a blended family.”
He nodded. “And how did that work out?”
A huge smile appeared on her face. “It was great. I adore Michael and he became the father I’d been missing all my life. A couple of years after they married, Mom and Michael had a son, Michael Bennett, Jr, who we call Mike. That means Kennedy, Sebrina and I share a brother.”
Landon nodded. “How did you come to live in St. Paul?”
“When Michael moved to Atlanta, he kept the house that he used to live in with his first wife and Kennedy. When Kennedy finished college, he presented her with the deed to the house as a graduation present. She decided to move back to St. Paul, and me, my sister, Sebrina and our cousin Victoria decided to join her.”
She paused, taking a sip of her wine. Then she continued, “The arrangement worked out great for two years. Kennedy and Victoria got married this past June, so now it’s just me and Sebrina. But we’re getting another housemate soon.”
“Another relative?”
She shook her head, grinning. “No, a family friend, who like Sebrina, is a doctor.”
“I see.”
They talked for a while longer, and she told him about her plans to resign from the Tribune in another year to pursue her PhD. “I really want to become a college professor. Someday.”
“And I’m sure you will,” he told her. “You come across as a woman who goes after what she wants, and I’ll bet you usually get it.”