Out of Hours...Boardroom Seductions: One-Night Mistress...Convenient Wife / Innocent in the Italian's Possession / Hot Boss, Wicked Nights. Anne Oliver
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She would see through such a ruse in a minute.
But she would believe Natalie.
She would love Natalie.
She wouldn’t just see the outer beauty of Natalie Ross. She would appreciate her gentleness, her compassion, her innate toughness, her sincerity, her sense of humor. They were both strong people, caring people.
He suspected Natalie would like his grandmother, too.
But it hadn’t been easy to ask her. He still thought about her far too often. He still woke up reaching for her.
Besides, he knew she’d object. He knew she’d say it was wrong.
It wasn’t, damn it. Not to make the most beloved person in his life happy. Not to keep her from worrying about something she had no control over.
But if he thought the asking had been hard, having Natalie here with him now in the bosom of his family was worse—because almost instantly she seemed to belong.
The days were busy with wedding preparations. He didn’t have a lot of time to spend with her because Xanti was always thinking of things to have him do.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine,” she said when he apologized. “I can help, too.”
She did—running errands for Katia, making place cards for the tables at the reception, even helping with some minor alterations to the wedding dress. And if she spent a fair amount of time helping Katia, she spent even more time with his grandmother.
Despite her discomfort with their charade, she played it well. She didn’t keep a low profile. And she didn’t shy away from his family.
On the contrary, she sought them out.
“You don’t have to spend every minute with them,” he told her.
She looked at him, her eyes wide and hurt. “Would you rather I didn’t?”
“Of course not. It’s fine,” he said gruffly, scowling, out of sorts and not quite sure why. “I just don’t want you to feel—put upon.”
“I’m not. I’m enjoying myself. I like your grandmother.”
“She likes you, too.”
So did everyone else.
Xanti, of course, thought she was delightful. But Xanti thought that about most females. There was more to his approval of Natalie, though.
Thursday night, two days after they’d arrived, he and his father were sharing a beer on the veranda and staying out of the way of even more wedding preparations going on in Avó’s house. They stood there in the twilight and watched through the windows as the women bustled back and forth.
Then Xanti dropped into a chair and tipped it back on two legs, then took a long swallow of his beer and looked up at his son who leaned against one of the uprights that supported the veranda roof. “You’re a lot smarter than I was at your age.”
Christo raised a brow. “Doesn’t take much.”
Xanti laughed. “Probably not. Some men teach by bad example. And I did a damn good job of it for a lot of years.” Then his grin faded and his expression grew serious as he added, “But I’m glad you didn’t turn out the same way. Glad you picked the right woman the first time around.”
Christo opened his mouth—and closed it again. He couldn’t deny it, so he didn’t say anything at all. Only when Xanti looked at him quizzically, did he finally answer.
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I do.” Xanti was emphatic. “I like Natalie. She makes you smile, brings you to life—the same way Katia settles me down.”
That perception did raise Christo’s eyebrows. He would not have expected such self-awareness from his father. The first was a variation on a long-standing complaint Xanti had voiced since he was a child—that Christo was always too serious, too adult.
“Someone had to be,” had always been Christo’s retort.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Xanti said now, his mouth quirking once more into a faint grin. “And you’re right, of course. I wasn’t much of a father. I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll do better this time around.”
“This time?” Christo stared, nonplussed. “You mean—? Is Katia—?” He was speechless at the unspoken possibility Xanti hinted at, though he supposed he shouldn’t be.
“No!” Xanti said hastily. “But—” he shrugged fatalistically “—you never know the future, do you? What will be will be, they say. And what about your future? When are you tying the knot?”
Christo, distracted by the possibility of his father becoming one again, dragged his mind back to the question, and realized it was another he didn’t want to answer. “We haven’t discussed it.”
“Why not?”
Christo shrugged his back against one of the uprights of the veranda. “It’s early days yet.”
“Not as early as you think,” Xanti warned. “Don’t waste time. Don’t string her along.”
“Don’t give me advice on women,” Christo snapped.
All four legs of Xanti’s chair came back to earth with a thump. “Relax.” He held up a hand as if to back Christo off. “Just offering a suggestion. I’m only saying that your Natalie is too good to lose. You don’t want her marrying someone else.”
Christo’s teeth came together. “She isn’t marrying anyone else!”
“Of course not,” Xanti said easily. He tipped back again, sipped his beer, stared into the distance.
And Christo tried to breathe again. Tried not to think that someday, of course, she would marry someone else.
She might say she had no intention of ever marrying, but he knew better. Natalie was too loving, too giving. She would find a man to love and she would marry him. Even now he could see her in his grandmother’s kitchen, laughing with one of Katia’s cousins. One of her male cousins.
Primitive feelings of a rage that he didn’t want to examine too closely bubbled very near the surface, playing havoc with his common sense and reason. His fingers choked the beer bottle in his hand.
“So,” Xanti said, “how about a game of pool?”
“No,” Christo said. He shoved away from the upright and thumped his empty beer bottle on the table. “Natalie and I are going for a walk. She wants to see the gardens.”
SHE didn’t see him coming.
One minute she was busy tying ribbons on little personal boxes of chocolates that Katia had decided would be perfect by each table setting at the reception while she chatted and laughed with Katia’s cousin, Julio, who was barely twenty but capable of flirting madly because she was out of reach. And the next Christo was standing at her elbow, saying, “Come out with me.”
“You can’t take her,” Katia protested, laughing. “She’s working.”
But Christo just said, “She’s worked enough. Come on.” And giving her no time to object, he took the ribbons out of her hands and hauled her to her feet, practically stepping on Julio’s as he did so.
“Boa noite,” he said to the whole room, cupping her elbow with his fingers and steering her toward the door.
“Um, boa noite,” Natalie echoed as he shut the door behind them. “Good night.”
A flurry of tchaus and boa noites followed them, but Christo kept moving until Natalie dug in her heels and made him stop.
“What,”