Out of Hours...Boardroom Seductions: One-Night Mistress...Convenient Wife / Innocent in the Italian's Possession / Hot Boss, Wicked Nights

Natalie’s face went scarlet, imagining that Christo would think she’d given Jamii the idea to try to create entanglements where he didn’t want them. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Jamii, you mustn’t presume—”

“He has pizza with Grandma and me sometimes. Don’t you, Christo?” her niece demanded.

“Sometimes I do,” Christo agreed. He lifted his gaze and met Natalie’s almost defiantly. “Laura considers it her duty to feed me when I seem at loose ends.” There was a hint of something in his face that she couldn’t read.

“Are you at loose ends tonight?” she asked warily.

“I am.”

“Then I guess you’d better have pizza with us.”

“I guess I should.”

It was like having one of her long-ago fantasies come to life—opening the door of the apartment and having Christo leaning against the doorjamb smiling at her, then holding out a bottle of wine.

She took it wordlessly, the mere sight of him robbing her of words. He was freshly shaved, the stubbled jaw of this afternoon smooth now. His hair was damp but freshly washed and combed. He wore a clean pair of faded jeans and an equally faded red T-shirt. Nothing special.

But in Christo’s case, it definitely wasn’t the clothes that made the man.

And all the desire she’d assured herself she intended to keep well tamped down and controlled seemed to rise right up and smack her. She stared wordlessly at him.

And, heaven help her, Christo stared back.

It was the way he looked when he made love to her. His eyes darkened. His smile faded. He took a step toward her—and Jamii appeared.

“Hi, Christo! Come see the book I’m writing?”

Christo blinked, then dragged his gaze away from Natalie and focused on her niece. “Sure.”

While Natalie tore up greens for a salad, she listened to Christo and Jamii talking in the living room. He paid just as much attention to Jamii’s literary efforts as he had to making her comfortable in the water. He listened intently as Jamii told him all about the care and feeding of hamsters and guinea pigs.

Natalie marveled at his focus. But then, when she called them to come and eat, she felt that his focus had shifted to her. Or maybe it hadn’t—it was just her oversensitized nerve endings and imagination.

Whatever it was, every time Natalie looked up, it seemed that Christo did, too. Their gazes would connect and sizzle, then slide slowly away. When he passed her a glass of wine, their fingers brushed and it felt as erotic as when he’d learned the contours of her naked body. And from the speculative look he gave her, she dared to imagine he felt the same way.

Watching him eat the pizza was worse. It had the effect of making her remember vividly the scene of the young gorgeous Albert Finney in the old film Tom Jones, eating the chicken and licking his fingers, and causing every woman who watched it to experience a serious spike in her heart rate.

Not that Christo was licking his fingers. He was perfectly well-mannered. It was her fevered brain that was working overtime.

In desperation, she shoved back her chair and stood up. “I’ll just go make some coffee.”

But the moment she was in the kitchen fumbling with the coffeemaker, he was there behind her and she spun around, nearly knocking the dirty dinner plates he carried out of his hands.

“What are you doing?” she demanded sharply.

He raised a single brow. “Setting a good example?”

He put his plate and hers into the sink, and immediately behind him, Jamii appeared carrying her own, which she deposited there also.

“Oh.” Natalie felt idiotic. And ridiculously aware. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. Do you want me to do that?” He was looking at the coffeemaker, with which she didn’t seem to be making any progress. “Let me,” he said, and took the basket out of her hands. He filled the reservoir with water, then opened the cupboard and got out a filter, which he fitted into the basket.

She opened the cupboard to get a grip on her sanity and, incidentally, to find the coffee. It wasn’t there.

Christo just went to the refrigerator—since when had her mother kept the coffee in the refrigerator?—and took out a bag. He measured some beans into the electric coffee grinder she didn’t even know her mother had, then pressed it with the heel of his hand until the redolence of fresh-ground coffee filled the air.

Dumping the coffee into the basket, he put it back into the coffeemaker, then flicked on the switch and leaned back against the cabinet, folding his arms across his chest. He smiled at her.

“I don’t…make coffee here often,” she mumbled.

“I do,” he said. Then he leaned forward and, very gently, kissed her on the lips.

He was melting her right where she stood. She couldn’t move. Stood mesmerized by his kiss. Wanted it to go on and on and on. Wanted him to wrap his arms around her as he’d done before. Wanted to wrap hers around him.

She leaned into him.

“Wanta watch a movie, Christo?” Jamii’s voice floated in from the living room causing them both to jump back.

Christo cleared his throat. Adjusted his jeans.

“We’ve got The Bad News Bears and Cinderella,” Jamii called.

“Cinderella?” Natalie arched a brow at him. She still trembled. Still felt the shivers of unrequited desire running up and down her arms and legs.

Christo gave her a wry smile. “I’m hoping for the other one.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I’m staying.”

Their gazes met, locked.

“It’s ready,” Jamii called.

“Go on,” Natalie said. “I’ll bring the coffee.”

One more kiss that left her weak-kneed and then he joined Jamii in the living room. Natalie stood gripping the kitchen countertop, taking deep breaths and praying for a little sanity. When the coffee was ready, she poured them each a mug full and carried it into the living room.

“Sit here,” Jamii wriggled over next to Christo and left Natalie the spot on the end.

She sat down, and with Jamii between them, they watched the movie. Or Jamii watched the movie—not Cinderella, thank God.

Natalie watched Christo’s hands as they cradled his coffee mug. She watched him stretch out his legs and could not tear her gaze from the flex of easy muscles beneath the soft denim of his jeans, unless it was to contemplate his bare feet.

She was aware of the couch shifting every time he moved. She knew when he stretched one arm along the back of the sofa. Close. But not close enough to touch. Did he know how close?

The movie was funny. Jamii was in stitches, giggling madly. Christo laughed, too. Then he shifted again and his fingers brushed against her neck. They played with her hair, they made the nape of her neck tingle and sent involuntary shivers down the length of her spine. She was so exquisitely aware of him that she couldn’t think of anything else at all.

She turned her head to look at him. And he looked back. Their eyes met. His fingers brushed lightly along the back of her neck. She trembled. He smiled.

Exactly when Natalie realized that Jamii wasn’t laughing now but was asleep between them, she didn’t know. But Christo obviously knew. He moved carefully, easing himself up and scooping the sleeping child into his arms. “Where do you want her?”

And Natalie tore her gaze away from his to clamber to her feet and lead the way into her mother’s bedroom. She pulled back the covers on the bed and Christo bent to lay Jamii down. He brushed the little girl’s hair away from her face, then stepped back.

Christo was so close to her—and she was so aware of him—that she could hear the soft intake of his breath. And her own caught in her throat as he turned to face her, touched her arm and began to guide her backwards out of the room.

It was as if they were dancing, his hooded gaze hot and hungry as it met hers. His fingers slid up her arm and over her shoulder to the nape of her neck, echoing his earlier touches, heightening her awareness.

They were in the hallway now, and her back was against the wall, and he bent his head, his lips coming down inexorably to meld with hers.

They parted under his touch, opened to him as they had last time, as she longed to do. She slid her arms around him, drawing him closer, pressing against him, reveling in the hard strength of his body against the soft curves of hers. He slid his hands under her shirt, caressed her back, cupped her breasts.

“Aunt Nat!”

Christo jerked back, chest heaving. Natalie straightened sharply, and looked around, relieved not to see her niece standing there staring at them.

“What?” She tugged her shirt down, then slipped past Christo to go to Jamii. “What’s wrong?”

“I fell asleep! We didn’t get to see the end of the movie!” Jamii sat up in the bed, staring up at her, crushed. “Can I see it now?”

“Not…now,” Natalie said, wishing her heart would stop hammering so frantically. “Tomorrow. In the morning.”

Jamii sighed and slumped against the pillows. “Is Christo still here?”

Before Natalie could answer, Christo said from the doorway, “On my way home.” He sounded calm and steady, and Natalie wondered how he managed it.

“Will we go swimming tomorrow again?” Jamii asked him.

“I’ll come and get you in the morning. Go to sleep now.”

“But—”

“You heard him. Sleep,” Natalie commanded. “Or you won’t go.”

Jamii made a face, but she lay back down. Natalie bent and kissed her good-night, then turned and followed Christo back into the living room.

The needs were still there, thrumming inside her, even as she spoke. “We can’t—” she said almost apologetically.

“I know.”

He sounded terse. Tense. Dissatisfied. All of the above.

He gave her a hard, fierce, almost angry kiss and stalked quickly out the door.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT HAD been a damn fool idea—spending the day with Natalie and Jamii.

He never should have done it, Christo thought. He lay in his bed and tried not to remember spending the night there with Natalie. But like everything else with Natalie, it didn’t work.

Like today. He’d turned down her suggestion to go to the beach with them. He hadn’t spelled it out. He didn’t need to. He’d been honest with her. He’d told her he didn’t do forever, didn’t want complications, commitments, all that sort of thing.

It simply made sense not to create entanglements by going to the beach with her and her niece.

And then he’d done it anyway.

Well, not intentionally. At least he hadn’t been stupid enough to do that. But when he’d spotted them on the sand as he’d come out of the water after going surfing, he’d simply found his feet heading in their direction.

He knew Jamii, of course. She stayed with her grandmother often, and he liked her. She was far less complicated than most of the kids he dealt with on a regular basis. He liked her fresh, open acceptance of life. She was like a small version of Laura.

And she didn’t half remind him of Natalie as well.

But he hadn’t gone to say hi only to Jamii. He’d missed spending Friday night with Natalie in his bed. Two nights he’d spent with her now, and somehow last night, without her, he’d felt far more alone than he usually did.

Maybe it was because he had worked late, then come home to see the light on in Laura’s apartment, to know they were up there—he could even hear Jamii’s giggle—and he’d wanted to go up as well.

He hadn’t, of course. No way. No point. Bad idea.

Instead he’d worked on one of his arguments for a case he was in conference about next week. But out of his window he’d kept noticing the light in Laura’s apartment.

And then he’d noticed when it went off.

She’d gone to bed. And dear God, he wanted to be there with her. He wanted to spend the night making love to her, then holding her, watching her fall asleep in his arms.

She had once.

No one ever had before. He couldn’t remember a single woman he’d slept with who had settled against him that way, who’d snuggled close and shut her eyes and simply trusted him like that.

Natalie had because Natalie was not like the women he had affairs with, or noninvolved relationships with. Or whatever you called these liaisons that had everything to do with physical needs and nothing to do with the heart.

Natalie, like her mother, had everything to do with the heart.

He shouldn’t have slept with her. And at the same time he said that, he knew he could hardly wait to do it again.

Was that why he’d sought them out today? Was that why he’d stayed?

He twisted in his bed, sprawled and shifted and punched his pillow and tried to answer that.

But he couldn’t come up with a good answer. Not one that his lawyer’s mind would admit or accept. He always enjoyed seeing Jamii. But it was less Jamii’s company than Natalie’s that he’d been angling for. Just having her there, watching and listening while he and Jamii were talking had felt—he punched the pillow again—right, somehow.

And, of course, he was glad he’d stayed when he discovered Jamii’s fear of the water. He knew paralyzing fear. He’d had it himself. What his grandmother had done for him was something he’d always been grateful for. It seemed a small enough thing to share it with Natalie’s niece.

And whether Natalie knew it or not, Christo knew that her niece had overcome her fear only in part because of his confidence in her. It was also having Natalie there. Natalie was the one Jamii knew, the one she loved and trusted. He told Jamii the story. He helped her. But he could not have done it alone.

She needed the love and acceptance of her family as well.

He wasn’t sure Natalie understood that. But maybe she did. She was Laura’s daughter.

Dear God. He couldn’t believe he was sleeping with Laura’s daughter.

He was going to have to stop. Soon.

But not yet.

Natalie opened the door almost before he knocked the next morning. “I have a tremendous favor to ask.”

“Oh? That sounds promising.” Christo grinned. “Wash your back? Make slow, sweet love to you?”

“I wish,” Natalie said frankly. “I wonder if you would watch Jamii.”

He blinked. “I said I’d take her swimming.”

“Yes, but I figured I’d go, too,” Natalie said. “So you wouldn’t be watching her precisely. I would be. But I— we—the business—has a job I need to do.”

Christo’s eyes narrowed. “You need to be somebody’s wife?”

Natalie nodded. “Somebody’s hostess in this case. One of our best clients is having a group of business colleagues out on his yacht. He was expecting Rosalie to do the honors. But Rosalie, I’m sorry to say, got food poisoning last night. Sophy just called me this morning.”

“And Sophy can’t do it because—”

“Because she gets seasick. I’m it, I’m afraid. I can see if Harry’s mother would mind having Jamii for the day. Jamii likes Harry and vice-versa, but—”

“No,” Christo said, surprising himself. “I’ll take her.”

“You’re a saint,” Natalie said and threw her arms around him. She kissed him, stunned him, really, that a swift simple kiss could have that much power.

She shouldn’t have asked him. She didn’t know what else to do.

And he could have said no.

She was surprised he hadn’t.

Natalie took her cell phone with her. “Call me,” she said, “if you have any problems. Dan and Kelly should be back by suppertime. They know you’re taking over for me. I rang them this morning. They say they’ll take you to dinner instead of me. It was part of the deal,” she explained.

“They don’t need to feed me dinner,” Christo said promptly.

But he’d said no to coming out with her and Jamii on Saturday, too, and look what had happened that day.

“Whatever you want,” she told him.

“You,” he said.

Natalie was holding on to that thought.

She’d been afraid, after last night’s unconsummated ending, that he might want to be finished with her already. She would not have been surprised if he’d called today and said he couldn’t make it.

But he’d come. He’d even flirted a little. So their affair had lived another day. She wondered if she should notch them on a bedpost. Though even as she thought it, she knew she shouldn’t be facetious. She was riding high now. But she was riding for a fall, and she knew it.

“Believe,” her mother always told her. “Trust. Hope.”

“And you’ll get kicked in the teeth,” her more realistic daughter had countered after her father’s defection.

“You don’t believe that,” Laura had chided her.

And Natalie knew she didn’t. So she’d just keep believing, trusting and hoping that maybe someday Christo would realize he loved her, too.

It might not have been his ideal day, but spending it with Jamii Ross taught Christo a lot more about her aunt Natalie.

He learned she could play the piano, but she never liked to practice. He learned she liked spinach and artichokes but hated kale and brussels sprouts. He learned she had always wanted to travel, to see different places, but she hadn’t got to go yet.

“Except to Mexico,” Jamii said. “She went with us last year to Cabo.”

He learned she had been the co-leader of Jamii’s Brownie troop last year and would have done it again this year, but she had to work too many hours with her new job and she was really, really busy.

“Too busy to even have a boyfriend,” Jamii reported, as she concentrated on building a turret for their sand castle.

“Was she?” Christo didn’t examine too closely why he was glad to hear it.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Jamii asked him.

“I—”

“’Cause if you don’t, maybe you could have Aunt Nat.”

“Tempting,” Christo said.

He didn’t let himself think just how much.

Natalie had barely come in and kicked off her shoes and sank down on the sofa when her phone rang.

“Hey.”

She smiled, warmed at the sound of his voice. “How’d it go?” she asked. “She’s gone, I see.”

“She’s gone,” he agreed. “We had a good time. I know all your secrets now.”

“Oh, dear,” Natalie laughed. “Even about Billy Hardesty?”

“Who’s Billy Hardesty?”

“Good. I’ve got one secret left.” She tipped her head back on the sofa and shut her eyes, just enjoying the sound of his voice in her ear.

“Not for long,” Christo promised silkily. “Are you hungry?”

“A little. There was plenty of food and no time to eat it. I was run off my feet.”

“We can solve that,” he said. There was a click.

She thought he’d hung up and she felt momentarily bereft. Then she heard footsteps and realized that the click had been the front door opening and he was standing over her, smiling down at her. He flicked the phone off.

“C’mon,” he said. And he scooped her up and carried her out the door and down the stairs.

“What are you—? Where are you—?” But she didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. She knew.

He kicked open the door to his place and carried her straight down the hall to the living room where he set her gently on the sofa. Then he sank down beside her and drew her into his arms.

She went willingly, happily.

Was she supposed to resist? It wasn’t possible. It was a dream come true.

Believe. Trust. Hope.

All the words her mother had given her—words she held close to her heart—even as she held Christo there.

Believe. Trust. Hope. And love.

She would give him everything she had and hope that it was enough. There was no choice.

She had to.

It felt as though he’d been waiting forever.

She’d only been out of his bed two nights. Two! Mere hours. And yet it felt like a lifetime. He’d heard her car, seen her come into the garden, and he’d gone after her almost as soon as she’d gone upstairs.

Now he massaged her aching feet and made her whimper with pleasure.

“Who’s Billy Hardesty?” He grinned, running his fingers along the sole of her foot, making her squirm.

“Oooh, you’re evil.” She gasped and giggled, writhed and twisted. “I’ll never tell.”

He ran his hands up her legs. “Never?” His fingers found her, teased her. “Never say never.”

Her eyes were bright and laughing as she tugged him down on top of her. “He’s the first boy who ever kissed me. We were five.”

“Ah. I guess I can let him live, then. As long as he doesn’t make a habit of it.”

“No one makes a habit of it,” she told him.

And Christo found himself thinking, I will.

But he didn’t let himself think of the ramifications of the thought. He only kissed her thoroughly and set about loving her. She returned the favor.

Christo wasn’t used to giving up control, but how could he refuse her? Besides, she didn’t ask. She simply touched. She, too, kissed, nibbled, caressed, laved.

She wrung him out. Left him spent and gasping. Left him sated and, at the same time, wanting more.

Wanting her. Because this—whatever it was—wasn’t enough. Somewhere deep inside Christo felt an odd persistent sort of ache he’d never felt before.

Knew the temptation to say three words he’d never said. Words he swore he didn’t believe in.

And realizing what those words were, Christo knew a fear as paralyzing as the one he’d helped Jamii vanquish.

He didn’t love Natalie!

He couldn’t.

CHAPTER SIX

WHEN Natalie looked back she couldn’t put her finger on the moment she realized that something was wrong. There was no clear defining instant.

The truth was, there had probably always been something wrong. She’d just been too preoccupied with wishful thinking to admit it.

Or maybe with the misplaced confidence of the young and in love, she had believed she could change Christo’s mind.

She’d been honest with him, after all. She had said yes, that three years ago if they had made love, she would have wanted the whole thing—love, marriage, happily ever after.

But not admitting in her heart that she still felt the same way, she hadn’t been as honest with herself.

She’d assured herself that knowing what Christo wanted was enough, that she was a big girl now, that she could cope with the limitations he imposed on their relationship.

Well, not quite.

Their relationship—or whatever you called it—was fine as far as it went. Heavens, being loved—in a physical sense—by Christo was amazing.

But it didn’t go to the heart.

Natalie, dreamer that apparently she still was, had dared to hope it would. She couldn’t imagine that she wouldn’t be able to convince him that what she felt for him was strong enough, stable enough, mature enough to stand up to whatever disillusionment he’d endured in the past.

Which just went to show, she supposed, how immature her love really was.

Or maybe not. But it wasn’t enough. She knew that. She loved him—and he was pulling back.

The desire was still there. He still said every morning, “Will I see you tonight?” He was still an eager, generous lover in bed. He could make her twist and writhe and shudder with her need of him.

But he didn’t hold her in his arms.

Not anymore. When she woke in the night now, she was alone. He was in the bed, yes, but removed. Distant. Only if he fell asleep still holding her did they share that closeness. If he was awake, he had pulled away.

At first she thought it might having nothing to do with their relationship. It could be his work, she thought. He had a lot of difficult, painful cases.

“Is something wrong?” Natalie asked the first morning after she’d experienced the distance. They were sitting in the kitchen. She’d made breakfast for the two of them before she went back to her mother’s to dress for work.

Christo, who had come in silently, poured a cup of coffee and was staring at the front page of the paper, didn’t answer at first.