One-Night Mistress...Convenient Wife

Maybe they needed to clarify things further. “My mother said you’d water the plants in the garden.”

He nodded. “She thought it might be too much for Harry.”

“I’m sure she was right. But since Harry’s out of the picture, I can do them. I’m not currying favor—” she said awkwardly.

“Let’s leave it the way she arranged it.”

All lines neatly drawn. Everyone in their own place. “All right.”

At last he turned toward the living room, then glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Maybe.” Natalie didn’t move. Watched his back disappear, heard his footsteps recede, the door open and close, the sound of his feet on the steps outside. Only then did she breathe again, and say aloud what she was really thinking. “Not if I see you first.”

Natalie Ross.

As gorgeous and enticing as ever. Right on his bloody damn doorstep.

Christo tipped back in his desk chair, let out a sigh, rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, then leaned forward and tried to focus again.

It didn’t work. He’d been trying to focus all evening. Ordinarily that wasn’t a problem. He regularly settled down and worked well after dinner when it was quiet and there were no clients in and out, no phone calls, no papers to sign or distractions lurking and he could concentrate.

Not tonight.

Tonight every time he tried to bend his mind around where Teresa Holton’s soon-to-be-ex-husband might have secreted assets everyone knew he had, his mind—no, worse, his hormones—had other ideas.

They wanted to focus on Natalie.

It was because he’d been too absorbed with work lately, he told himself. Except for an hour or so of surfing most evenings after work, he hadn’t taken any time off in weeks. His hormones were feeling deprived as well. It had been two months since Ella, the woman who, for the past year or so, had regularly been the object of their attention, decided she wanted more than a casual no-strings affair.

As Christo didn’t—a fact that he had made crystal-clear from the beginning—he had let her go without a qualm. But he’d had neither the time nor the inclination to look for anyone else since.

He didn’t have the time now.

As for inclination, if his hormones were inclined toward Natalie Ross, too damn bad. There was no woman on earth less likely to want a no-strings affair than Natalie. She was her mother’s daughter through and through.

Though Laura and Clayton Ross were now divorced, it had never been Laura’s idea. It was Clayton who’d run off with the paralegal, leaving Laura, after twenty-five years of marriage, to fend for herself. She had, but she still believed in marriage and babies and forever. So did Natalie. Christo knew it instinctively.

He wanted nothing of the sort.

Resolutely he picked up his pencil again and beat a tattoo on the desktop, trying to stimulate brain cells. But his brain cells didn’t need stimulation. They had plenty, thank you very much. It just wasn’t focused on the Holton case. They had something—someone—else in mind.

As did another part of his anatomy.

Irritated, Christo shoved away from the desk and stood up, flexing his shoulders and pacing around the room.

His office was at the back of the house with a wide window facing Laura’s garden. It was dark now. He couldn’t see the flowers. But if he looked up, he could see the light on in Laura’s apartment. The drapes were pulled, but Natalie could, if she were so inclined, look between them directly down into his office. She could watch him pace.

Christo walked across the room and flipped the blinds shut. He wished he could as easily shut out thoughts of her.

He knew, of course, that Laura hadn’t been trying to complicate his life by asking her daughter to come and take care of the cat and the plants. Laura was as protective of his time as he was himself. More so, in this case, because if she hadn’t been she’d have asked him to take care of the cat and the plants when Harry broke his leg.

Instead she’d asked her daughter.

Of course, she had no idea about his history with Natalie.

Not that there was a history. There had very determinedly—on his part—not been any history at all.

Except for that one disastrous totally spontaneous kiss.

He scrubbed his hands over his face now, remembering it.

He had never done anything so stupid before or since. He’d always been absolutely impeccable in his workplace behavior. And if the parking garage had not been precisely part of the workplace, that was pretty much legal hairsplitting and Christo knew it. Natalie had been working at the firm, and if he wasn’t her boss he was certainly senior on the totem pole—and he damned well should have known better.

He had known better.

It had simply been a combination of joy and relief. And desire.

Time to call a spade a spade. But doing so didn’t make the desire go away. Old memories welled up. He squashed them. Memories of scant hours ago took their place. He resisted them, too.

He prowled some more. He cracked his knuckles, then pressed his palms down against the desktop, hunching his shoulders and staring blankly down at the paper he’d given up trying to make notes on. He couldn’t even see what he’d written so far. Visions of Natalie teased at the corners of his mind.

“Stop it,” he told himself sharply.

It was perverse, this desire he felt for Natalie Ross’s slender yet curvy body—as perverse now as it had been the first time.

Christo didn’t do rampant desire. He liked women—in their place. Which was not in his mind or in a relationship. Only in his bed.

He hadn’t lusted madly after any female since his teens. Now, at the age of thirty-two, he should be well over that sort of thing. He was well over it!

He’d walked away from Natalie Ross once, for God’s sake. He’d done the right thing. The sensible thing. The only thing.

Now he gave up trying to work. He went out the front door and crossed The Strand, dropping down onto the path along the beach and beginning to run.

So, fine. The words pounded in his head as he picked up the pace. He’d resisted Natalie Ross before. He’d simply do it again.

CHAPTER TWO

FOR three days Natalie didn’t see Christo at all.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. She caught a glimpse or two of him in the morning as he headed off to work while she was taking her time, deliberately not venturing out of the apartment, staying in to feed the cat and do some scheduling work on her laptop for the rent-a-wife business she ran with her cousin, while she incidentally kept one eye on the window so she could see when he had left.

In the evening of the second day she saw him down on the patio of the garden sanding the boards that had been delivered for her mother’s bookcases.

That had been more than a glimpse. In fact, she’d stood there, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of a shirtless Christo Savas bending over a board, a sheen of sweat glinting across his bare muscular back as he sanded the wood vigorously, then straightened and smoothed his hand along the grain.

She’d lingered in the window until his cell phone rang and in answering it, he turned and his gaze lifted to meet hers.

Instantly, Natalie stepped back, face burning at being caught out ogling him. She nearly tripped over Herbie in her haste to retreat to the kitchen where she poured herself a tall glass of ice water which she drank right down.

She stayed well away from the window after that, not venturing near until the sun had set and the world was completely dark.

The next day she didn’t see him at all. She got back to the apartment shortly before suppertime, expecting that she might run into him in the patio and steeling herself for the encounter. But he was nowhere to be seen, and the boards were stacked in the garage, still awaiting stain.

The next evening she didn’t see him, either.

Her mother rang that night. “I would have called sooner,” she said, “but I didn’t want you to think I was hovering.”

Natalie smiled. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

“So how are things going? Does Herbie miss me?”

“Of course. But things are fine. Herbie is thriving. The plants are surviving.”

“Of course they are,” her mother said with quiet satisfaction. “I knew I could count on you. How’s Christo?”

“What?” The unexpectedness of the question made Natalie’s voice crack.

“I wondered how Christo was coping,” Laura said. “I know you aren’t feeding him dinner, but I thought you might have talked to him, found out how things are going.”

“He doesn’t appear to be starving,” Natalie said drily. “So I assume he’s getting nourishment.” But then, because she knew her mother would wonder at her edgy tone, she said, “I really haven’t seen him to talk to, Mom. Only once, the day I got here.”

“Well, I hope things are going all right at work,” her mother said. “The temp who usually helps out is working elsewhere. So I had to train another woman before I left.

It should be fine,” she said, but her voice trailed off and she sounded a little worried.

Natalie steeled herself against it. “You’ll have to ask Christo about that,” she said briskly.

“I have,” Laura said. “I called him tonight. He said everything was under control.”

“Then you should believe him.”

“I know. I do.” A pause. “But he sounded—I don’t know—stressed. I hope he’d let me know if it wasn’t all right,” Laura added pensively. “Oh, drat. There’s the bell again.”

“Bell?”

Her mother let out a weary sigh. “Your grandmother has a bell. She rings it when she wants something.”

“Let me guess. She wants things often.” Natalie smiled at the thought of her imperious grandmother ringing a bell to make her mother jump. It would delight the old lady no end.

“Every other minute,” Laura concurred. “Coming, Mother. I’ll give you a call in a few days,” she said to Natalie. “Wish me luck.”

Natalie hung up and was silently wishing her mother luck when there was a knock on her front door.

She opened it to find Christo standing there, still in the dark trousers and long-sleeved dress shirt he would have worn to work. The top button was undone, his tie was askew, and he had his suit coat slung over his shoulder.

“Your mother says you run a rent-a-wife agency,” he said without preamble.

Natalie blinked in surprise. But she stopped herself before she wetted dry lips. “That’s right,” she said.

“Do you rent office personnel, too?”

“Office…”

“I need someone to take your mother’s place.” His jaw worked.

“I thought everything was under control?”

When he narrowed his gaze at her, Natalie shrugged. “I just got off the phone with my mother. She said she’d talked to you and that you said everything was fine.”

“I lied.” He dropped his jacket over the porch railing and raked fingers through already mussed hair. “They didn’t work out.”

“They?”

“The first one was bossy to the kids. Acted like she was some damn mother superior.”

Kids? It took Natalie a moment to realize what he was talking about. When she thought about Christo she generally still thought of him at her father’s firm, but of course he wasn’t there. He’d left not long after she had at the end of that summer to go off on his own—to start his own practice in which he focused on family law. Because of Jonas? She’d often wondered. But of course she’d never found that out.

Now he said, “I sent her back, and they sent me another one. One your mother hadn’t trained,” he added grimly. “And she cried.”

“She cried?” Natalie echoed.

“A lot. Every time she couldn’t find something.” He ground his teeth.

“Every time you yelled at her?” Natalie guessed.

“I didn’t yell. I was very polite.”

She bet he was. Icy politeness from Christo Savas would be far worse than being yelled at. “And she left?” Natalie guessed.

He shook his head. “I sacked her, too. And today they sent two others, but they’re hopeless. I sent them back. And the agency doesn’t have anyone else. Not until next week. Lisa can come on Thursday. She knows the office. She’s worked with your mother. She’s worked with me. But I can’t put the office on hold until Thursday. And—” he paused and rolled taut shoulders as if doing so would loosen the tension in them “—I can’t tell your mother. She’d come back.”

She would, too. Natalie knew it. “She might be glad to,” she ventured with a slight smile.

Christo’s brows raised. “She would?”

“Yes.” Natalie sighed. “But she can’t. She needs to be there. To get Grandma through this and capable of being on her own again.”

He grimaced. “That’s what I thought, why I lied. Why I don’t want to call her back. So…do you have someone? Just through Wednesday.”

“I’ll check,” Natalie said.

And there it was again, lighting his face—the heart-stopping grin that had seduced her once before—the drop-dead-gorgeous, Christo-Savas-thinks-you’re-wonderful smile.

“Terrific,” he said. “Just send her to my office tomorrow morning by eight-thirty. I’ll get her up to speed. Thanks.”

He knew it was a long shot, asking Natalie to supply a secretary. He didn’t want to ask her for anything. He’d been vaguely distracted ever since she’d taken up residence at Laura’s place.

Not that he’d seen her—except for when he’d caught a glimpse of her in the window of the apartment when he’d been sanding the bookshelves. But she’d disappeared instantly, as if she had no more desire to see him than he did to see her.

Good, he’d thought. But that had been before he’d run out of office help.

He couldn’t believe the agency didn’t have anyone else. More likely they just didn’t have anyone he wouldn’t make cry.

Laura never cried. Laura was as tough—and compassionate—as they came. There was nothing she couldn’t handle—not his most difficult clients, not cantankerous judges or demanding opposing counsels, not irate parents or Christo himself when his own mother or father breezed in to complicate his life.

If he’d thought he was doing Laura a favor, offering her the job as his secretary and office manager after her divorce, he soon discovered he was the lucky one.

She made his office run efficiently. She smoothed and soothed everyone she came into contact with. She got them to slow down, think clearly, take a deep breath.

“How do you do that?” he’d asked her more than once.

She’d laughed. “Practice. For twenty-five years I was a wife and mother. You don’t forget.”

Then she’d told him her daughter was creating an agency of temps who could do the same thing. “South Bay Rent-a-Wife, she’s calling it.” Laura had laughed and shaken her head.

“Your daughter?” The only daughter he knew was Natalie. The other child, he was sure, was a son.

She nodded. “Natalie. You must have met her the summer she was clerking at Ross and Hoy.”

Oh yeah. He’d met Natalie all right. But all he’d done was nod. “She’s a lawyer.”

“No. She dropped out of law school.”

“Dropped out?” He remembered how shocked he’d been at Laura’s words. And how guilty he’d felt. She hadn’t left because of him, had she?

“She always wanted to be a lawyer,” Laura said. “Was always her daddy’s girl. But when Clayton left—” She paused, and he’d thought she was just going to leave it there, but after a moment, she continued. “Well, Natalie decided she didn’t want to be like her father after all.” She smiled slightly. “She said she’d rather be like me—but get paid for it.”

Christo’s eyebrows went up. “Paid for it?”

Laura laughed. “She’s a savvy girl, my Natalie. She and Sophy, her cousin, tried it themselves first—worked as ‘wives.’ Now they run the agency and only step in when they have to. But she tells me her ‘wives’ can do anything I can do.”

Now rifling through the filing cabinet of his office looking for papers yesterday’s temp was supposed to have filed there, Christo hoped that was true. Otherwise the next four days were going to be a nightmare.

He glanced at his watch. It was almost eight. He started digging through the file cabinet again. He was getting a bit desperate as he wondered where the hell that blasted woman could have put the Duffy file, when he heard the door to the outer office open.

“In here,” he bellowed.

He reached the end of the drawer and banged it shut just as his office door opened. “Good,” he said without turning. “You can start looking here. I need the Duffy papers.”

“Fine.”

His head whipped around at the sound of Natalie’s voice.

He opened his mouth, but she forestalled him with a steely smile. “Don’t—” she warned “—ask me what the hell I’m doing here. You know what I’m doing here. My mother’s job.”

She shut the door and set her briefcase on the floor by the coat rack, then straightened. “Struck dumb?” she asked wryly when he didn’t speak.

Almost. “You’re planning on running my office?” he said, narrowing his gaze.

The mere sight of her in a pencil-slim navy skirt and a high-necked white blouse and a trim navy blazer should have called to mind visions of repressed Catholic schoolgirls. Instead it was playing havoc with his hormones and giving them decidedly inappropriate ideas. Inappropriate ideas were the last thing he needed right now.

“What do you know about office work?” he demanded.

“I run one,” she said. “And I’ve worked in a law office. And I know my mother. Besides, we don’t have anyone else who can do it. So unless you’ve conjured someone up in the meantime…” She let her voice trail off, inviting him to suggest an alternative.

He didn’t have one.

“And you’re right,” she said. “I don’t want you calling my mother.”

Their gazes met, clashed. There was a challenge in hers that defied him to argue. He wanted to argue. He wanted her gone, because besides the challenge, that damnable sizzle was there, too. His jaw tightened. He cracked his knuckles.

But before he could figure out an alternative, the phone on the desk rang.

Natalie was closer to it than he was, also faster off the mark. She picked it up.

“Savas Law Office,” she said, in a voice that was both warm and professional. “Yes,” she said to the caller. “I’ll be happy to. I’m with Mr. Savas right now. Give me a moment and I’ll have a look at the appointment book and we can set something up.”

She put the phone on hold, set it down, tilted her head and looked at Christo. “Unless you’d like to take over.” Even her eyebrows were challenging him.

He sucked his teeth. “Be my guest,” he said gruffly. “Just don’t cry. I’ve got a case to prepare.”

It was going to be a salutary experience. Four days of working with Christo Savas and she’d be well and truly over him.

At least that’s what Natalie had been telling herself since she hadn’t been able to come up with an alternative to Sophy’s, “Well, then, I guess you’ll have to do it,” answer to whom they were going to send to work for him this morning.

“I don’t want to do it!” she’d protested, aghast.

She’d rung Sophy just past six, having spent most of last evening going through her files looking for a suitable temp. But while there were a few who might have some of the office skills, all of them were already on other jobs. And none of them was such a standout that it made sense to juggle things around.

She’d hoped her cousin would be able to think of someone she’d overlooked who could do the job in her mother’s place. But Sophy hadn’t—besides suggesting Natalie do it herself.

“I can’t do it,” she insisted again.

Sophy yawned on the other end of the line. “Why not? Because you still have a crush on him?”

Sophy was the one person Natalie had admitted her infatuation to. And unfortunately her cousin had a memory like an elephant. Thank heavens, she’d never confessed to the mortification in Christo’s bedroom.

“I do not have a crush on him,” she said firmly. “Once I did. Yes, I admit that. But that was years ago. I was a child then.”

“So,” Sophy said airily. “No problem.”

Problem. But she wasn’t going to get anywhere arguing with Sophy. “I’ll see what I can come up with,” she’d said.

“You know what you have to do,” Sophy responded. “I won’t bother you today.” And she’d rung off.

Even after Sophy had hung up, Natalie had tried to come up with alternatives. But short of calling her mother and telling her the problem, she didn’t see one. It was an indication of how badly she didn’t want to do it that once she actually picked up the phone and began to punch in her mother’s number.

But before she finished, she hung up again. She couldn’t be that selfish.

Not that her mother wouldn’t want to come home. Her phone call had made it clear just how much of a trial Grandma Kelling was.

But Laura’s duty, as she perceived it, Natalie knew, was to be there for her no matter how irritating it was.

Just as her own duty was to step in and take over for Laura. Her sense of familial love and responsibility was, after all, one of the moral tenets Natalie most admired about her mother, one her father had turned out to be notoriously lacking. Laura never hesitated to do the right thing even when it was the hard thing—like putting up with Grandma Kelling and her bell.

Like working for Christo Savas.

And so Natalie had dragged herself off to the shower, washed and dried her hair, put on a tailored, professional navy-blue skirt and white blouse, then added a matching navy blazer for good measure. It was armor, and she knew it. But she felt as if she were heading into battle.

Then, shortly before eight, she’d rung Sophy again.

“I’m going,” she said without preamble.

“Of course.” There was the sound of satisfaction in Sophy’s voice. “I knew you would.”

Natalie had known she would, too.

And she was determined to begin as she meant to go on—as the consummate professional. So she shut the door on Christo, leaving him to the files in his office while she went out to the reception area to finish the call she’d taken and schedule the appointment required.

It wasn’t difficult to step into her mother’s shoes. She understood the way her mother did things, her work-flow pattern as it were, the process she used to get things done.

Laura had never done things haphazardly as a wife and mother. She wasn’t rigid, but in the Ross household there had always been a place for things, and things were always in their place.

So it was no trouble now for Natalie to open the middle left-hand drawer of her mother’s desk and find the appointment book right where she expected it would be. She ran her eyes down Christo’s appointments for the next week, understood quickly the general pattern of his days, picked up the phone, and offered the caller three possible times.

She wrote the client’s choice in the book, hung up the phone and realized that Christo was standing in the door to his office staring at her.

“What?” she said.

He shook his head. “Three out of four of them couldn’t find the appointment book. Two of them said it should be on the computer.”

“My mother wouldn’t keep the primary schedule on the computer.”

“I know.” He rocked back and forth on his heels. For a moment he didn’t say anything else. Then he said, “Suppose you find the Duffy file then.”

“Did my mother file it?” Natalie asked.

He shrugged. “God knows.”

Life in the office got almost instantly better—and simultaneously worse.

It was better in the sense that Christo didn’t have to quit what he was doing to rescue and detraumatize young clients whom Tuesday’s martinet had pointed to chairs, fixed with a steely stare and commanded, “Sit there and don’t move.”

Natalie found the books and puzzles and toys her mother kept in the cabinet, and if a parent with children or a child he was representing had to wait for him, she saw that they were calm and engaged until Christo could see them.