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

He looked startled, as if it hadn’t occurred to him.

“Just a thought,” she added, tilting her head to give him a tiny smile.

He grimaced, then let out a harsh sigh and raked his fingers through his hair. “Hell.”

She put a hand on his arm. It jerked beneath her touch. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and stepped away, tucking his hand into his pocket again. “Nothing. Xanti ticked me off. He does that. I should know better. I just—Never mind.” He shrugged, his tone dismissive now, as if whatever had bothered him, he’d stuffed back into whatever box he kept it in. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”

“We could just…walk?” she suggested, suddenly reluctant to end their brief interlude of togetherness. They’d had very little since they’d been here.

He hesitated, then shrugged. “All right.”

So they walked. Christo knew the land like the back of his hand. He didn’t need the tiny lights that picked out the pathway. Natalie would have, but before they had walked a few yards, she felt his hand wrap hers. Their fingers laced in silence. Their shoulders brushed.

Mostly they walked without speaking. What Christo was thinking about, she didn’t know. What she was thinking was how badly she wanted this to be real, how much she wanted Christo to stop and turn and take her in his arms and say, “I want this. I want you. I love you.”

She trembled with the need that coursed through her.

“Are you cold?” His voice broke into her fantasy. “You should have a sweater.”

“I’m all right.” But she trembled all the same.

“No, you’re not. We’ll go back.” He’d already turned and, because he still held her hand, Natalie had to turn, too.

He walked more quickly now, purposefully, and in just a few minutes they reached her cottage. He opened the door for her, but he didn’t come in.

“Would you like to—?” She waved a hand in the direction of the sofa, offering him a seat.

“I should get back.” Their eyes met for a mere instant and awareness, as always, arced between them. She wanted him to forget his vow, wanted him to come to her bed.

“Christo—”

“Good night, Nat.” His voice was strained, and he turned on his heel and headed back toward his grandmother’s place before she could say another word.

It was just as well, Natalie told herself. She was better off keeping things on a business footing. And that’s what this was—business.

But as she shut the door and leaned back against it, aching with the need of him, she knew the biggest lie she was telling this week was to herself.

Lucia Azevedo might have been frail and ill, but she was no fool.

She had been hospitable and accepting enough of Natalie upon her arrival. But at the same time, there had, understandably, been a bit of reserve in her demeanor.

Natalie had almost been able to see Christo’s grandmother looking at her and hear her thinking, Who is this woman? What’s she really like? Do I dare believe she will love my grandson the way he deserves to be loved?

She didn’t come right out and ask, of course. She simply smiled and watched and listened. She spent time with Natalie while everyone else was busy running themselves ragged getting ready for the wedding.

Natalie helped willingly and discovered that every time she did so, Lucia was there, too, watching, listening, occasionally talking if Natalie asked questions.

And despite knowing that emotionally she would likely be far better off not learning everything she could about Christo’s life in Brazil, Natalie couldn’t help herself.

She asked about the summers he spent there. She was eager to spend hours poring over the pictures Lucia was very happy to show her and she loved to listen to the tales Lucia told about the solemn, silent little boy who had come to visit her and who had grown into the strong and caring man who was the Christo she knew.

“He was such a serious little boy,” Lucia said fondly, shaking her head at the memory. They were sitting on the patio watching Christo kick a soccer ball around with his father. “He didn’t know how to play. At least I think Xanti taught him that—” She nodded now at Christo laughing at something his father said, then dribbling the ball past Xanti’s outstretched foot. “But really, Christo was always the adult.”

Natalie wasn’t surprised at the image. Xanti was far more playful and flirtatious than his son.

“Of course he had to be,” Christo’s grandmother went on. “He always felt he had to keep things together. He’d been taking care of his mother for most of his life, it seems, and when at last she and Xanti married, I think he believed he could start being a child. But things just got worse.”

Natalie raised her brows. “Worse?”

Lucia nodded. “Such children they were, those two. Squabbling, fighting. Each wanting their own way. It was better when Christo was here. He could be a child here.”

Natalie had a million questions about the little boy Christo had been, but she didn’t ask. She waited, hoping that Lucia would share, and was rewarded when she did.

“That first time was hard for him. Xanti, of course, didn’t stay around. He just left Christo with me and went on his merry way back to Italy. Christo didn’t know what to do, what to think. He didn’t speak the language. He didn’t know me. But—” she smiled at the memory “—we worked it out. He knew how to get along. He thought I might keep him if he made himself useful.” Another smile. “So he did. And he worked at learning Portuguese. I admired him for it. I learned English because of him. We taught each other.”

“You are the most important person in his life,” Natalie said.

“I was,” Lucia agreed. “Now it is you.”

“Not really. I—”

But Lucia cut her off gently but firmly. “And that is how it should be.” She reached out and patted Natalie’s hand.

“He is still too solemn sometimes,” his grandmother said. “Still very, what do you say? Self-contained? He is hard to know, sim?” She slanted a glance at Natalie who nodded. Lucia smiled. “So I think you have great powers to get inside his walls.”

Natalie swallowed the lump in her throat. “I love him.”

Lucia tilted her head. Her gaze rested on Natalie a long moment—so long that Natalie knew how a bug under a microscope felt. But she didn’t flinch away. It was only the truth.

Whatever Lucia saw, at last she, too, nodded. “Sim,” she said gently and reached out to take Natalie’s fingers between hers. “I believe you do.”

Her smile changed then. It had always been a polite smile, a welcoming smile. But now it reached her eyes. And in them Natalie saw a love that embraced not only Christo, but her as well as she leaned across and touched soft lips to Natalie’s cheek.

“You don’t know how happy you have made me.” Her voice was husky with emotion. “I was so afraid Christo would never find a woman who would capture his heart.”

What was Natalie supposed to say to that? I haven’t? I love him but he’s only hired me to be his fiancée for the week?

Of course, she couldn’t say that—or anything remotely like it. She could only squeeze his grandmother’s fingers lightly and smile.

“It is time he let down his defenses.” Lucia went on approvingly. “He is very well-defended, you know.”

“I know.”

“He must trust you very much.”

“I hope so.” Maybe he didn’t love her, but she thought he did trust her. He wouldn’t have brought her if he hadn’t. She glanced over at him and found that he was looking at her as well.

After one more kick, he left his father dribbling the ball and jogged over to them, his gaze moving from Natalie’s face to her fingers clasped with his grandmother’s. He raised his brows.

“Telling secrets?” he said to his grandmother with a smile.

“Of course.” She laughed lightly and patted Natalie’s hand. Then she shook her head. “I am simply telling your Natalie how happy I am that you have found the woman of your heart.”

Something unreadable flickered in his gaze for a brief instant. But then he smiled. “Of course I have,” he said smoothly, and bent to drop a light kiss on Natalie’s lips.

It was an act. Natalie knew that. Of course it was no hardship to kiss her, but he didn’t mean anything by it. But even so, after he went back to the soccer ball and his father, she couldn’t help touching her lips and holding the memory in her heart.

“Where did you meet my Christo?” Lucia asked her.

“When I was interning at the firm he worked for.” She told the truth as far as she could—about how she’d met him that first time, and how she’d fallen for him—on looks alone—without really even knowing him. But then she said she’d got to know him better, but she’d only come to appreciate what a good man he was later that summer.

She didn’t say how she’d figured that out. Telling Lucia that she’d gone to Christo’s bed and he’d turned her down was a bit more truth than she could bring herself to share.

Then she told Lucia about the time she’d spent at her mother’s where she’d met him again. She told her about his kindness to Jamii, about his getting Jamii to go in the water by telling her about when he’d been able to get over his fear of heights after falling.

“Because you helped him,” she told Lucia.

His grandmother laughed. “I was terrified. I hate heights. But for Christo—well, sometimes you have to do things that you’re afraid of, don’t you? I love him. You know how that is. You are Christo’s lady.”

Natalie knew how it was, oh yes. Just as she knew that she was not really Christo’s lady.

The wedding took place just before sunset in the garden between Xanti’s house and Lucia’s. Natalie sat next to Christo’s grandmother, her fingers firmly entwined in the older woman’s as Xanti, looking surprisingly pale and nervous, and Christo, his best man, looking more serious and remote than ever, stood waiting for the bride and her attendants to walk down the path to join them.

It was a tableau to memorize and keep in her heart—father and son together, so alike in their dark suits, crisp white shirts and neat bow ties. Yet, after a moment, Natalie had eyes only for one. She could have sat there and simply drunk in the sight of Christo forever.

He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Taller and broader-shouldered than his father. Less fidgety, too. Xanti kept running his finger inside the collar of his starched shirt. Christo didn’t move a muscle, not even when the quintet began to play and the guests turned to watch the first of the bridesmaids come down the path.

Then, because everyone else did, Natalie turned to watch the procession as well. There were three bridesmaids, followed by a resplendent Katia, who was a beautiful bride.

In a short, simple, understated dress of ivory silk, she looked regal and serene and steady as she approached Xanti. He still had the look of a rabbit caught in headlights. But when at last Katia reached him and put her hand in his, he swallowed hard, his color seemed to return. And in his eyes when he looked at his bride, Natalie could see that despite his nerves, despite his mercurial personality, despite everything—Xanti was exactly where he wanted to be.

As they stood together and the ceremony began, Natalie found that she didn’t need to speak Portuguese to understand. While Katia’s gentle voice and Xanti’s gruffer one might repeat words she didn’t recognize, the sentiments expressed and the vows taken were crystal-clear.

The familiar form and expectations provided a sort of anchor for her to hang on to in the dangerous sea of her current emotions.

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