Out of Hours...Boardroom Seductions. Janette Kenny

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ