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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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.”

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      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,” she demanded turning to face him, “was that all about?”

      Christo sucked in a sharp breath. His jaw tightened. “I don’t know.”

      She stared at him. “You don’t know?”

      “I didn’t bring you here to work for Katia.” He turned and began walking quickly across the lawn toward the gardens.

      Natalie hurried to catch up with him. “No, you brought me here to try to convince them we’re getting married. And being a part of the family, helping out, is a way to do that.”

      He jammed his hands in his pockets, but he didn’t stop walking. “I know that.” He didn’t sound angry, but there was an impatient edge to his voice that she was used to hearing only when he was dealing with annoying legal cases and difficult clients.

      “So what’s the problem? Am I doing something you don’t want me to do?”

      He opened his mouth, then shut it again abruptly. “No. It’s fine. You’re doing everything right.”

      “Yes, I can tell. You’re so pleased,” she said sarcastically.

      His jaw worked, but he didn’t say anything. They’d reached the patio with its inground naturally landscaped swimming pool. Lit from below, it gleamed like a bright turquoise gem in the growing darkness. Earlier that afternoon they had swum there, had laughed and teased and splashed water at each other while his grandmother had looked on, smiling. Now that seemed like a hundred years ago.

      Just as the nights she had spent in his bed now seemed to have taken place in another lifetime.

      The awareness was still there. She could feel it. It seemed to pulse between them even now. In the cool of the evening, she could feel the heat of his presence, though he wasn’t even looking at her. Instead he started walking again, heading off down one of the several paths lit with small inground lights that led through small copses and wooded areas.

      “Where are we going?” she asked him as she tried to keep up with his long strides.

      “To see the gardens.”

      “Now?” She knew they were on the other side of the woods. His grandmother had talked about them this afternoon, had said that his grandfather had begun them when this was still a farm.

      Now Christo turned an impatient scowl on her. “You said you wanted to see them.”

      “Well, yes. But maybe in the daylight? When they’re actually visible?”

      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 СКАЧАТЬ