скачать книгу бесплатно
But she would believe Natalie.
She would love Natalie.
She wouldn’t just see the outer beauty of Natalie Ross. She would appreciate her gentleness, her compassion, her innate toughness, her sincerity, her sense of humor. They were both strong people, caring people.
He suspected Natalie would like his grandmother, too.
But it hadn’t been easy to ask her. He still thought about her far too often. He still woke up reaching for her.
Besides, he knew she’d object. He knew she’d say it was wrong.
It wasn’t, damn it. Not to make the most beloved person in his life happy. Not to keep her from worrying about something she had no control over.
But if he thought the asking had been hard, having Natalie here with him now in the bosom of his family was worse—because almost instantly she seemed to belong.
The days were busy with wedding preparations. He didn’t have a lot of time to spend with her because Xanti was always thinking of things to have him do.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine,” she said when he apologized. “I can help, too.”
She did—running errands for Katia, making place cards for the tables at the reception, even helping with some minor alterations to the wedding dress. And if she spent a fair amount of time helping Katia, she spent even more time with his grandmother.
Despite her discomfort with their charade, she played it well. She didn’t keep a low profile. And she didn’t shy away from his family.
On the contrary, she sought them out.
“You don’t have to spend every minute with them,” he told her.
She looked at him, her eyes wide and hurt. “Would you rather I didn’t?”
“Of course not. It’s fine,” he said gruffly, scowling, out of sorts and not quite sure why. “I just don’t want you to feel—put upon.”
“I’m not. I’m enjoying myself. I like your grandmother.”
“She likes you, too.”
So did everyone else.
Xanti, of course, thought she was delightful. But Xanti thought that about most females. There was more to his approval of Natalie, though.
Thursday night, two days after they’d arrived, he and his father were sharing a beer on the veranda and staying out of the way of even more wedding preparations going on in Avó’s house. They stood there in the twilight and watched through the windows as the women bustled back and forth.
Then Xanti dropped into a chair and tipped it back on two legs, then took a long swallow of his beer and looked up at his son who leaned against one of the uprights that supported the veranda roof. “You’re a lot smarter than I was at your age.”
Christo raised a brow. “Doesn’t take much.”
Xanti laughed. “Probably not. Some men teach by bad example. And I did a damn good job of it for a lot of years.” Then his grin faded and his expression grew serious as he added, “But I’m glad you didn’t turn out the same way. Glad you picked the right woman the first time around.”
Christo opened his mouth—and closed it again. He couldn’t deny it, so he didn’t say anything at all. Only when Xanti looked at him quizzically, did he finally answer.
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I do.” Xanti was emphatic. “I like Natalie. She makes you smile, brings you to life—the same way Katia settles me down.”
That perception did raise Christo’s eyebrows. He would not have expected such self-awareness from his father. The first was a variation on a long-standing complaint Xanti had voiced since he was a child—that Christo was always too serious, too adult.
“Someone had to be,” had always been Christo’s retort.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Xanti said now, his mouth quirking once more into a faint grin. “And you’re right, of course. I wasn’t much of a father. I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll do better this time around.”
“This time?” Christo stared, nonplussed. “You mean—? Is Katia—?” He was speechless at the unspoken possibility Xanti hinted at, though he supposed he shouldn’t be.
“No!” Xanti said hastily. “But—” he shrugged fatalistically “—you never know the future, do you? What will be will be, they say. And what about your future? When are you tying the knot?”
Christo, distracted by the possibility of 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 (#ulink_825c76f4-c027-5073-a299-391df80be476)
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 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.”
