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Immediately the office phone rang.
She could have let the answering machine get it, she thought grimly even as she reached to pick it up. But however annoying Christo was being, she couldn’t inconvenience his clients that way.
“Savas Law Office.”
“Thank God you’re there. I need you to bring me a folder.”
No question who it was. Natalie nearly choked on her tuna-fish.
“It’s in my office. It has to be,” he went on. “I spent an hour Saturday morning making sure I had all of it in one place after those temps screwed things up.” He sounded as though he wanted to strangle someone. So much for Mr. Cool-and-Remote.
“Which folder?”
“Eamon Duffy’s. His is the second of the two conferences I have this afternoon. And his original birth certificate, the custody agreement and the divorce decree aren’t here.”
“Can’t the judge just pull them up on the computer?”
“They’re from out of state. I don’t know where the hell they are! Did you misfile them?”
“Would I know if I had?” Natalie countered acerbically.
“Sorry,” he muttered. But he didn’t sound sorry. He sounded at the end of his rope.
“I’ll look,” Natalie was already heading into his office.
“You’ll have to tear the place apart.”
“Not likely,” Natalie said, seeing them on the tabletop under the mirror where he’d probably set them when he’d straightened his tie and combed his hair. “Where are you?”
“You found them?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
He gave her the address and directions to the court building. He was waiting when she got there and took the folder gratefully. He even looked at her. And it was back—the electricity. She could feel it. It was almost a relief—as if the world had righted itself.
“Need anything else?” she asked, her tone gently mocking, when she handed it to him. “A sandwich perhaps?”
His mouth twisted wryly.
She shrugged and was turning to leave when his voice halted her.
“Natalie.”
She glanced back, met his gaze. Oh, God, yes, you could light the whole city of Los Angeles with the electricity now. “Hmm?”
“Thanks.”
Some things, Natalie decided, were just not a good idea.
One of them had been agreeing to work for Christo. Not that she didn’t enjoy it. She did. Too much. She liked the work, liked interacting with many of his clients, liked the variety and the challenge.
Liked being able to look up or across the room and see Christo himself.
That she probably relished more than anything else. But it wasn’t the salutary experience she’d hoped it would be—or at least not salutary in the way she’d hoped. It wasn’t helping her get over him at all. In fact, by Wednesday, her last day in the office, she knew she needed to get out.
It wasn’t that she was afraid she would disgrace herself again. It was how badly she wanted to.
Well, not really to disgrace herself. But she did want Christo Savas with a deep, profound, gut-level desire unlike any she’d ever known. And she shouldn’t.
It was pathetic. She was pathetic, and she knew it.
“Get over it,” she told herself. “You’ve been down this road before.”
So she tried. But she kept looking up to feast her eyes on him every time he came into the reception area. She welcomed every opportunity to go into his office when he was there.
She found herself memorizing the way his brows drew together when he was studying an argument and how he tapped his pen against his teeth when he was reading. She had an image in her mind of the way he always tilted his head and listened so intently when one of his clients was speaking, and how he always crouched down so he was on eye level with the children as he was doing now with eight-year-old Derek Hartman who was showing Christo baseball cards instead of talking about his parents’ divorce.
She wondered what he’d be like with children of his own. And the vision of Christo with little green-eyed boys and dark-haired girls pierced so sharply that she had to catch her breath.
“Don’t,” she said sharply.
Christo, just straightening up to take Derek into the conference room, looked around at her. “Did you say something?”
“No—” her cheeks were burning “—I just—no. Never mind. Made a mistake.” She waved in the general direction of the letter she was supposed to be typing. “Just…muttering.”
He gave her an odd look, then shrugged. “What are you doing tonight?”
Her gaze jerked up. Her heart kicked over. “What?”
“I’ve got the shelves ready. Can I come up and put them in?”
“Oh.” Deflated and annoyed at feeling deflated, she shrugged. “Sure. Of course.”
He knocked. And knocked again.
She didn’t answer the door.
It was just past seven. He didn’t know what time she’d left the office because he’d been on a conference call between five and six. When he’d finished, though, and come out of his office, she was already gone.
Her car was in the garage. So she should be home. Though, he supposed, she could have walked up to the shops on Manhattan Avenue.
Or she might be on a date.
He knocked again. Louder. “Natalie!”
No answer. He hadn’t seen anyone come and pick her up. But then, he hadn’t spent the last hour watching her door, had he? He had better things to do. Besides, she’d told him he could come tonight.
But she hadn’t said she’d be here, he reminded himself.
Well, fine. She knew he had a key. He’d let himself in. He went back home and got it, then when one last knock got no reply, he opened the door and went in.
The apartment might be Laura’s, but it had Natalie’s mark on it now. That was her laundry folded in neat piles on the kitchen table. Her colorful T-shirts and scoop-necked tops, her shorts and capris, her skimpy equally colorful underwear.
He didn’t need to be thinking about Natalie’s underwear. He still remembered the pink camisole top she’d worn the night he’d found her in his bed. Still—
He shoved the memory away and began hauling in the shelves. Herbie, ever curious, followed him, wove between his feet, tripping him and meowing at the same time.
“Didn’t she feed you?” Christo asked him.
But he could see that Herbie still had a bit of food in his bowl. She’d obviously been home. And then he saw her open day planner by the coffeemaker. In Natalie’s handwriting, it said, Scott 6:30.
So—his jaw tightened—a date, after all.
No matter. He could work faster without her interference. He had plenty of interference with Herbie before the cat got bored and decided Christo wasn’t going to provide any food. Then Herbie curled up beside Natalie’s CDs on the cabinet under the window, and Christo began putting the bookcases together.
He liked working with his hands, liked the feel of the wood beneath his fingers, liked fitting things together and making something useful. Doing that was a good counterpoint to the thinking he had to do for his legal work. Often as he worked, his mind did the same, exploring possibilities, considering options, framing and reframing arguments, asking himself questions.
Like, who the hell was Scott?
He put on the wood glue and fitted the back to the side.
And why hadn’t she ever mentioned him?
He was meticulous with his work, drilling and gluing and countersinking the screws. It was the sort of work that usually settled his mind. All he could think right now was he could have used another pair of hands.
It was past nine when Natalie finally appeared. “Oh,” she said when she pushed open the door and found him kneeling in the living room as he put the blind screws into the back of the first bookcase. “You’re still here.”
“Imagine that.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said sharply. “Give me a hand here. Unless you’re worried about getting your clothes dirty.”
She wasn’t wearing the gray skirt and blazer with the black blouse she’d worn to the office. Not dressing for success tonight, then. She had on a casual flowered skirt in a sort of batik print with a rust-colored top that brought out the red in her hair. Probably the way Scott preferred it.
She hesitated. “I will. But let me change,” she said. “I only have so many work clothes.”
Christo’s eyes widened. “Work?”
“I went to dinner with a new client tonight.”
Scott at six-thirty was a client? “Dressed like that?”
She blinked in surprise, then realized what he expected to see in the way of work clothes. “I’m not a lawyer,” she reminded him.
His teeth set. He studied her clothing. “And that’s what wives wear?”
She shrugged. “More or less. Less tailored than lawyers. More casual and approachable, but still businesslike.”
“Just,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Get changed and come give me a hand here.”
It should have been easier with the two of them working. It wasn’t.
The second pair of hands was helpful. But the way they bumped into each other was not.
Nor was the faceful of her hair he seemed to get every time he moved close. Damn it, Natalie! But he didn’t say it. Just breathed it in. Breathed the scent of her—and felt that plaguing desire grow.
It made him want to do more than brush an arm against her. It made him want to reach out and pull her into his arms.
She shifted to get a better grip on the bookcase as they were moving it and her breasts brushed against his arm.
His breath hissed between his teeth. “Damn it. I said move.” He grunted.
“I am.”
“Not that way!” She turned and he got her hair in his face again. “Are you trying to drive me nuts?”
Her shoulders stiffened. She looked at him, confused. “Drive you nuts?”
His jaw worked. “All that shifting, twisting, turning—”
“I was trying to help! You said to move.”
“To move. Not rub against me!”
Her mouth formed an astonished O. Then it twitched shut and he saw a sudden twinkle in her eye. “Am I threatening your virtue, Mr. Savas?” she asked mockingly. Then she added more seriously, “I didn’t think I could.”
He gritted his teeth. “Think again.”
Natalie blinked. “You’re kidding.” She sounded genuinely surprised.
He supposed he should be glad, happy that she hadn’t noticed. But all he could do was glare at her. “What? You think I’m immune?”
“You certainly were last time!”
“The hell I was!”
She stared at him, shocked. “You sent me away.”
“You were a kid!”
“I was twenty-two!”
“Too young for me. Too innocent,” he added pointedly. “And you worked with me.”
