One-Night Mistress...Convenient Wife

Her fingers found the ring of keys. She picked out her mother’s, stuck it in the keyhole, gave it a twist, and pushed open the door. Then with one last quick glance down toward the ocean where, yes indeed, she could see silhouetted against the bright sun a muscular man with a surfboard just coming up the beach, she picked up her laptop and her suitcase, hurried inside and banged the door.

In the blessed shadowed coolness of the small entryway she dropped her bags, shut her eyes and took a deep relieved breath.

“Natalie?” The voice was gruff, masculine and sounded as shocked and disbelieving as her own ears were.

Her eyes snapped open. She blinked rapidly, trying to accustom them to the dim indoor light, to see the cool empty living room she expected, to see Herbie the cat, whom she expected.

Not to see the man who had been crouched by the fireplace and was now straightening, drawing himself up to his full six feet two inches and staring at her with narrowed suspicious eyes.

Her mouth felt as if someone had suddenly dumped a pail full of sand in it. “Christo?” She barely choked his name out. Then she frowned, too.

Their gazes met, locked. And then, in unison, “What the hell are you doing here?” they said.

“I live here. There,” he corrected, jerking his head toward the house beyond the garden. His gaze went to the suitcase by her feet. “What’s that for?”

The suspicion in his voice rankled. Natalie stood straighter. “I’m moving in,” she said, pleased at how firm her voice sounded. “Temporarily.”

Christo’s brows drew down. “What for?”

“I’m taking care of Herbie. And the plants.”

“Your mother said Harry—”

“Harry broke his leg.”

Now the brows went up. “First I’ve heard about it.” There was clear disbelief in his voice. He rested an arm against the mantel of the fireplace and regarded her doubtfully.

Natalie drew herself together. “Feel free to go over to Harry’s and ask. You might be right. Maybe this is all some great plot of my mother’s to throw me and you together.”

Christo grunted at the scorn in her tone. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” Laura might well be thinking that it was a good idea for her twenty-five-year-old daughter to start looking around for a husband, but she wouldn’t meddle. Natalie was sure of that.

“I can feed the cat and water the plants.” Christo’s tone made it sound not like a suggestion. It sounded like an order.

Natalie bristled. She’d already survived the part she wanted to avoid. “I’m sure you can,” she said starchily. “But my mother didn’t ask you. She asked me. And I’m doing it.”

His teeth came together. She imagined she could hear them grinding. Well, so be it.

“So we know what I’m doing here,” she said pointedly. “What about you? You don’t just habitually wander into my mother’s apartment, I hope.”

The teeth did grind, then. “No, I don’t habitually wander into her apartment. I was measuring for bookshelves.” He held out his hand. There was a measuring tape in it.

“Bookshelves?” Natalie echoed doubtfully.

“She’s always saying to me how much she loves this room, but that it would be perfect if it had bookcases on either side of the fireplace.” He shrugged, but also jerked his head toward the space behind him and, studying the space, Natalie could see her mother’s point. His mouth twisted. “A belated birthday surprise.”

Natalie was surprised he knew her mother’s birthday had been last week. “And you were going to have them put in while she was gone?”

“No. I was going to put them in myself while she was gone.”

They stared at each other. An awareness Natalie didn’t want to acknowledge arced between them. It had been there ever since she’d heard his voice and opened her eyes to see him standing there. It was a feeling she’d felt with no one else—ever. Once she’d thought she understood it. Had cultivated it. Relished it.

Now she wanted nothing whatever to do with it at all.

“Well, you can’t,” she said and folded her arms across her chest.

His jaw worked, but he didn’t say anything. Their gazes were still locked and Natalie refused to be the one to look away first. Not this time. She was in the right this time.

“Fine,” he said shortly. “I’ll finish measuring now. I’ll order the wood. I’ll put them up when she gets back, mess up the living room while she’s here.” He turned and knelt back down, ignoring her. In effect, dismissing her.

Natalie glared at his back. Why had she ever thought she wanted to spend the rest of her life with this man? Why had she ever been in love with him?

She hadn’t, she told herself sharply. She’d been infatuated, the victim of a law-school clerk’s foolish crush on a brilliant up-and-coming litigator. She’d been dazzled by his brilliance, his extraordinary good looks, and whatever perverse sexual chemistry had always seemed to hum between them whenever he was in the room.

And the kiss, her mental memory box reminded her. Don’t forget the kiss!

No, God help her, she couldn’t forget the kiss. Try as she would she’d never been able to forget entirely the moment she and Christo Savas had locked lips. It had been the most blazingly hot kiss of her then twenty-two years. The most blazingly hot anything of her entire life—even up to this very moment.

It had been the impulse that had spurred on her unutterably foolish action that night three years ago.

Action she was not about to repeat no matter what Christo Savas thought. And it was no secret, Natalie knew, staring at him now, what he thought.

“All right,” she said abruptly. “Go ahead and put in the bookshelves.”

He was kneeling on the floor, about to measure. But he slanted her a quick glance, and in it she saw the instant wariness she expected.

She gave him a saccharine smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay completely out of your way. Won’t bother you at all. Won’t invite you to my bed and won’t turn up in yours. You’re perfectly safe.” She made her tone sound mocking.

But they both knew she wasn’t mocking him. She was mocking herself, the hopelessly naive girl who had taken a summer’s working relationship, a sense of kindredness that was, in retrospect, obviously one-sided, and a single spontaneous kiss to celebrate a triumph in the courtroom as an indication of something far deeper. A girl who had thought he must love her the way she imagined she loved him—and who had actually gone to his bed to prove it.

She made herself smile and hold his unblinking jade-green gaze, willing him to believe it because, God knew, it was the truth. There was no way on earth she would ever make a fool of herself like that again!

“If you’re sure…” Christo began.

“Of course I’m sure.” She gathered her laptop case and the suitcase up into her arms, fleetingly aware that she was probably using them as armor, even as she carried them into the room. “I was just…surprised to see you. In here,” she qualified because she didn’t want him thinking she’d been intending to avoid him—even if she had been.

She set the laptop case on her mother’s dining-room table. “I’ll just put this away.” She nodded down at the suitcase, then turned toward the bedroom. “And I’ll come back and help you measure.”

“I don’t need any help,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Which meant that, even though she’d pretty much spelled it out, he still didn’t entirely trust her not to fling herself at him even now.

“Fine. Suit yourself.” Natalie shrugged and carried the suitcase into the bedroom, only sagging down onto the bed and letting out a shuddering breath once she got there.

She could, of course, just leave the suitcase on the bed and deal with the contents later. But rushing back into a room where she clearly wasn’t wanted—and didn’t want to be—was not the best idea.

And there was a whole lot to recommend staying right where she was. She could use the time to put her clothes away—and regain her equilibrium in the process.