realize it was a child they were dealing with, not a silver service or an Oriental rug. She’d been in the parking garage, heading for her car late that afternoon when he’d got out of his, coming from a meeting about Jonas. She’d paused, waiting for him to get out, expecting yet more bad news. But the look of sheer joy on his face when he shut the door and came toward her was one she’d never forget.
Her heart kicked over. “Did they—?” she began.
The grin nearly split his face. “They did. At last.” And suddenly he was there in front of her, and what had begun as a grin and a high-five turned into a fierce exultant hug.
Instinctively she had lifted her face to smile into his—and they had kissed.
Natalie might have been only twenty-two and not the world’s most experienced woman, but she knew there were kisses and there were kisses.
This kiss might have started out as pure exultation, the shared joy of something going right. But in a second it was something very different indeed. Just as a single simple spark could become a conflagration, so it was the moment their lips touched.
She’d never felt it before.
The kiss didn’t last. Barely a second or two later he let her go and stepped back abruptly, looking around as if expecting to be shot. If anyone had seen them, she knew he could have been—not shot—but facing the wrath of the senior partners and the possible loss of his job.
“You’d better go on home,” he said hoarsely, and without a backward glance he strode off across the garage toward the elevator.
Natalie didn’t move. She’d simply stood there, her fingers pressed against her lips, holding on to the memory, the sensation, the dawning belief that there was substance to the dreams of the future she’d hoped for.
Of course, it had been only a matter of moments. But with one single kiss Christo Savas had nearly burned her to the ground. Even now, running her tongue over her lips, she could still taste—
“Er-mm.”
At the throat-clearing sound behind her, Natalie whipped around, face burning. Christo stood in the doorway to her mother’s bedroom watching her.
“What?” she snapped.
“I’m finished measuring. I’ll order the wood in the morning. Then I have to sand and stain it before I can put it in. I’ll give you plenty of warning.” He sounded very businesslike, very proper.
Exactly the way she wanted him. She gave a short curt nod. “Thank you.” Then, because she knew it was true, and she also knew that, despite her own feelings about Christo Savas, he had done her mother numerous good turns over the past three years, she added, “My mother will appreciate it.”
“I hope so. I like your mother.”
“Yes.” The feeling was mutual. Laura thought the sun rose and set on Christo Savas. She couldn’t understand why Natalie declined invitations that included him.
Still they stared at each other. And there it was again, that damned electricity, that unfortunate awareness. And still he didn’t leave.
Maybe they needed to clarify things further. “My mother said you’d water the plants in the garden.”
He nodded. “She thought it might be too much for Harry.”
“I’m sure she was right. But since Harry’s out of the picture, I can do them. I’m not currying favor—” she said awkwardly.
“Let’s leave it the way she arranged it.”
All lines neatly drawn. Everyone in their own place. “All right.”
At last he turned toward the living room, then glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Maybe.” Natalie didn’t move. Watched his back disappear, heard his footsteps recede, the door open and close, the sound of his feet on the steps outside. Only then did she breathe again, and say aloud what she was really thinking. “Not if I see you first.”
Natalie Ross.
As gorgeous and enticing as ever. Right on his bloody damn doorstep.
Christo tipped back in his desk chair, let out a sigh, rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, then leaned forward and tried to focus again.
It didn’t work. He’d been trying to focus all evening. Ordinarily that wasn’t a problem. He regularly settled down and worked well after dinner when it was quiet and there were no clients in and out, no phone calls, no papers to sign or distractions lurking and he could concentrate.
Not tonight.
Tonight every time he tried to bend his mind around where Teresa Holton’s soon-to-be-ex-husband might have secreted assets everyone knew he had, his mind—no, worse, his hormones—had other ideas.
They wanted to focus on Natalie.
It was because he’d been too absorbed with work lately, he told himself. Except for an hour or so of surfing most evenings after work, he hadn’t taken any time off in weeks. His hormones were feeling deprived as well. It had been two months since Ella, the woman who, for the past year or so, had regularly been the object of their attention, decided she wanted more than a casual no-strings affair.
As Christo didn’t—a fact that he had made crystal-clear from the beginning—he had let her go without a qualm. But he’d had neither the time nor the inclination to look for anyone else since.
He didn’t have the time now.
As for inclination, if his hormones were inclined toward Natalie Ross, too damn bad. There was no woman on earth less likely to want a no-strings affair than Natalie. She was her mother’s daughter through and through.
Though Laura and Clayton Ross were now divorced, it had never been Laura’s idea. It was Clayton who’d run off with the paralegal, leaving Laura, after twenty-five years of marriage, to fend for herself. She had, but she still believed in marriage and babies and forever. So did Natalie. Christo knew it instinctively.
He wanted nothing of the sort.
Resolutely he picked up his pencil again and beat a tattoo on the desktop, trying to stimulate brain cells. But his brain cells didn’t need stimulation. They had plenty, thank you very much. It just wasn’t focused on the Holton case. They had something—someone—else in mind.
As did another part of his anatomy.
Irritated, Christo shoved away from the desk and stood up, flexing his shoulders and pacing around the room.
His office was at the back of the house with a wide window facing Laura’s garden. It was dark now. He couldn’t see the flowers. But if he looked up, he could see the light on in Laura’s apartment. The drapes were pulled, but Natalie could, if she were so inclined, look between them directly down into his office. She could watch him pace.
Christo walked across the room and flipped the blinds shut. He wished he could as easily shut out thoughts of her.
He knew,
