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.”
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