She’d been tempted to say something flippant in the face of his distant formality. Something like, Damned right you couldn’t. Hard to pretend you have a fiancée when you can’t produce her.
But that would have been pointless. It would have betrayed how much his leaving her was going to hurt. It would have told him that her determinedly casual acceptance of a mere affair was a lie.
She’d had enough of lies. But she’d needed that last one to make the break. And so she’d merely nodded and said quietly, “I was glad to do it.”
She would carry those memories with her for the rest of her days. She would take them out and remember them—remember him—always.
He never said, “I’ll see you again.”
He never said, “I’ll call you.”
He never even said, “I’d like to go to bed with you again.”
So maybe he already knew she’d broken the rules.
He’d held out his hand to her in farewell. It had all been very polite. Proper. The appropriate end to a business arrangement, she supposed.
They’d managed faint smiles, though they had barely even looked at each other. For one fleeting moment their gazes had connected and quickly he’d said, “Good-bye,” and dropped her hand.
And then with another “Thank you again,” he’d turned abruptly and walked away.
Since then Natalie hadn’t heard a word. Didn’t expect to. Knew she never would.
She hadn’t talked about him, either. Couldn’t.
But apparently avoidance could only be counted on to work for a short time. So Natalie steeled herself to get through it.
“I liked his grandmother a lot,” she said.
Laura nodded. “Christo certainly thinks the world of her.”
“Is he going back to Brazil?”
“I expect so.” Laura looked sad. The kettle whistled and she got up to pour the water for tea. “He’s away right now. I told him he should take a little vacation. He’s been very distracted since he got back. That’s not like Christo.”
“No.”
Had he gone on his “little vacation” alone? Or had he already found a woman to replace her in his bed? The knife wobbled in her hand and she nearly sliced her fingers.
“I thought at first it was your fault.” Laura’s words jerked her back to the moment.
“My fault? What was my fault?”
“His distraction. I thought you might have done something to upset him.”
“No,” Natalie said firmly. “Except where his grandmother is concerned, Christo doesn’t do upset.” She knew that all too well.
Her mother nodded. “Yes. When he told me how ill she was, I realized what was really bothering him.”
“Nothing to do with me.” Natalie swallowed against the lump in her throat. It shouldn’t hurt. It was selfish even to wish she’d mattered a little. She whacked the celery into little bits and dumped them into the wok.
“I took pictures at the wedding,” she told her mother. “Would you like to see them?”
Laura brightened. “That would be lovely.”
It wouldn’t. It would hurt right down to the bone. But looking at them and forcing herself to talk casually and rationally about the time she’d spent in Brazil—with Christo—would be salutary.
“Have some dinner with me and I’ll show them to you after.”
Laura beamed at her. Natalie did her best to smile back. She made a real effort that evening to act like a sane, sensible, grown-up woman, a heart-whole woman. And she managed—more or less.
She didn’t burst into tears. She didn’t choke up—much. When her voice wobbled once or twice, Laura put it down to her concern about Christo’s grandmother and the emotions evoked by a beautiful wedding.
Natalie certainly didn’t disagree with her.
And after Laura left, she congratulated herself on a performance well done. She would get over him. She would cope without him.
And if she cried herself to sleep that night, she told herself firmly that things would get better. They had to.
She couldn’t spend the next sixty years doing this.
The rain was coming down in buckets. It was miserable. Cold. Those who thought southern California couldn’t get cold should be here now, Natalie thought, shivering as she stared out at the bleak September morning. The chill went right to the bone.
“I can’t remember when it ever rained in September,” she said to Sophy when her cousin called.
“Last year,” Sophy said briskly. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
Everything. Still. Maybe it wasn’t the chill of the weather. Maybe it was deep inside. It had been almost a month since she’d come home, and she could honestly say that the day of Christo’s father’s wedding under the winter sun of Brazil was the last time she’d been warm.
Now, as she stared out the window of her apartment at the water streaming down the pane, she thought that at least it suited her mood.
If it hadn’t been nearly noon, she’d have used the excuse of it being Saturday and gone back to bed and pulled the covers over her head.
As it was, she’d been sitting in a huddled lump on her sofa wishing she had Herbie, at least, to cuddle. She felt bereft. Lost. Alone. She almost hadn’t answered the phone when Sophy rang. But she had to stop behaving like a slug.
“I’m fine,” she said with all the firmness she could manage when Sophy’s silence made it clear her cousin doubted that.
“Yeah, right,” Sophy said. “You need to get out. Do something! I’ve been patient, waiting for you to snap out of it.”
“I’m snapping,” Natalie muttered. “It’s just taking a while.”
“Like a saggy rubber band,” Sophy retorted. “Honestly. You’re pathetic. I didn’t sit home after George and I broke up.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Of course it is. How long are you going to lie to yourself?”
“I’m not lying to myself!”
“Much,” Sophy snorted. “You’re dragging around, moping about him.”
No doubt which “him” she meant. And Natalie knew better than to deny it. “It’s not the same. I wasn’t married to Christo. I went to Brazil with him. If I lied to anyone, I lied to his grandmother. By implication if not in fact. And I’m not proud of it.”
“I suppose not,” Sophy said, a surprising note of gentle commiseration in her voice now. “How is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Even her mother had had no news. Or if she had, she hadn’t passed it on to Natalie. It had been two weeks since she’d shared dinner and photographs with her mother. They’d chatted briefly on the phone since. But since Christo was still gone, Laura had gone back to Iowa for a visit.
“I’m sorry,” Sophy said. “But really, Nat, you have to get past it. You’re twenty-five years old. You have a long life ahead of you. There will be other men. Better men,” Sophy added firmly.
Natalie wished she could believe that. “Yeah,” she said dully. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“I am right. The Savas men are pains in the butt. I speak from experience,” she added drily.
“Yes.” Natalie wished she believed that, too. But she didn’t.
It was her own idiocy that had brought her to this. Christo had never meant to hurt her. He never would have asked her to go with him if he hadn’t trusted her word that her heart wasn’t involved.
I don’t do love. I don’t do marriage. He couldn’t have been more explicit.
So if she was hurting now, it was her own fault, not his. He’d warned her.
She was the one who’d thought she would be safe.
Or, if not safe—because she wasn’t that self-deluded—at least she’d promised herself that the joy she would know during those few brief days with him at his father’s wedding would be worth the pain she’d feel afterwards.
The more fool she.
“It’s my fault,” she told Sophy now.
So
phy made a rude noise. “Which is exactly what I think of that,” she said tartly in case Natalie needed it spelled out. “You need to go out. I’ll find you a date.”
“No.”
“I will,” Sophy vowed. “A good man.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Wait right there.” Sophy was getting into it now. “I’ll send him over.”
“Sophy,” Natalie warned her.
“What else are you doing this dreary morning?”
“I could have gone to Disneyland with Dan and Co.”
“But you didn’t,” Sophy pointed out.
“Because it’s raining.”
“Because you’re sopping around feeling sorry for yourself. You need waking up. Jolting. I’ve got just the thing. A husband-for-hire.”
“No!”
“Come on, Nat. We have a new guy on the books. Remember cousin Walter’s friend Larry?”
“I said, no!” Unable even to joke about it, Natalie hung up.
She went into the kitchen and put on the kettle to make herself a cup of tea. Get a grip, she told herself. Sophy cares. She’s only kidding. The kettle had barely whistled when there was a sharp knock on her front door.
“Oh, no.”
Because Sophy had taken the joke one step too far. Was Walter’s friend Larry that desperate for a bit of work that he’d agreed to come out on a rainy Saturday just to help Sophy annoy her cousin?
Well, too bad. It wasn’t funny, and Natalie was sorry that she was going to bite some poor guy’s head off, but really—
There was a second sharp knock on the door.
She had barely pasted on her polite, I’m-the-boss smile before she jerked open the door. “Look, I don’t care what Sophy told you, I do not need—”
It wasn’t cousin Walter’s friend Larry.
Natalie’s words dried up. She could only stare.
Christo stared back. And there was such a look of hunger and anguish in his bleak shadowed eyes that she’d never seen anything like it before. Not even the last night in Brazil when he’d made love with her.
She stood stock-still, her mouth open, but no sound came out. At last she croaked, “What do you want?”
“To marry you. Will you?”
It was the last thing she expected to hear.
She couldn’t have heard him right. It had to be wishful thinking, self-delusion. Maybe she had even imagined him as well. She blinked furiously, expecting Christo to be a mirage, certain that cousin Walter’s friend Larry would materialize in his stead.
“Nat?” he said impatiently. It was Christo’s gruff voice that had her eyes snapping open again to see him still standing there.
“What?”
“I’m getting soaked.” He was agitated, annoyed, edgy as hell—and very definitely real.
“Oh! Er—right. Come in.” She yanked the door open wider, and Christo came in to drip on the carpet. He pulled off his jacket, and Natalie took it from him with nerveless fingers, then carried it to the kitchen to hang over the back of a chair, taking refuge in the mundane because her mind was reeling. When she came back he was standing right where she’d left him.
“I’ll get you a towel,” she said.
He shook his head, his eyes boring into hers. “Never mind the towel. Just answer the question.” His voice held none of the indifference she was so used to hearing. He sounded edgy and decidedly tense.
Once more their gazes met. And she wondered if she had really heard him right, after all. She might have missed him. Not been here at all. Could easily have gone to Disneyland with Dan, Kelly and Jamii.
Neither the rain nor her “acting soppy,” in Sophy’s words, had been the real reason she hadn’t gone. The real reason was that she hadn’t wanted to face Jamii. Her mother and Sophy might be put off by rebuffs or deflections, but Jamii wouldn’t have been. She would have wanted to know all about her trip, all about Christo—where they’d gone, what they’d done. She wouldn’t have been deflected.
And Natalie couldn’t have talked about him without her voice breaking. Not without tears she had no business shedding sliding down her cheeks—because she fully expected she wouldn’t see him again. Not in any way that mattered.
And now here he was, in her living room, tense and edgy, staring at her. “Will you marry me?”
“You don’t do marriage,” she reminded him.
He ran his tongue over his lips, then dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I thought I didn’t.”
“And now you do?” She couldn’t make it a statement. She had too many doubts.
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes.” His answer was firm and steady, and Natalie found herself burning under the intensity of his gaze.
But she needed to know more. Lots more.
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
She hadn’t expected that. She had expected some rational sensible argument. A logical lawyerly exposition. Not stark words that cut right to the depths of her soul. Words she desperately wanted to believe. And didn’t. Couldn’t. Not yet.
“You don’t do love, either.”
He grimaced. “I said a lot of stupid things. Thought a lot of stupid things. And it’s true, I didn’t want to fall in love. I didn’t want to mess up my life!”
“Thank you very much,” Natalie said drily past the lump in her throat.
He raked a hand through damp spiky hair, then began to pace around the room. “I didn’t mean that. I meant…I didn’t believe in commitment. The ’til-death-do-us-part stuff. I never saw it work.” The look he gave her was anguished. “Why buy into that? It seemed like too much of a risk.”
“And now it doesn’t?”
He stopped and faced her squarely. “Now I don’t have any choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” she said with all the coldness she could muster. “No one’s holding a gun to your head. You can walk right back out that door this minute.”
“I don’t want—”
But she pressed on, making herself say it. “I knew what the score was, Christo. I took your terms. And I’m not pining away.” She wouldn’t, damn it. Even if it felt as if she would. She looked him in the eyes. “I never begged you to come.”
His mouth twisted wryly. “No,” he admitted. “I’m the one on my knees.”
And the look he gave her very nearly melted her where she stood. But she held fast, didn’t move.
“I love you, Nat. I didn’t want to! God help me, I didn’t want to care. It’s a hell of a risk. Ask any of my clients. Ask your own mother!” He started pacing again, making the room shrink even further. “I thought I never would. Thought if I just drew boundaries, I’d be safe.” He turned and looked back at her, a hard glitter in his dark jade eyes. “There is no safety where you’re concerned. You get past all my boundaries, Nat. You break down all my walls. You’re with me every step all day long. Wherever I am, you’re there!”
Natalie didn’t know if it was an accusation or a declaration of love. He looked miserable.
She shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” His voice was ragged. “I’ve never been happier in my life.”
She almost laughed at that. “Right. Of course you are. You look like you’re jumping for joy.”
“Not now, damn it. Then! When we were together. At the beach. In Brazil. At work. At home. Whenever I’m with you. Whenever you’re with me. Not just in bed, Nat,” he added. “Though I’ll admit that’s part of it.”
Natalie found herself reaching for the back of the armchair closest to her. She needed to hang onto it. Needed the support. The way the revelations were coming she thought she might fall right down.
“What I feel scares the hell out of me,” he told her frankly. “How could it not? I’ve seen so many couples who are screwed up. So many marriages, so many relationships—my own parents above all—go wrong.” He drew a breath. “But not to try—” He shook his head. “To give up the
best thing that ever happened to me without even asking you to try with me—I can’t do that.”
He stopped speaking. Outside the rain pounded down. In here there was only the pounding of their hearts, so loud Natalie thought she could even hear them, then realized it was the blood hammering through her veins.
Consciously, deliberately, she loosed her grip on the back of the chair, took a breath, formed her thoughts, started to speak, but Christo wasn’t finished.
“I know your father hurt you when he left your mother. I know what he did made you wary of marriage. And I know you said you don’t want to get married. I have no right to ask you. It’s changing the rules. It’s not playing fair. It’s—”
“Love.”
Christo stopped. Stared at her. “What?”
Natalie ventured a tremulous smile. “It’s love,” she repeated, her voice stronger now, more confident. “I understand about love, Christo. I love you.” She said the words slowly, deliberately, infusing them with every bit of the intensity she was feeling.
For a long moment Christo didn’t move. Didn’t speak. It was as if he didn’t believe his ears—or her words.
And then, when she didn’t say anything else, when she just stood there, looking at him with her heart in her eyes, he moved. He took four steps, enough to cross the room, wrap her in his arms and bury his face in her hair.
“Oh, God, Nat. Oh, God.” He was cold and wet, and shaking. At the same time the feel of his arms around her, of his heart pounding against her own, was the most wonderful feeling Natalie had ever had in her life. And she wrapped her own around him and hung on.
“You mean it?” he muttered against her hair. “You’re not just saying it?”
“Humoring you, you mean?” She was smiling now, turning her head to kiss his jaw, to rub her lips over the unshaven stubble of his cheeks.
He pulled back to look down at her, his forehead furrowed.
She smiled and shook her head. “Not humoring,” she assured him. “Telling the truth. I’ve loved you…forever, it seems. Before I knew what I was doing, three years ago—”
“That wasn’t love,” Christo protested.
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