One Night Mistress...Convenient Wife

by Anne McAllister

“No, it wasn’t. It was attraction and hormones. And good taste,” Natalie added with a faint grin. “But it’s love now.”

  “Thank God,” Christo breathed. He hugged her hard again. “My grandmother was right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Christo reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet, then withdrew from it a folded piece of paper which he handed to her. With trembling fingers, Natalie unfolded it. It was a short letter in shaky handwriting written in Portuguese. Natalie looked at it helplessly.

  “I’ll read it to you.” And Christo began to translate. “‘My Christo,’ it says, ‘I love you for trying to make my last days the happiest in my life. I love you for…for bringing Natalie to meet me even though you are not really engaged to her. You may be a lawyer, Christo, but you can’t fool your grandma. You must know that by now.’”

  “She knew?”

  “She understood,” Christo said wryly. “She knew how I felt about marriage. About my parents. She knew me,” he admitted.

  His mouth twisted briefly. Then he cleared his throat and read on. “‘But whether you know it or not, your heart has chosen her. And hers has chosen you.’”

  “She saw the way I looked at you,” Natalie said, remembering.

  Christo nodded, then went on with the letter. “‘Natalie will…will love you if you let her.’” He flicked a quick glance in her direction. “‘I will not push you, my grandson—’” He stopped when his voice grew ragged and he took a breath before continuing. “‘But I hope you will learn to trust your heart—and yourself. That will make me happiest of all.’” His throat seemed to close on the last words, and he swallowed convulsively.

  And Natalie was aware of tears running down her cheeks. “She knew,” she whispered.

  And this time, somehow, it wasn’t mortifying. It was heartening to know that Lucia had trusted her. It made her feel loved and, like Christo, understood.

  She turned to him joyfully. “So we can give her another wedding—without the hassle of the last one?”

  He shook his head sadly. “She died last Saturday.” His voice faltered for a brief moment. “In my arms.”

  His vacation. His “space” had been his grandmother’s deathbed.

  He was a man so intensely private that he hadn’t even told Laura where he was going or why.

  Natalie wished she had been with him. She wished she could have apologized to his grandmother for their deception. She wished she could have thanked this amazing woman for seeing into her heart and understanding her, for recognizing her love for Christo—and giving it her blessing.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I’m so glad I got to meet her. And I’m glad—I’m glad she knew.” She put her arms around him then, holding him, loving him, rejoicing that at last she had the right to.

  They stood rocking together, hanging on, remembering and cherishing the memories, comforting each other.

  And then Christo said, “You’re shaking.” He stepped back. “You’re freezing. And wet.” He sighed and shook his head. “My fault.”

  “I know a way to get warm,” Natalie said. And she took his hand and drew him with her into her small bedroom.

  Had she fantasized having Christo there? Oh, yes. And she’d reveled in the fantasies. But the reality was so much better.

  They undressed each other quickly, laughing now at their fumbling fingers and stumbling feet. And then they tumbled into the bed together and wrapped the duvet around themselves, curling together, cold damp bodies in their own cocoon—and warming up fast.

  “Told you,” Natalie said, nuzzling his jaw, kissing him, letting her hands wander over his naked body, and squirming when his did the same to her.

  “Smart woman.” Christo grinned. He shifted and pinned her with one of his legs, then ducked his head under the duvet and began kissing her breasts, working his way down.

  And Natalie, burning up now, luxuriated in his ministrations, reached down beneath the duvet to run her hands over his hair, then gasped when he reached the center of her. “Christo!”

  She tugged, but he didn’t let her go this time. He parted her legs and kept right on. Natalie bit her lip and shuddered under his touch. Her back arched as the feelings built. Her fingers fisted in his hair as the wave of her climax rolled over her.

  And as she lay there, still shuddering, Christo lifted his head from beneath the duvet, looking supremely satisfied. “I’ve been wanting to do that for three years.”

  Natalie felt herself blush all over. “You haven’t!”

  It was one thing to have fantasies about him, but to imagine herself the object of his made her hot all over.

  He rolled onto his back and drew her on top of him. “That’s not what you wanted, turning up in my bed?” He was grinning up at her.

  She wriggled experimentally, making him clench his teeth at the friction of her body against his still-hungry one. But even as she did so, she said quite honestly, “I wanted to love you.”

  His grin faded and he looked solemn as he nodded. He reached up and touched her cheek. “Which is exactly what I was afraid of.” He gave her a wry look. “So I sent you away. But the seed was planted. The memory was always there. I couldn’t quite get you out of my head.”

  Natalie grinned. “I’m so glad.”

  “I am too. Now.”

  “Did you—” she hesitated “—you know…really imagine us…me…” Now she was blushing again.

  “Every time I saw you after that. You’d be visiting your mother, taking out her trash or just sitting there with that cat on your lap, and I’d be remembering you in my bed.”

  “Nothing happened in your bed!”

  “You had been there. That’s all I needed. I have a good imagination,” he added drily.

  And then he was kissing her again, wrapping her in his arms and holding her, cherishing her as if he’d never let her go. Natalie’s eyes pricked with tears. She kissed him in return, then shifted to accommodate him and felt a sense of completion when he surged up into her.

  His back arched and he sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Did you imagine this?” she asked him, smiling down on him, shifting slightly, rising, falling.

  His breath hissed through his teeth. “Didn’t…dare.” His voice was ragged and his breath caught once more as she moved. “Would have…done me in.”

  Natalie laughed softly as she felt his body tremble beneath her as he gritted his teeth and clung to his control. “We wouldn’t want that, would we? Not too often, anyway.” And she smiled as she raised up, then slowly came down again, bending to kiss his lips as Christo rose to meet her.

  His hands gripped her hips and he lifted her again, then drew her back down. Again. And again. Natalie felt her own need start to build. And when his head fell back, his whole body went rigid as his climax shattered him, and her own rippled through her, a slow exquisite sensation of being one with the man she would always love.

  “I love you,” Christo told her.

  He could say it now easily. He said it daily. First thing in the morning, last thing at night. Often in between. And he meant every word.

  The two months he’d been married to Natalie had been the best of his life. He was hers, heart and soul—body went without saying—and he didn’t mind telling her so.

  Naked, she smiled over her shoulder at him as she slipped out of bed. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You’d better be.” He smiled, too, and lay back against the pillows waiting for her. It was Saturday. There was plenty of time for a long lie-in—for more enjoyment of Natalie in his bed.

  Sometimes he wondered if he’d been insane to send her away that night three years ago. Reflecting on the joy that was making love to Natalie, he wondered how he’d turned her away.

  But if he hadn’t, he knew he wouldn’t have what he had now.

  He would have had a night with her, a single memory of her. But he wouldn’t have a future with her. He wouldn’t have a wife
. He certainly wouldn’t have the blessing of Natalie’s love.

  He was the luckiest man alive, he reckoned—and believed it even more fervently when his wife reappeared.

  He held out a hand to her and, smiling a little tremulously, she took it and slipped back into bed beside him. She kissed his chest, then looked up to meet his gaze. The look on her face was unreadable, one he’d never seen before. And used to being able to read her now, he felt suddenly alarmed.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  And then, even as he watched, her smile changed and her face was suffused with such happiness that he blinked. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s wonderful.”

  Then he smiled, too, relieved to hear it. He drew her on top of him and wrapped his arms around her. “It is, isn’t it?” He kissed her, a long kiss that lingered until she broke it, pulled back, drew away.

  “It will be better,” she told him. Her words were solemn, sounding almost like a vow.

  Christo arched a brow. “Oh, yes?” His hand smoothed down her back and over her bottom. “I can’t imagine how.”

  She closed the distance between them, kissed his lips, then smiled into his eyes. “You won’t need any imagination,” she told him, “about seven months from now.”

  It took him a moment to understand the implication of her words. His hand stilled. His breath caught. He raised his head from the pillow and looked into her smiling eyes. He swallowed down equal parts panic and elation.

  “You mean it? You’re…” He couldn’t quite get out the word.

  She nodded, eyes twinkling. “I am.” She gave a little wiggle that had his blood pressure spiking. “I thought I might be. But I wasn’t sure, of course. So I bought a kit. Just did a test.” Another wiggle. Another spike.

  Their eyes met. Their gazes locked. Natalie didn’t speak, just waited for his reaction.

  “That’s—” he searched for the right word, and settled for honesty “—scary as hell.”

  “Are you sorry?” She pulled back, all worried concern.

  But Christo didn’t really even have to think about it. He shook his head, smiling. “Not sorry at all. Just terrified.”

  She laughed. “You’ll be a wonderful father.”

  “I’ve had such a great example with my own,” he said wryly. But he could forgive Xanti his failings now. They were in the past. They didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered now except the woman in his arms and the children they would raise together.

  “You will certainly be better than Xanti,” Natalie agreed. “Though,” she added generously, “he might do better this time.”

  The news that his father, at the age of fifty-four, was about to embark on fatherhood again had boggled Christo’s mind when he’d first heard it. He’d felt instantly sorry for the child. But now he thought Natalie might be right.

  After all, if he could grow and change and learn from Natalie loving him, perhaps his father was capable of learning new tricks as well.

  “We can hope,” he said. He tugged her on top of him and held her there so that their foreheads touched, their noses brushed, their lips met.

  “I love you,” Natalie told him.

  “I love you, too,” he said, and once more drank in the sweetness of her lips. Then, when she assured him that making love was still possible even if they were going to be parents in seven months, he did just that.

  Afterward, when he held her in his arms, he kissed her again. “I never believed in any of this. Now I can’t believe in life without it—without you. I don’t ever want one without you.”

  Natalie returned his kiss wholeheartedly. “The feeling, my love, is mutual.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4272-6

  ONE-NIGHT MISTRESS…CONVENIENT WIFE

  First North American Publication 2009.

  Copyright © 2009 by Barbara Schenck.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.eHarlequin.com