LITMIR.BIZ

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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, of course, that Laura hadn’t been trying to complicate his life by asking her daughter to come and take care of the cat and the plants. Laura was as protective of his time as he was himself. More so, in this case, because if she hadn’t been she’d have asked him to take care of the cat and the plants when Harry broke his leg.

      Instead she’d asked her daughter.

      Of course, she had no idea about his history with Natalie.

      Not that there was a history. There had very determinedly—on his part—not been any history at all.

      Except for that one disastrous totally spontaneous kiss.

      He scrubbed his hands over his face now, remembering it.

      He had never done anything so stupid before or since. He’d always been absolutely impeccable in his workplace behavior. And if the parking garage had not been precisely part of the workplace, that was pretty much legal hairsplitting and Christo knew it. Natalie had been working at the firm, and if he wasn’t her boss he was certainly senior on the totem pole—and he damned well should have known better.

      He had known better.

      It had simply been a combination of joy and relief. And desire.

      Time to call a spade a spade. But doing so didn’t make the desire go away. Old memories welled up. He squashed them. Memories of scant hours ago took their place. He resisted them, too.

      He prowled some more. He cracked his knuckles, then pressed his palms down against the desktop, hunching his shoulders and staring blankly down at the paper he’d given up trying to make notes on. He couldn’t even see what he’d written so far. Visions of Natalie teased at the corners of his mind.

      “Stop it,” he told himself sharply.

      It was perverse, this desire he felt for Natalie Ross’s slender yet curvy body—as perverse now as it had been the first time.

      Christo didn’t do rampant desire. He liked women—in their place. Which was not in his mind or in a relationship. Only in his bed.

      He hadn’t lusted madly after any female since his teens. Now, at the age of thirty-two, he should be well over that sort of thing. He was well over it!

      He’d walked away from Natalie Ross once, for God’s sake. He’d done the right thing. The sensible thing. The only thing.

      Now he gave up trying to work. He went out the front door and crossed The Strand, dropping down onto the path along the beach and beginning to run.

      So,

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