LITMIR.BIZ

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her voice carry him back to the place she called home. She told him about the crops—it was a farm as well as an estate of note these days. She told him all about her neighbors and the extended family and her many bridge games. She kept him up to date on where his father was.

      “In Buenos Aires this week,” she said. “Last week in Paris.”

      Par for the course as far as Christo was concerned. Xantiago Azevedo, whom he’d never called Dad or Papa or anything other than Xanti, the name on the back of his father’s soccer shirt, had been on the move all of Christo’s life.

      He hadn’t even met his father until he was nearly six. And then it had been a surprise to both of them.

      Xanti had come to play in a match in L.A., and he’d had a night to kill before his plane left for Sao Paulo the next day. At loose ends, he’d apparently decided to look up an old flame. Probably, Christo realized later, he had decided to see if Aurora Savas wanted a roll in the hay for old time’s sake.

      Xanti hadn’t actually said that in so many words—not that Christo would have understood them at the time if he had—but he’d definitely blinked in surprise when the door had been opened by a boy who looked just like him.

      “Who’re you?” Xanti had demanded.

      Before Christo could say more than his first name, his mother had come up behind him. “Meet your son, Xanti,” she’d said to his dumbstruck father. “Want to take him home with you for the summer?”

      Surprisingly enough, Xanti had.

      But not before he’d married Aurora.

      “Of course, we will marry,” he’d said, adding with the foolish nobility Xanti generally approached things with in the short run, “It is my duty.”

      Maybe. But his commitment to it didn’t last. It was the long run Xanti was never able to handle, which is why the whirlwind marriage had lasted barely two months.

      Still, it had given Christo a grandmother who loved him and a home away from home in Brazil. Widowed Lucia Azevedo had welcomed her only grandchild with open arms. With her husband deceased and Xanti, her only child, jetting around the world playing soccer and sleeping with women, this unexpected grandchild quickly became the light of her life.

      And Christo, after a week of determined indifference, found his resolve undermined by Avó’s equally determined love. Her gentle smiles and calm acceptance undid his resolution to remain aloof from this new world he’d been thrust into—a world in which he didn’t even speak the language.

      “No matter,” Avó had said. “We will learn each other.”

      Teach, she’d meant. But “learn each other” was exactly what they’d done. Now, twenty-six years later, Christo spoke with her in the same mixture of English and Portuguese that they’d come to then.

      “’Stas bem?” he asked her. “Are you okay?” because she’d had fainting spells recently.

      “Sim, sim. Muito bem. Perfeita.” She dismissed his concerns. “And you? Have you met the girl yet?”

      Abruptly the idyll was over and a vision of Natalie popped back into his head.

      He sat up and jerked his feet off the desk. “No.”

      Ordinarily he brushed off the question with a laugh. It wasn’t as if she didn’t regularly ask him.

      Having given up on Xanti ever settling down—though he’d been with the same woman, Katia, for almost a year now—Lucia had made it clear she was counting on Christo to marry and settle down and give her babies to dote on.

      He’d never told her he had no intention of marrying because it would upset her. She would think it was her fault, that she hadn’t taught him well enough about love and family and the value of marriage. But today he felt edgier than he usually did.

      And his grandmother picked up on it. “You are looking though, sim?”

      “I—” Damn it, no. And he didn’t intend to.

      “I had a good marriage with your grandfather,” she reminded him. “If he had lived, maybe Xanti—” And then her voice trailed off. “No matter,” she said briskly after a moment. “Xanti is who he is. But you—you will find her, Christo,” she assured him, her voice strong again. “Or I will find her for you.”

      Since he’d turned thirty, two years ago, she’d been offering to do that regularly.

      “Não é necessário,” he assured her again now.

      “Alicia, she would be good for you. She is going to be a lawyer, too,” his grandmother went on as if she hadn’t heard. “So you will have something to talk about.”

      Christo let her talk. He didn’t discourage her ever. He’d tried that, but it made her despondent and led to despairing comments like, “What have I done wrong? It’s not just your father who can’t settle down. Now you, too!”

      “You want to meet her?” his grandmother asked hopefully.

      Not really. “I’m busy,” Christo said. “I don’t know when I’ll be back to Brazil.” He was in no hurry to go down for a visit if Avó was planning to set him up with dates when he did.

      “Sim, I know.” She sounded sad now. “It has been a year.”

      “I’ll get there, I promise.”

      “As Xanti promises.”

      He heard a weary resignation in her tone. Christo’s jaw tightened. “Yes, but I keep mine,” he reminded her.

      “I know you do.” Her voice was gentle. “So you will come.”

      “I will,” Christo said firmly. “Before Christmas. I’ll call you in a couple of weeks and we can talk about it.”

      “Of course we can. You are my favorite grandson.” It was what she always said.

      “I’m your only grandson,” he reminded her with a grin.

      “That is so,” she agreed. “I love you, my Christo.”

      “You, too. Tchau, ‘Vó. Beijos.”

      He hung up, slumped in his chair and tipped his head back. Now visions of his doting grandmother overlaid those of Natalie in his mind. Avó would like Natalie. Natalie would like his grandmother as well.

      It didn’t bear thinking about.

       CHAPTER THREE

      THERE were no hot looks from Christo on Monday morning. No glances that lingered. No politeness even.

      Well, Natalie supposed he was polite enough. But he was absolutely businesslike, curt and remote every time he spoke to her. The intense awareness she’d felt on Friday was more like a determined deep freeze today. He didn’t even meet her eyes, but looked out the window all the time he was giving her instructions.

      She remembered her mother saying more than once, “Christo is such a pleasure to work for. He’s always so even-tempered.”

      Even-tempered, as in his range of emotions went from stern to dour? He smiled enough at his clients. But he scarcely looked at her.

      He wouldn’t even take the time after his nine-thirty appointment left to come and look at a scan of a handwritten document she had up on the computer screen.

      “You can figure it out,” he said curtly and stayed at his desk, not looking up as he flipped through papers and sorted them into folders. Natalie knew he had two pre-trial conferences in L.A. in the afternoon. She supposed he was preoccupied with them.

      He saw two more clients, then came out of his office shortly before one. “I won’t be back until late.” He was shrugging

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