“You shouldn’t have come,” he scolded her. “You should have stayed home to rest.”
She looked indignant as she sank onto the seat. “For what do I rest? For you. You are here at last. Who knows how many days I have to see you?”
“Don’t say things like that,” Christo chastised her roughly.
His grandmother shrugged. “It is true.” And she looked up at him with such love that it was almost painful to watch—especially since Natalie had a very good idea how she felt.
It took over an hour to get to the house that Xanti had built for his mother after he’d become an international soccer star. It was in the same rural area he had grown up in, with a mixture of working farms and large estates. And when they arrived, Natalie realized that it wasn’t simply a house, but a small compound of two good-sized houses and several smaller cottages.
“Because Xanti wanted home-cooked meals, but he didn’t want Avó telling him not to bring his women home,” Christo explained wryly after they’d taken his grandmother to her house and she’d been persuaded to take a short rest. “She has her place here and he has his over there—” a wave of the hand toward a sprawling modern place near a free-form landscaped swimming pool. “And there are others for family and visitors,” he added as he walked her through the beautiful grounds along a winding flagstone path that ended at the door of a small cottage. “This one is for you.”
The one he’d brought her to was older than the others, a rough ivory-colored stucco house with deep-set windows and a broad flagstone veranda all across the front. It was quite the most lovely welcoming little house Natalie had ever seen.
On a trellis on one side of the porch a deep burgundy bougainvillea grew all the way up to the roof and draped along it, providing privacy and welcome shade from the sun.
Though it was winter in Brazil, the day was still warm, and Natalie was glad to step into the shade while Christo took out a key and opened the door, then held it for her to precede him.
The inside of the house was cool and as welcoming at the exterior. A rattan sofa and chairs with colorful jungle print cushions were grouped at one end of the main room, and there was a small kitchen and dining area at the other. French doors opened onto another veranda beyond the dining table.
There was a small hallway with a bath and a bedroom where Christo carried her suitcase. Natalie followed him in and stopped as she stared at the one wide bed.
Instantly her gaze flew to Christo at the same moment he turned and looked at her.
“I’m staying at Avó’s,” he said. “Don’t worry. You can, too, of course. I just thought, under the circumstances, you might prefer it here where you could have a little privacy and some space. Where you won’t be under the microscope all the time.”
“I would,” Natalie said quickly. “Thank you.”
She smiled at him then, and for the first time since she’d agreed to come, it felt almost right. Almost as if she might not have made the biggest mistake of her life.
Walking back out into the main room, she turned in a circle, trying to absorb the peace and the beauty of the place. “It’s gorgeous here, all of it,” she told Christo. “Your dad’s place looks amazing and your grandmother’s is really lovely. But I really like it here best. It’s homey.”
She wondered, when she said it, if it sounded rude. But for the first time Christo actually smiled, too.
“It was Avó’s,” he told her. “This is her old house. Renovated a bit now—” he nodded toward the updated kitchen “—but it was where she and my grandfather lived, where Xanti was raised. It was where she was still living when I first came here as a boy. Xanti was living in Europe then. Making lots of money, but he hadn’t come back yet to build his palace.” He dipped his head in the direction of Xanti’s house, then looked around here and ran his hand down the doorjamb proprietarily. “I like it here, too.”
It was one of those moments of perfect communion that they shared. One that made Natalie ache with longing for what could be but never would. What it made Christo feel, she didn’t know.
Abruptly he said, “I should go back and see Avó. Do you want to come or will you rest a while?”
“I’ll rest,” Natalie said.
He opened his mouth, started to say something, then shut it again. Another long look arced between them, and Natalie found herself almost leaning into it before she recollected herself and straightened up.
Christo ran his tongue over his lips, then cleared his throat. “Come up to Avó’s when you feel like it,” he said, businesslike again, already stepping toward the door. “Tchau.”
“Tchau,” Natalie whispered and felt her throat close on the word.
But Christo didn’t hear. He was already striding toward his grandmother’s house, not even glancing back.
It had been the right thing to bring Natalie.
It was important for his grandmother not to worry about him. And she would have worried, even though she would have smiled and teased and made a joke of throwing women in his way.
Christo had been shocked at the change in her. He’d seen her four months ago when he’d come to visit over Easter. And she was a shadow now of the woman she’d been then.
He hadn’t believed his father when he’d called. Had it been only five days ago? Yes. It didn’t seem possible for the world to have changed that fast. Maybe the whole world hadn’t, but his had.
His grandmother had been the single constant dependable anchor in his life since he’d been barely six years old. She was the one who’d had time for him, who’d listened to him, who’d both trusted him and demanded more of him. The man he’d become owed more to her than to anyone.
He hadn’t believed it when Xanti had said she was dying.
“I just talked to her a couple of weeks ago!” Christo had protested. “She never said a word.”
“Would she?”
The question had stopped Christo’s protest like a blow to the heart.
Would she tell him? He knew the answer even as his father’s question echoed in his head.
No, she wouldn’t. Not while he was so far away. Not while he had his own life. She wouldn’t want to take him away from it, wouldn’t want him to worry, to fret about what he couldn’t change.
But now that he thought about it, he remembered again the talk about finding him a wife. There had been gentle teasing in her words as there always was. But last time there had been something urgent. Something more.
“She is dying,” Xanti repeated. “So I’m getting married.”
“To whom?” Christo had demanded, stunned.
“To Katia! Who else?” Xanti had sounded affronted at the question. Katia Ferreira did public relations for the sporting-goods company his father worked with. She was in her mid-thirties, pretty enough, very blonde, a quickwitted, savvy businesswoman. Unlike the other women who had come and gone in his father’s life, Katia had never seemed enthralled by Xanti’s boyish antics and mercurial behavior—or by Xanti himself for that matter.
“And she’ll have you?” Christo had asked.
“She loves me. It will be good,” Xanti retorted. “It will make your grandmother happy. She can stop worrying about me.”
Ergo, Christo knew, she would be worrying about him. About finding a wife for him. And that had led him instinctively to the notion of bringing Natalie with him to Brazil.
But the moment he’d thought it, he knew he couldn’t. Then he knew he had to. He didn’t want to. Oh, yes, he did.
His