Читать книгу Irresistible Greeks Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 36

“WHAT? No!” She looked panic-stricken. Horrified.

Not at all like the Daisy he remembered. And yet she was so much the Daisy he remembered that Alex couldn’t just turn and walk away. Not now. Not when he’d finally found her again. “Why not?”

“Because … because I don’t want to!” Her cheeks had grown red in the throes of passion. Her whole body had blushed when he’d made love to her. His body—right now—was already contemplating doing the same thing again.

Which was a profoundly stupid idea, considering what he wanted, what she wanted, considering the present—and their past.

“Do you hate me?” he asked. He remembered the way they had parted. She’d looked devastated, about to cry. Thank God she hadn’t. But what she’d wanted—the hope of a lifetime of love—was his worst nightmare. It brought back memories that he’d turned his back on years ago. What had begun happening between them that weekend was something he wasn’t ready for. Would never be ready for.

So there was no point in making her hope in vain. He regretted having hurt her when he’d left her. But he could never bring himself to regret that weekend. It was one of the best memories of his life.

“Of course I don’t hate you,” she said briskly now. “I don’t care at all about you.”

Her words were a slap in the face. But he supposed he had it coming. And it was just as well, wasn’t it, that she didn’t care? It meant he hadn’t hurt her badly after all.

“Well, then,” he suggested easily, “let’s share a meal.” He gave her his best engaging grin. “For old times’ sake,” he added when he could see the word no forming on her lips.

“We don’t have old times.”

“We have one old time,” he reminded her softly.

Her cheeks grew brighter yet. “That was a long, long time ago. Years. Five or six at least.”

“Five,” he said. “And a half.” He remembered clearly. It was right after that weekend that he’d made up his mind to stay in Europe, to buy a place in Paris.

It made sense businesswise, he’d told himself at the time. But it wasn’t only business that had made him dig in across the pond. It was smarter to put an ocean between himself and the temptation that was Daisy.

She was still tempting. But a dinner he could handle. “It’s just a meal, Daisy. I promise I won’t sweep you off to bed.” Not that he wouldn’t like to.

“You couldn’t,” she said flatly.

He thought he could, but emotions would get involved. So he wouldn’t go there, as tempting as it was. Still, he wasn’t willing to walk away, either. “We have a lot to catch up on,” he cajoled.

But Daisy shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Her smile was brittle. He saw none of the sunny sincerity he’d always associated with his memories of her. Interesting.

He studied her now, wondering what her life had been like over the past five years. He’d always imagined she’d found the true love she’d been seeking, had found a man who’d made her happy. And if the thought occasionally had made him grind his teeth, he told himself a guy couldn’t have everything. He had what he wanted.

Now he wondered if Daisy had got what she wanted. Suddenly he wanted to know.

“Another time then,” he suggested.

“Thank you, but no.”

He knew he was going to get “no” if he asked a hundred times. And the knowledge annoyed him. “Once upon a time we had a lot to say to each other,” he reminded her.

“Once upon a time is for fairy tales, Alex. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

“Let’s,” he said readily. “I’ll walk with you.”

“I don’t mean go somewhere else,” she said. “I mean I have to go back inside. I have work to do. In my office.”

“Matchmaking?”

She shook her head. “Not tonight.”

“Photography?” He remembered the camera, how it had been almost a natural extension of who she was.

She nodded, smiling a little. It was a real smile.

“You’ve got your own business then?” he pressed.

“Yes.” She nodded. The smile stayed.

“Families? Kids? People of all shapes and sizes?” And at her further nod, he said, “Show me.”

She almost moved toward the door, almost started to invite him in. But then she stayed where she was, gave her head a little shake. “I don’t think so.”

“You took photos of us.” Sometimes he’d wished he had one. To take out and remember. But that was stupid. It was better to forget.

She shrugged and looked just a little uncomfortable. He wondered if she still had the photos.

“Why matchmaking?” he asked her suddenly.

She shrugged. “Long story.” And no invitation to ask her to tell it.

He lifted a corner of his mouth. “I’ve got time.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re scared.”

The color in her cheeks bloomed again. “I am not scared! What’s there to be scared of?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.” He cocked his head. “Temptation maybe?”

She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not tempted. I’m busy. I have things to do. I haven’t seen you in five years, Alex. I barely knew you then. We don’t have a past to catch up on.”

“We had a hell of a lot.” He didn’t know why he was persisting, but he couldn’t seem to leave it alone.

“And we wanted to do different things with it. Goodbye, Alex.” She turned away and started to go back inside.

But before she could, Alex caught her arm, and spun her slowly back, then did what he’d been wanting to do ever since he’d realized who she was.

He dipped his head and kissed her.

It was instinct, desire, a mad impetuous hunger that he couldn’t seem to control. It was a roaring in his ears and a fire in his veins. It was the taste of Daisy—a taste he’d never forgotten. Never. And as soon as he tasted her, he wanted more.

And more.

For a second, maybe two, Daisy seemed to melt under the touch of his lips. She went soft and pliable, shaping her mouth to his. And then, in another instant, it was over.

She jerked away from him, stared at him for one horrified moment, cheeks scarlet, mouth still forming an astonished O. Then she pulled out of his grasp and bolted back inside the foyer.

“Daisy!”

The door slammed in his face.

Alex stared after her, still tasting her. Jolted, intrigued, stunned. Aroused.

Five years ago Daisy had been like a siren he’d followed eagerly, mindlessly, hungrily. He’d wanted her on every level imaginable. And having her that weekend over and over hadn’t assuaged his hunger. He’d only wanted more.

Leaving, thank God, had removed the temptation.

And now—within minutes of having seen her again—it was back. In spades.

It was the last thing he wanted. The last thing he needed.

Alex turned and walked down the steps, pausing only to drop the paper with her name and address in the trash.

She had been right to say no. He would be smart and walk away.

Ten minutes later Daisy was still shaking.

She sat at her desk, staring at the photo she was editing, and didn’t see it at all. Eyes closed or open, she only saw Alex—older, harder, stronger, handsomer—in every way more, even more compelling than the younger Alex had been.

She shuddered and scrubbed at her mouth with her fingers, trying to wipe away the taste of his kiss.

But all the scrubbing in the world wouldn’t do that, and she knew it. She’d tried to forget it for years. It hadn’t done a whit of good.

She hadn’t even tried to forget him. That would have been impossible. But as time passed, at least she’d managed to put him on a shelf in the back of her memory’s closet. He was still there, but he couldn’t hurt her.

But now Alex was here.

She’d just seen him, talked to him. Been kissed by him. Had almost, heaven help her, kissed him back. It had felt so right, so perfect, so exactly the way it had felt the first time.

But she knew better now.

He had come. He had gone. The other shoe had finally dropped. He wouldn’t come back.

“And it wouldn’t matter if he did,” Daisy said aloud.

Because if one thing was completely obvious, it was that however much more he had become, in fundamentals, Alex hadn’t changed a bit.

He might want to get married now, but he obviously didn’t want anything more than “friends—with benefits.” He didn’t want love. He didn’t want a real marriage. He didn’t want a family.

He didn’t want her.

For a nanosecond her traitorous heart had dared to believe he’d finally come to his senses, had learned the value of love, of relationships, of lifetime commitment.

Thank goodness, a nanosecond was all the time it had taken her to realize that there was no point in getting her hopes up.

Of course he had proved he still wanted her on one level—the one he had always wanted her on. She wasn’t such an innocent that she didn’t know desire when she felt it. And she had felt it hard and firm against her when Alex had kissed her and pressed his body against hers.

But physical desire was just that—a basic instinctive response. It had nothing to do with things that really mattered—love, commitment, responsibility, sharing of hearts and souls, dreams and desires.

It was nothing more than an itch to be scratched.

And she wasn’t about to be a matchmaker for a pairing like that. If he was interested in nothing more than a woman to share his bed—but not his heart—he wouldn’t be interested in the sort of marriages she believed in. So he wouldn’t be back.

And thank God for that—because if her heart still beat faster at the very sight of him and her body melted under his touch, at least her mind knew he was the last person she needed in her life.

Not just in her life, but in the life of the person she loved most in all the world—the one who, at this very moment, she could hear pounding his way up the stairs from the kitchen.

“Mom!” His voice was distant at first, then louder. “Mom!” And louder still as the door banged open. “Mom! Aren’tcha finished working yet? It’s time to go.”

Charlie.

Four and three-quarter years of sunshine and skinned knees and wet kisses and impatience all rolled up in the most wonderful person she knew.

He skidded to a stop in front of her and looked up at her, importuning. “Mom!”

“Charlie!” She smiled at him, echoing his tone, loving him with all her heart.

“Are you ready?” he demanded.

“Almost.” She turned back to close the file she hadn’t done a thing to since Alex had shown up on the doorstep. “Almost,” she repeated, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, then shutting the file.

She wished she could shut her memories of Alex down as easily. She couldn’t. Particularly she couldn’t right now—faced with the small boy staring up at her, all quivering impatience.

Impatience wasn’t Charlie’s middle name, but maybe it should have been. He’d been eager and energetic since the moment of his birth. Before his birth, in fact. He’d come almost two weeks early, right before Christmas. And he’d been taking the world by storm ever since.

He had a chipped tooth from a fall out of a tree back in May. He had a scab on his knee beneath his jeans even now. Daisy had told him last week she was going to buy stock in the Band-Aid company, and after he’d wrinkled his nose and said, “What’s stock?” he’d listened to her brief explanation and said, “Good idea.”

His stick-straight hair, the color of honey shot through with gold, was very close to the same shade as her own. But his light eyes were nothing like her stormy dark blue.

He didn’t look like Alex—except for the shape of his eyes.

And after nearly five years, she was inured to it. She didn’t see Alex in him every time she looked at him. She saw Charlie himself—not Alex’s son.

Except today. Today the eyes were Alex’s. The impatience was Alex’s. The “let’s get moving” was Alex down to the ground.

“In good time,” she said now, determined to slow Charlie down—a little, at least. But she managed a smile as she shut the computer down. And she was sure she was the only one who noticed her hands were shaking.

“You said we’d go at six-thirty. It’s almost six-thirty. The game’s gonna start.” He grabbed one of Daisy’s hands and began to tug her back toward the stairs.

“Coming,” Daisy said. But she straightened her desk, made a note to reorder the Cannavarro files, put her pencil in the drawer. All very methodical. Orderly. Step by step. Pay attention to detail. From the day that she’d learned she was pregnant, it was how she’d managed to cope.

Charlie bounced from one foot to the other until she finished and finally held out a hand to him again. “Okay. Let’s go.” She allowed herself to be towed down the stairs.

“We gotta hurry. We’re gonna be late. Come on. Dad’s pitching.”

Dad. One more reason she prayed that Alexandros Antonides didn’t darken her door again.

“Hey, Sport.” Cal dropped down beside Charlie on the other side of the blanket that Daisy had spread out to sit on while they watched the softball game.

They had been late, as Charlie feared, arriving between innings. But at least Cal, Daisy’s ex-husband, had already pitched in his half, so he could come sit with them until it was his turn to bat.

“We made a fire engine,” Charlie told him. “Me ‘n’ Jess. Outta big red cardboard blocks—this big!” He stretched his hands out a couple of feet at least.

Cal looked suitably impressed. “At preschool?”

Charlie bobbed his head. “You an’ me could make one.”

“Okay. On Saturday,” Cal agreed. “But we’ll have to use a cardboard box and paint it red. Grandpa will be in town. I’ll tell him to bring paint.”

Charlie’s eyes got big. “Super! Wait’ll I tell Jess ‘bout ours.”

“You don’t want to make him jealous,” Cal warned. He grinned at Charlie, then over the boy’s head at his mother.

Daisy smiled back and told herself that nothing had changed. Nothing. She and Charlie were doing what they often did—dropping by to watch Cal play ball in Central Park, which he and a few diehards continued to do well after the softball leagues ended in the summer. Now, in early October, there was a nip in the air, and the daylight was already going. But they continued to play.

And she and Charlie would continue to come and watch.

It was the joy of a civilized divorce, Daisy often reminded herself. She and Cal didn’t hate each other—and they both loved Charlie.

“—you?”

She realized suddenly that Cal was no longer talking to Charlie. He was talking to her. “Sorry,” she said, flustered. “I was just … thinking about something.”

“Apparently,” Cal said drily. Then he looked at her more closely. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She looked around. “Where’s Charlie?”

Cal nodded in the direction of the trees where Charlie and the son of another one of the players were playing in the dirt. “He’s fine. You’re not. Something’s wrong.”

“No. Why should anything be wrong?” That was the trouble with Cal. He’d always been able to read her like a book.

“You’re edgy. Distracted. Late,” he said pointedly.

“I didn’t realize you were timing me. I’ve got things on my mind, Cal. Work—”

But he cut her off. “And you’re biting my head off, which isn’t like you, Daze. And you must’ve come on the bus.”

“The bus?” she said stupidly.

“You always walk, so Charlie can ride his bike.” Cal looked around pointedly. There was no bike because, he was right, they hadn’t had time to bring it. Charlie wanted to ride his bike everywhere. It was the smallest two-wheeler Daisy had ever seen, but Charlie loved it. Daisy was sure he would have slept with it every night if she hadn’t put her foot down. Cal had given it to Charlie for his fourth birthday.

Daisy had protested, had said he was too young, that no four-year-old needed a bike.

“Not every four-year-old,” Cal had agreed. “Just this one.” He’d met her skeptical gaze with confident brown eyes and quiet certainty. “Because he wants it more than anything on earth.”

Daisy couldn’t argue with that. If Charlie’s first word hadn’t been bike it had been in the first ten. He’d pointed and crowed, “Bike!” well before his first birthday. And he’d been desperate for a bicycle last winter. She hadn’t thought it would last. But Cal had insisted, and he’d been right.

Charlie’s eyes had shone when he’d spotted the bike that morning. And over the past six months, his love for it had only grown. Since Cal had helped him learn to balance and he could now ride it unaided, Charlie wanted to ride it everywhere.

Usually she let him ride to the park while she walked alongside him. But they had been late today because … because of her visitor.

She was suddenly aware that Cal was watching her, not the game. “He doesn’t have to ride his bike every time,” she said testily. “And it’s nearly dark.”

“True.” Cal stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back, resting his weight on his elbows and forearms as his gaze slowly moved away from her to focus on the game, yelling at the batter to focus. Then, still keeping his gaze on the batter, he persisted quietly, “So why don’t you just tell me.”

He wasn’t going to leave it alone. She’d never won an argument with Cal. She’d never been able to convince him of anything. If he was wrong, he couldn’t be told. He always had to figure it out himself—like his “I can love anyone I will myself to” edict. He’d been as wrong about that as she had been about her “love at first sight” belief.

Clearly, when it came to love, the two of them didn’t know what they were talking about.

Now he stared at her and she plucked at the grass beside the blanket, stared at it. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed. She tried to make it into a mantra so she could convince herself. But she was no better at lying to herself than she was at lying to her ex-husband. Finally she raised her gaze to meet his as he turned away from the game to look at her. “I saw Alex.”

There was the crack of bat hitting ball. Whoops and yells abounded.

Cal never turned his head to see what happened. His eyes never left Daisy’s. He blinked once. That was all. The rest of his body went still, though. And his words, when they came, were quiet. “Saw him where?”

Daisy ran her tongue over dry lips. “He came to my office.”

Cal waited, not pressing, allowing her to tell the story in her own way, in her own time.

And she couldn’t quite suppress the ghost of a smile that touched her lips. “Looking for a matchmaker.”

“What!” Cal’s jaw dropped.

Hysterical laughter bubbled up just as it had threatened to do when Alex told her. This time Daisy gave in to it. “He’s looking for a wife.”

“You?” Cal demanded.

“No. He was as surprised as I was when he knocked on my door. He didn’t know he was coming to see me.”

“Then how—?”

“Lukas sent him.”

Cal’s eyes widened. His teeth came together. “Lukas needs to mind his own business.”

“Of course. But Lukas never does. Besides, he didn’t have any idea what he was doing. He never knew about Alex and me. No one did.” No one ever had except Cal—and only because when she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d had to talk to someone. “Don’t blame Lukas. He thinks he’s doing me a favor sending clients my way. And he is, I suppose. Most of the time. Not this time,” she said quietly.

“No.” Cal stared down at his fingers plucking at the grass for a moment. Then his gaze lifted and went toward Charlie who was still playing with his friend in the dirt. The question was there, but unspoken.

“I didn’t say a word.”

“But he—”

Daisy shook her head. “No. That hasn’t changed. He wouldn’t want to know.”

“Still?” Cal persisted.

“No. He doesn’t want relationships any more than he ever did,” Daisy said firmly. “He doesn’t want a real wife—he wants a woman to take to social events and go to bed with. It will save him the effort of having to go out and find one, charm one.”

“He charmed you,” Cal pointed out.

Cal, of course, knew that. He knew the whole sordid story.

She had met Cal Connolly when she’d taken the job with Finn after college. Cal had been the photographer she’d replaced, Finn’s assistant before her.

Even after Cal hung out his own shingle, he had regularly come by Finn’s to talk shop. Daisy had been included in the conversation. She learned a great deal from both of them.

Finn was brilliant, mercurial—and impatient. Cal was steadier, calmer, more methodical. He didn’t yell quite as much. Finn had a wife and growing family. Cal was single, on his own. So it was Cal she began to spend time with. And while Finn had always remained her mentor, Cal had quickly become her best pal.

When she wasn’t working for Finn, she had spent hours working with Cal, talking with him, arguing with him. They argued about everything from camera lenses to baseball teams to sushi rolls, from free will to evolution to love at first sight.

That had always been their biggest argument: did you love because—bang!—it hit you between the eyes? Or did you love because you decided who the right person was and made up your mind?

Because of her parents, Daisy had been a staunch believer in the “love at first sight” notion.

“I just haven’t met the right person,” she had maintained over and over. “When I do, I’ll know. In an instant. And it will be perfect.”

But Cal had scoffed at that. Ever the logical realist, he’d said, “Nonsense. I don’t believe it for a minute. That makes you nothing but a victim of your hormones.”

“It’s not hormones. It’s instinct.”

But Cal had disagreed. “You can will whom you love,” he’d told her firmly. “It’s a rational decision.”

So when he’d proposed to her, he’d been determined to demonstrate just that. “Obviously your way doesn’t work,” he’d pointed out. “So we’ll try it my way now.”

And Daisy, because she did love Cal—just not the way she thought she loved Alex—had faced the truth of her own folly. And she’d said yes.

It turned out they were both wrong. But they’d given it their best shot. And Daisy still did believe in love—now she had a codicil: it was apparently for other people.

Now Daisy let out a sigh and wrapped a blade of grass around her finger where Cal’s wedding ring once had been.

“So, are you going to do it? Matchmake for him?” Cal asked.

“Of course not.”

He grunted. “Good.” He stared out across the field. “Was it … the same? Did you feel … this time … what you felt before?”

It was all Daisy could do not to touch her tongue to her lips. Instead she pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, in full cocoon mode. “He’s still charming,” she admitted.

Cal had been watching the next batter swing and miss. But at her words he turned his head and shot her a sharp glance.

Daisy gave him a quick humorless smile. “Speaking objectively. Don’t worry. I’m not a fool anymore.”

“So I should hope.”

The batter swung and missed. Cal hauled himself to his feet to go pitch another inning. “You all right? Anything I can do?”

“No. He won’t be back.”

Cal cocked his head. “No?” He didn’t sound so sure.

“Why would he? I didn’t invite him in. I didn’t encourage him at all.” I didn’t kiss him back! “And he doesn’t want me. He wants some woman who won’t care.”

“And Charlie?”

“He doesn’t know about Charlie. I’m doing him a favor, really,” she said firmly. “He doesn’t want kids. He never did.”

“Because he doesn’t think he has any,” Cal pointed out. “What if he finds out he does?”

“He won’t.”

“But if—” Cal persisted. It was what she hated about him.

“Charlie is mine! And yours.”

She had always told Charlie—not that he understood yet really—that he had two fathers—a birth father who had given him life, and Cal, the father he knew. Charlie didn’t question it. Someday he would, no doubt. But by then it would be ingrained in his mind. There would never be a time when she had to “tell him” his father was not Cal.

Because in every way that counted, his father was Cal. Cal was the one who had been there for her. He’d been her husband when Charlie was born. Charlie bore his surname. He was the only father Charlie knew.

If someday he wanted to know about Alex, she’d tell him. If someday in the distant future, Alex learned he had a child, perhaps they would meet. But not now. Now Charlie was a child. He was vulnerable. He didn’t need a father who didn’t want him.

“You don’t know what he’ll do, Daze,” Cal said heavily, “if he finds out.”

“He won’t find out.” She would make sure of that.

Cal’s smile was grim. “We hope.”