Читать книгу Irresistible Greeks Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 42

FOR a moment Alex couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Could only stare.

And understand the implication. It hit him like a fist to the gut.

He moved on automatic pilot, putting himself between Daisy and the door. And all the while, he couldn’t take his eyes off the child.

The boy was Vass all over again. Alex’s heart squeezed in his chest. His throat tightened. He couldn’t swallow. He barely had a toehold on his composure when Daisy finished talking to the nurse and turned—and saw him.

She stopped, rooted right where she was.

Their eyes locked and he watched her color fade. Her lips parted and trembled. Her arms tightened around the boy in her arms and she glanced around as if looking for another way out.

Bad luck, Daze, Alex thought grimly. Nowhere to go but through me.

She understood that, for a second later she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and walked straight toward him.

“I told you that you didn’t need to wait.”

Alex felt a muscle in his temple tick. He swallowed, seeking words. There were none. Only a well of pain.

How could you? His eyes asked her. The boy—his son!—was close enough to reach out and touch.

He balled his fingers into fists, every fiber of his being wanted to reach out to the little boy, to take him in his arms and never let him go. But the boy didn’t know, wouldn’t understand. Even Daisy seemed to think he was behaving oddly.

“Are you all right?” she asked when he didn’t reply.

She had no idea. Didn’t realize what he knew. Of course, she wouldn’t. She had no idea Charlie could’ve been Vass’s clone. Alex managed a curt nod. “Fine.” Poleaxed, in truth.

“Good.” She smiled briefly. “It was kind of you to bother,” she said. “But not necessary.”

It was necessary. Alex knew that down to his toes. He just looked at her. For a moment neither of them spoke, neither moved.

“Mommy.”

Daisy shifted at the sound of the small plaintive voice. She hugged the little boy close. “This is Charlie,” she said. “Charlie, this is Mr. Antonides.”

Your father.

God, how he wanted to say the words. He didn’t. He just studied the boy up close. His cheeks were fuller than Vass’s had been. But at that age, maybe his brother had had round cheeks, too. Alex would have been too young to recall. But Charlie had the same freckles across his nose that Vass had had, the same long lashes.

“I got a brok’n arm,” the boy told him in a froggy little voice.

Alex nodded and met his chocolate gaze. “Yeah, I see that you do.”

Daisy shifted under the boy’s weight. “I need to get him home. Thank you. I’m sorry that the evening ended this way.”

I’m not. Alex didn’t say that, either. He dragged his gaze away from the boy long enough to meet hers. It all made sense now—her distance, her coolness, her determination to shut him out.

But he wasn’t out any longer—and he had no intention of ever being out of this child’s life again.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you into a cab.” He stepped back to let Daisy go through the door. It was late, well after midnight, and the snow was still falling. Charlie couldn’t put his arm in his jacket, and Daisy was trying to pull it more closely around his shoulders.

“Let me.” Alex took the boy’s puffy red down jacket and settled it around small bony shoulders. His hands trembled as he brushed them over him, then tucked the jacket close between Charlie’s body and his mother’s. “There you go.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded hoarse.

“Thank you.” Daisy flicked him a quick smile.

There were no taxis right outside. So he strode off to the corner to flag one down. He half expected Daisy to have vanished by the time he got back with it. But sanity must have prevailed. Either that or she was too shattered by the events of the evening to pull a disappearing act.

Alex opened the door to the taxi. “After you. I’ll take him.” He held out his arms.

“I can manage.” She tried to get in with the boy in her arms, but she nearly lost her balance, and Alex scooped him away.

And the moment the boy’s solid body settled in his arms, Alex felt something in him change. Something strong and protective took root, dug in. Instinctively he moved his face closer to the boy’s soft hair, drawing in the scent of antiseptic, bubble-gum shampoo, laundry soap and earthy little boy.

His breath caught, his grip tightened.

“I can take him now.” Daisy’s hollow-eyed gaze locked with Alex’s as she held out her arms to the little boy.

Slowly, carefully—reluctantly—Alex settled him on the seat next to her. Then, not giving her a chance to tell him he didn’t need to come along, he slid into the backseat as well and shut the door.

There was silence except for the taxi’s public service babbling. The car didn’t move.

“You’ll have to tell him where we’re going,” Alex said at last. “I don’t know.”

Daisy hesitated for a split second, then in a low voice gave the cab driver the address. It was the same address as her office.

As the cab lurched forward, he narrowed his gaze at her. Daisy kept hers focused straight ahead. Charlie huddled between them. Alex could feel the little boy’s bony shoulder pressed against his arm. He angled his gaze down to see the top of the boy’s head, the burnished gold of his hair, the sharp little nose and what looked like a stubborn chin. Looking at him, Alex felt his throat tighten with so many emotions he couldn’t name them all.

Charlie.

His son.

Alex turned the notion over in his mind. Tested it. Tasted it. Wrapped his entire being around it. Then he lifted his gaze and looked over the top of Charlie’s head at the woman who hadn’t even bothered to tell him and felt his whole body stiffen with anger.

As if he were aware of something wrong, Charlie stiffened, too. He edged closer under his mother’s arm.

Was he scared? Certainly he sensed something was amiss. Kids could do that, Alex remembered. He certainly had.

He’d read his parents’ body language for years. He had sensed their worry about Vass, even when they’d tried to say everything would be fine. He’d felt their pain, their hurt at his brother’s illness. He’d felt, without needing words, their emotional withdrawal.

He didn’t blame them. His brother had been his idol. His hero. He knew as well as they had that Vass was the best person in the world. And he instinctively felt what they felt: that if they had to lose one of their sons, it should not have been Vass.

Moody, temperamental, fidgety, less-than-perfect Alex was the one who should have died.

Of course no one said so. No one had to. Kids could read body language. They could hear the feelings in the silences—as Charlie could no doubt hear his now.

Consciously Alex relaxed his body and stopped glaring at Daisy. Instead he shifted slightly away so that he could look down at Charlie more easily.

“I’m not Mr. Antonides. I’m Alex,” he said.

The boy flicked a quick glance up at him and dipped his head in acknowledgment.

“Want to shake left hands?” Alex asked.

Charlie’s gaze lifted again to meet his. Alex could feel Daisy’s eyes on him, as well. Wary, suspicious. Charlie hesitated a moment, then nodded and stuck out his left hand. Small fingers gripped his.

And Alex knew that this first mutual touch was momentous, and that the feel of that small warm hand in his was a memory he would carry with him to his grave.

“I broke my arm once, too,” he told the boy, “when I was ten.”

“Did you jump off a bunk bed?”

So that was what Charlie had done. Alex smiled and shook his head. “I was climbing some cliffs. One crumbled and I fell.”

If he had been on the cliffs near their Santorini home, he didn’t think it would have happened. He knew those cliffs like he knew the inside of his bedroom. He and Vass had climbed them their whole lives.

But they hadn’t been in Santorini. They had been at a place they were renting in Athens while Vass was in the hospital for treatments. Alex had hated it there, hated the hospital, hated the house, hated having to play by himself all the time because Vass was too ill to do anything.

And he’d only made things worse when he fell.

“You don’t think!” his mother had raged. “You never think!”

“You should be glad it hurts,” his father had said sternly. “Maybe you will not be so inconsiderate again.”

“I wish I’d been with you,” Vass had whispered when Alex finally got to see him. His brother’s eyes had had dark circles under them. But they had still glittered with urgency and desire.

And Alex had said fervently, “Me, too.”

Now, trying to push aside the painful memory, he smiled at the little boy who was looking up at him with Vass’s eyes. “Did you break yours jumping from a bunk?”

“I was tryin’ to get to the dresser like Rip does.”

“Who’s Rip?” Whoever he was, Alex liked his name.

“One of Finn and Izzy MacCauley’s boys,” Daisy said. “Rip is Charlie’s hero. He tries to do whatever Rip does, in this case, apparently, to get around the house without touching the floor,” she said despairingly.

Alex grinned. “I used to do that, too.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “You did?”

“It’s something all boys do?” Daisy looked dismayed.

“It’s a challenge,” Alex told her. “Boys like challenges. How old is Rip?”

“Almost twelve,” Daisy said. They were speeding down Central Park West. There was little traffic now and they were hitting the lights. It would be a matter of minutes until they were at Daisy’s office.

“That explains it,” Alex told the little boy. “You’ve just got to get bigger.”

“Mom says I can’t do it again.”

Daisy looked mulish. “I don’t want him killing himself.”

“He won’t,” Alex said. He smiled at Charlie. “You look like a pretty tough guy.”

The boy’s head bobbed. “I am. My dad says so.”

“Your dad?” Alex lifted his gaze to look from Charlie to Daisy. “His dad?” he said to her.

“His dad.” Daisy’s look was even more mulish and her tone even firmer than before. “My ex-husband. Cal.”

Alex’s jaw tightened at the lie. He stared at her.

And just as if she were telling God’s own truth, Daisy stared defiantly back. Their gazes were still locked when the cab turned the corner on Daisy’s street and pulled up midblock in front of her place. He understood it was more than her office now. She damned well lived here, too.

“Here’s where we get out,” Daisy said briskly. She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out money for the cab.

“I’m paying,” Alex said flatly.

Daisy opened her mouth as if to protest, but then shrugged. “Thank you.”

He paid the driver, then opened the door and got out, reaching back in and lifting Charlie carefully up into his arms, settling him against his hip. Charlie looped an arm over his shoulder.

Daisy scrambled out and looked disconcerted to see the boy in Alex’s arms and not standing on the sidewalk where she had apparently expected to see him.

Alex nodded toward the building. “After you.”

He wasn’t surprised when Daisy fished a key out of her pocket and, instead of going up the stoop, led the way through a wrought-iron gate and down the steps to the door below. Her movements were jerky as she fumbled the key, but finally unlocked the outer door and pushed it open, then did the same with the lock on the front door, and turned to hold out her arms for her son.

Still carrying Charlie, Alex pushed straight past her into a tiny foyer filled with jackets and boots and roller skates and the smallest bicycle he’d ever seen.

“Yours?” he asked Charlie.

The boy’s head nodded against Alex’s shoulder.

“Can you ride it?”

Another nod, this one firmer than the last.

“Good for you. I had a bike when I was your age.” Alex smiled. Bikes had been his thing—never Vass’s. And already Charlie rode one. So there was that bit of himself in his son. “We’ll have to go riding.”

“He has a broken arm,” Daisy said sharply.

“Not now.” Alex turned and faced her. “There will be time.” He watched that register in her brain before he said to Charlie, “Plenty of time.”

“Alex,” Daisy protested faintly.

He turned his stare back on her until her gaze slid away.

“You got a bike?” Charlie asked, interested.

“Yep. I race bikes.”

Charlie looked fascinated. Daisy looked dismayed. She shook her head, as if resisting everything. Then quickly and deliberately she stripped off her coat and hung it on one of the hooks in the foyer and crossed the room, holding out her arms.

“Give him to me. He needs to get ready for bed. Now.”

Alex wanted to argue. Wanted to defy her, hang on to his son. But for all that he was furious with Daisy, none of it was Charlie’s fault. But his jaw was tight, his whole body felt rigid as he loosed his grip and eased the boy into his mother’s arms. He took special care not to jar Charlie’s arm. And once he’d let go, he smoothed a hand over Charlie’s hair, letting it linger.

“You’re a brave guy,” he said, keeping his gaze on Charlie.

The boy nodded solemnly.

“We’ll ride bikes together sometime soon,” Alex promised, his smile crooked. “Okay?”

Another nod and a tentative smile.

He could hear Daisy’s indrawn breath. “Good night, Alex.” She paused, then added evenly, “Thank you for … everything.”

For everything? His eyes asked her.

For giving you a son?

“Who’s he?” Charlie asked as Daisy carried him up the stairs.

“A man I used to know. A … friend.” But she was distracted as she spoke, remembering Alex’s narrowed gaze as he’d watched her carrying Charlie across the emergency room.

He didn’t know, she assured herself. He couldn’t.

It was Charlie’s mere existence that had surprised him—that she had a son. And his terseness simply meant that he was annoyed she hadn’t told him.

In Charlie’s room, she flicked on the light and deposited him gently on the bed. She rarely carried him anywhere these days, and having done so now, she was almost out of breath, surprised at how big he’d gotten since she used to carry him all the time.

“My arm hurts.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She bent to kiss his soft hair, then smoothed her hand over it, pulling back as she remembered that Alex had just done the same thing. “I guess maybe you won’t leap from bunk beds anymore?”

Charlie pursed his lips, considering. “Not till I’m bigger,” he decided. “Crash can do it.”

“Maybe you should wait till you’re nine or ten then.” She got his pajamas off the hook behind the door.

“Maybe.” Charlie took the pajamas, then tried to wriggle out of the jacket he still had over his shoulders and one arm.

“I’ll help you tonight,” Daisy said. “But you’re going to have to figure out how to do it yourself, too.” She eased off the jacket, then lifted the hem of his shirt and began to slide it up and over his good arm and his head.

“Maybe Alex could teach me.”

“What?” She jerked back, then stared at the pair of bright eyes that popped into view as the shirt came off. “Why would he?”

“‘Cause he broke his arm,” Charlie said simply. “He’d know how.”

“Oh. Well …” Daisy made a noncommittal sound. “I’m pretty sure you can figure it out without Alex’s help.” She finished getting his clothes off and his pajamas on. “Go wash your face and brush your teeth.”

Charlie flopped back on the bed. “But I’m tired. Do I hafta?”

“Yes. Even boys who fall off bunk beds have to maintain a minimum of civil decorum.”

“I didn’t fall,” Charlie protested. But he allowed her to pull him up. “I jumped. An’ what’s ‘civil deck-somethin’?” Charlie loved big words.

“Civil decorum,” Daisy repeated. It was what she had tried to maintain for the past hour and a half. She said, “Behaving like a well-brought-up clean child.”

“Ugh.” But Charlie slid off the bed and padded toward the bathroom while Daisy gathered up his clothes. “Oh!” she heard him say brightly. “Hi.”

“Hi.” The unexpected sound of Alex’s voice right outside the door sent Daisy hurrying out. She skidded to a halt a second before she collided with his chest.

“You didn’t leave.”

“No.” He had propped a shoulder against the wall outside Charlie’s bedroom door and stood there meeting her gaze, then his eyes dropped to Charlie, and Daisy felt more than a flicker of unease.

He didn’t say anything. But even quiet and unmoving, his presence seemed to overpower everything else. He was too big. Too close. The space was too intimate. And the situation didn’t bear thinking about. She didn’t want him here.

But she didn’t know how to get rid of him without causing Charlie to wonder what was going on. He already had to wonder. No man but Cal had ever been upstairs.

But Alex was, right here in the hallway, his dark hair disheveled, as if he had run his fingers through it. He looked incongruous here in his formal evening wear, but even as she thought it, she realized the formal evening wear wasn’t so formal anymore. He’d removed his tie—it dangled from his pocket—and he’d undone the top two buttons of his shirt.

It had the effect of making him look more masculine and primal than ever—with the added misfortune of reminding her of how he’d looked five years ago when she’d brought him into her tiny apartment after the wedding. He was all the things he’d been then and all the things she’d been at pains to resist earlier this evening—too broad-shouldered, too imposing and too damned predatorily male.

“I came to say good night to Charlie.” His tone was measured, his words easy, understandable and, to Charlie, unthreatening.

But Daisy knew a threat when she heard one. She took a quick breath. “Say good night, Charlie.”

Charlie tipped his head back to look up at Alex, but instead of saying good night, he said, “Can you teach me to get my shirt on an’ off over my cast?”

Alex nodded. “I can.”

“No, he can’t. It’s after one in the morning. You need to go to bed,” Daisy said firmly.

“I’ll show you,” Alex promised smoothly. “Tomorrow.”

“But—” Charlie began.

“Your mother’s right,” Alex said firmly. “You need to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep. My arm hurts,” Charlie argued.

“But you’re tough,” Alex reminded him. The two of them looked at each other. Two men understanding each other—even though one of them was only four.

“Teeth, Charlie,” Daisy said firmly. “And wash your face. Now.” She took hold of his shoulders and steered him past Alex, doing her best not to brush against him in the narrow hallway. If she’d hoped he’d take the hint and go, she was out of luck.

He didn’t budge, just waited until Charlie had brushed his teeth—awkwardly because he had to do it left-handed—and scrubbed at his face with a washcloth. He didn’t use soap, but Daisy didn’t make him do it again. She just wanted him in bed.

“Right,” she said briskly. “Off to bed.”

Obediently Charlie headed back down the hall, but stopped directly in front of Alex. He looked up again. “G’night.”

And Daisy remembered when she’d seen the photo of Charlie looking up at Cal’s father and had realized how similar her son’s profile was to Alex’s. They were indeed remarkably alike.

Was that how Alex had known? Or was it some scary primal innate recognition between father and son? She didn’t know. She only knew that the still-deep emotion that she could sense simmering in Alex was more elemental than just a response to discovering she had a child she hadn’t told him about.

The question was no longer: Did he know?

The question was: What was he going to do now?

He reached out a hand and brushed the top of Charlie’s head once more. “Good night,” he said gravely. “It was nice meeting you, Charlie.” His fingers lingered for a moment, then he withdrew them and tucked them into the pocket of his trousers and brought his gaze up to meet Daisy’s. “At last.”

She suppressed a shiver, then swallowed. With her eyes she beseeched him to be silent, and was relieved when he didn’t say anything else. Giving him a fleeting grateful smile, she slipped past him to follow Charlie into his bedroom where she shut the door with a solid click.

Whatever Alex might have to say to her—and she had no doubt he had plenty to say—he could say it tomorrow. Or next month. Not now.

Her priority was Charlie. It was the middle of the night and he’d been hurt, and it didn’t matter that her brain was whirling a million miles a minute. If she pushed him, he would balk and take even longer.

So she did everything in his bedtime routine. She tucked him in, then read him a bedtime story. She listened as he told her about his day, including a long involved account of everything he’d done at Rip and Crash’s house, what he didn’t like about the emergency room, and ultimately, as she’d feared, questions about Alex.

“Do you think he’ll ride bikes with me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s a busy man.”

“He said he would.”

“Yes. And maybe he will.”

“Remind him.”

Daisy made a noncommittal sound. “Prayers,” she reminded him, and when he’d finished, she added a desperate silent one of her own. Then she kissed her son good-night.

Charlie clutched her hand when she got up to leave. “Stay.”

“Charlie.”

“My arm hurts. Sing to me,” he pleaded.

That wasn’t part of the regular nightly routine, but sometimes when he was sick and irritable, she could calm him with some silly songs. “You’re tired.”

His big eyes drooped even as he nodded. “I’ll sleep. Sing.”

So Daisy turned out the light, determinedly shut out the turmoil roiling around in her mind, and sat back down on the bed beside him.

Maybe it would soothe them both, she thought as she began to sing. There was a boat song, and a campfire song, and a bus, train and truck song. She had made them up about Charlie’s life when he was a toddler. He knew them by heart. Now he settled against her, his eyes shut, the blue cast dark against the pale blanket that covered him. His breathing slowed.

Her voice slowed, too, and finally stopped. Waited. Watched him. And finally when she was sure he was asleep, she dipped her head and kissed him.

“I love you,” she whispered, brushing a hand over his hair. Then she put out the bedside light and slipped quietly out of his room, shutting the door after her.

The clock in her bedroom said five minutes of two. Daisy felt as if she’d been up for two days. Or weeks.

Wearily, she stripped off Izzy’s dress. It still sparkled in the soft bedside light. It had made her sparkle in the beginning. She didn’t sparkle now. She felt as if she’d been run over by a truck. She flexed her bare shoulders and shivered as she stared into the mirror over her dresser. A pale, hollow-eyed, haunted version of herself stared back.

She felt ill. Exhausted. And scared.

Alex knew. And soon he would confront her about Charlie. He would say whatever he had to say about the son he hadn’t known he had. The son he never wanted. She felt a tremor run through her.

Whatever he said, he could say it to her. He wasn’t going to say it to Charlie. Charlie wasn’t ever going to hear that he wasn’t wanted. Ever!

Maybe, with luck, Alex would pretend he didn’t know. Maybe he would simply walk away. She could hope.

Quickly pulling on her nightgown, she wrapped up in her fuzzy chenille robe and tiptoed down the hall to brush her teeth and wash her face. Then she went downstairs to let Murphy out. She would have done it when she first got home, but Charlie had taken precedence.

Murphy wagged his tail, delighted to see her. She rubbed his ears and kissed the top of his head. Then she slid open the door to the back garden, Murphy went out, and she slid it closed against the snowy December night. Then, while he was out there, she went to put the dead bolt on the front door. Alex couldn’t have done it when he left.

If he had left.

He hadn’t. He was sprawled, eyes closed, on the sofa.