Читать книгу Irresistible Greeks Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 43

FOR a moment Daisy didn’t even breathe, just pressed a hand protectively against her breasts and felt her heart pound wildly beneath it.

She dared hope he was asleep—because hoping he was a figment of her imagination was not a possibility. But even as she did so, Alex’s eyes fluttered open and he rolled to a sitting position.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Alex rolled his shoulders, working the stiffness out. He had taken off his coat and the stark white of his shirt made his shoulders seem broader than ever. He looked at her levelly. “Waiting for you.”

“It’s late!”

His eyes bored into her. “Five years late.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. Her fingers knotted together.

“You know.” His gaze was steady, his eyes chips of green ice.

“Alex,” she protested.

“We’re done playing games, Daisy.”

“I’m not—”

“We’re going to talk.” There was a thread of steel in his voice now, and as he spoke, he stood up. Slightly more than six feet of whipcord muscle and testosterone somehow filled the room.

Daisy stepped back. “I have to let the dog in.”

He shrugged. “Go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

Exactly what she was afraid of. She hurried through the kitchen and fumbled with shaking fingers to open the sliding-glass door for Murphy. It wasn’t just her fingers shaking, her whole body was trembling, and it had nothing to do with the cold December night. The cold in Alex’s stare was a different story.

Murphy trotted in, wagging his tail cheerfully. Daisy shut the door and slid the bolt home, then cast a longing look at the stairs that led up to her room. But retreat wasn’t an option. So, wiping damp palms down the sides of her robe, she went back to the living room.

Alex was standing by the mantel, holding the photo of her and Charlie and Cal taken last Christmas. At her footsteps, he took one last look and he set it back on the mantel, then looked over at her. “Is this your ex?”

She nodded. “That’s Cal.”

“Very cozy.”

“It was Christmas. Christmas is cozy.”

“You look happy.”

“We were happy.” She hugged her arms across her chest.

“You were still married to him then?”

“No.”

One dark brow arched in surprise. “But you had a picture taken together?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t giving him any explanations. She didn’t owe him any.

“He’s not Charlie’s father.”

“Yes, he is.” She had been married to Cal when Charlie was born. He was the father on Charlie’s birth certificate. He was the father that Charlie called Dad. He was a father to Charlie in every way that mattered.

“Not by blood, he’s not.”

Daisy swallowed, then lifted her chin. “And you know this how?”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thin black leather billfold. Opening the wallet, he took out a photo, crossed the room and handed it to her. It was a small color snapshot of two young boys, grinning at the camera.

Daisy saw only one. He could have been Charlie.

He was older than Charlie, maybe nine or ten. But his eyes were Charlie’s—the same shape, the same light color. He had the same sharp nose, spattered with freckles, the same wide grin. He even had the same straight honey-blonde hair that she’d always assured herself had come from her side of the family.

She clutched the photo so tightly, her fingers trembled. Her throat tightened and she shut her eyes. She couldn’t breathe.

Alex didn’t seem to be breathing, either. He was stone silent and unmoving. Waiting for her to speak?

But what could she say?

Slowly she opened her eyes again and began to study the picture more carefully. The two boys were standing on a beach, bare-chested and wearing shorts, the sea lapping bright blue behind them. They had their arms slung around each other’s shoulders and they were laughing into the camera. The older boy was the one who looked like Charlie. The other was younger, maybe six or seven, with a front tooth missing. He had dark shaggy hair and light eyes. Daisy knew those eyes.

Slowly, cautiously, she looked up at them now. “It’s you …” she said so softly she doubted he could hear her. Her thumb stroked over the dark-haired boy’s face. “And your brother.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. He nodded. “Vassilios.”

Of course it was. His beloved brother, his hero, the beautiful loving boy whose death had destroyed his family looked almost exactly like Charlie.

Dear God, what a shock seeing his son must have been.

Outside a siren wailed as a fire truck went up Central Park West. Inside, the room was so silent she could hear the old oak mantel clock tick. She could hear Murphy two rooms away in the kitchen lapping up water. It was the calm before the storm.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” His voice accused her, anguished, ragged, furious. He plucked the photo back out of her hand, his fingers fumbling as he slid it back in his wallet and shoved it into his pocket.

She heard the pain, the anguish, the accusation. On one level she understood them. But she remembered pain and anguish of her own.

“Why the hell should I?” she countered, stung by his fury. “You didn’t want a child. You said so! I babbled about marriage and family and you were quite clear. No marriage. No family! Why should I have told you?”

“That was before I knew I had one! How could I say I didn’t want my son when I didn’t even know he existed?”

“You didn’t want him to exist!”

His nostrils flared and his jaw clamped shut. He balled his fingers into fists, as if he were trying to control what he did with them. Like strangle her. “You kept my son from me!”

“I took you at your word!”

“Damn it!” Alex let out a harsh breath. He glared at her, then raked his fingers through his hair and paced the room. At the far end, he whirled around. “You knew how I felt about my brother!”

Yes, she had known. She knew that Vassilios had been the favorite son, the star, the heir. She knew that everyone had loved him. Even Alex. Especially Alex. Vassilios had been bright, funny, caring, social. Everything, Alex had told Daisy five years ago, that he himself was not.

But Vass had been so wonderful that Alex hadn’t envied him. He’d only wanted to be like him. He had loved his brother deeply. Vassilios’s death had irrevocably changed his life.

She had known that losing his brother was the main reason Alex never wanted children. It was the reason Alex had originally never wanted to marry. He didn’t want to love, he’d told her. Love hurt.

Dear God, she could agree with that. She’d hurt more in the aftermath of his leaving and her discovering she was having his child than she could ever have imagined. She’d loved him—and lost him—and for nearly five years now had Charlie to remind her of that loss.

But she couldn’t regret it. She couldn’t even regret marrying Cal. At least they’d had some sort of love. They’d tried.

Alex had refused to even try. Not then. Not now. He still wanted a marriage on his terms, a marriage without love. And children had still been a deal breaker. He’d made that clear.

So now she met his accusation squarely and told him the honest truth. “Yes, I knew,” she agreed. “But mostly I knew you didn’t want children. I did what I had to do. I did the best that I could for my son.”

“Really? And you and dear Cal have such a spectacular marriage.” His tone mocked her, infuriated her.

Daisy had to fight her own inclination to look away. Even so she felt her face heat. “Cal is a great father.”

“And I wouldn’t have been?” His challenge was loud and clear. Mostly loud.

“Not if you didn’t love him! And be quiet. You’ll wake him up.”

Alex’s teeth came together with a snap. She could hear his harsh breathing, but he didn’t claim he would love Charlie. How could he? He’d already hardened his heart.

“Why would I think you’d be a good father to a child you didn’t want?” she said. “Cal was. Cal was there when he was born—”

“Because you damned well didn’t tell me!”

“Cal loves him,” she finished quietly.

“And I’ve never had a chance to!”

“You didn’t want one. You’d already made your choice. And when I found out I was pregnant, I had to make choices, too. I chose to do what I thought was best for Charlie. He needed love. He needed parents. A family. You didn’t want that. You said, ‘No entanglements, no hostages of fortune.’”

He had actually used those terms, and when she repeated them now, she saw him wince. “You said love hurt too much. You wanted nothing to do with it.”

They glared at each other. Daisy wrapped her arms across her chest and stared unblinkingly at him. She knew what he had said, and Alex would be lying if he denied it now.

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t say anything at all. His jaw worked. His eyes reflected his inner turmoil. Seconds passed. Daisy could hear Murphy’s toenails clicking down the hallway as he came out from the kitchen to look at them inquiringly.

Alex didn’t notice. He was cracking his knuckles, then kneading the muscles at the back of his neck. He paced the room like an agitated animal trapped in a cage. Finally he flung himself down on the sofa and rubbed his hair until it stuck up all over his head. He dragged his palms down his face and stared at her bleakly over the top of them. “Hell.”

In a word, yes.

It was a hell she was already familiar with. The confusion, the anguish, the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t choices she had faced when she’d discovered she was pregnant. She remembered the hollowness she’d felt at Alex’s flat-out rejection of any sort of relationship. In the face of her hopes and dreams and—let’s face it—fantasies, he had been crystal clear.

She hadn’t even wanted to imagine what he would have said if she’d turned up on his doorstep and announced she was expecting his child. The very thought had made her blood run cold. Even now she shivered inside the thick robe she was wearing. Tucking her hands inside the opposite sleeves, she chaffed her arms briskly, trying to warm them.

Alex just sat there. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move, except for the rise and fall of his chest. His expression was grim as he stared across the room. He wasn’t looking at her now.

She wondered what he was seeing in his mind’s eye. His dying brother? His unknown son? The parents who had rejected him and each other? His life, as carefully designed as any building he’d ever planned, going down the drain?

She couldn’t imagine. Didn’t want to.

Murphy stood between them, looking from one to the other as if wondering what they were doing in his living room in the middle of the night. Finally, accepting it as dogs always did, he curled up on his bed in front of the fireplace and put his head between his paws.

Alex looked up and met her gaze. “I want my son.”

“Want your …?” Daisy stared at him, breathless, as if he had punched her in the gut. “What does that mean? You can’t take him!” she blurted, anguished. “You don’t have any right!”

“I didn’t say I was going to take him.” Icy green eyes collided with hers. “But I’m not walking away, either.”

Daisy swallowed, tried to think, to fathom what Alex’s “not walking away” meant. For Charlie. For her. She didn’t have a clue.

She only knew what she must not let happen. “You’re not hurting him,” she said fiercely. “I won’t let you.”

Alex rubbed a hand over his hair. His brows drew down. “Why the hell would I want to hurt him?”

Daisy had started to pace, but she stopped and turned to face him. “I didn’t say you would intend to. But it could happen. He’s only four, Alex. He won’t understand. Besides, he has a father.”

Alex’s jaw tightened. “Cal.” He spat her ex-husband’s name. “Did you marry him because of Charlie?”

Daisy ran her tongue over her lips as she tried to decide how to answer it, how to be honest and fair to both Alex and to Cal.

“Did you?” Alex persisted when she didn’t reply.

She sat down in the armchair across from the sofa where he was leaning toward her, his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced. “Yes,” she admitted. “But it wasn’t as simple as that. I didn’t go find the nearest eligible man and ask him to marry me.”

“No?” He mocked her.

Daisy tried not to bristle. “No,” she said firmly. “Cal asked me.”

“And you jumped at it.”

In fact she’d been shocked. It had never occurred to her. They’d been friends. Nothing more. “I thought about it. He insisted we could make it work.”

“Sounds passionate,” Alex drawled.

“Cal and I had been friends for a long time. He said love wasn’t just a matter of passion. It was a matter of choice. I thought he was right. He wasn’t. But—” she met his mockery defiantly “—I love Cal.”

“You thought you loved me.”

“I did,” Daisy agreed. “But that was before I found out you didn’t give a damn.”

Alex stiffened as if she’d slapped him, then surged to his feet and loomed over her. “So you fell out of love with me and in love with What’s His Face in, what? Six weeks? Less?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“No? So, what was it like?”

She knew he didn’t really want to hear the answer. He was angry and he just wanted to put her on the defensive, pick a fight.

But Daisy wasn’t buying into that. “Sit down,” she said, and pointed at the sofa when he didn’t move. “Sit down and I’ll tell you what it was like,” she repeated sharply.

His gaze narrowed on her, but when she kept pointing, he dropped onto the sofa, still staring at her unblinkingly.

When he had settled again, Daisy tucked her feet under her and tried to find words that would make him understand.

“I was hurt when you didn’t feel what I did that weekend,” she began.

Alex started to interrupt, but she held up a hand to stop him. “I know you think I shouldn’t have been. You think I presumed too much, And—” she took a steadying breath “—you were right. I presumed far too much. But I was young and foolish, and nothing like that had ever happened to me before.”

Alex’s mouth was a thin line, but he was listening at least.

Daisy twisted the tie of her bathrobe between her fingers, staring at it before lifting her gaze again. She shrugged and told him helplessly, “I fell in love with you. It was a mistake, I admit that.” She laced her fingers in her lap and dropped her gaze to stare at them. If she looked at him, she’d realize that she was actually saying these things—and she didn’t want to be saying any of them.

She wanted her life back—the way it had been before she had gone to the dinner with him tonight, the way it had been before everything she’d worked so hard to build and hold together for the past five years had all come apart at the seams.

“When you walked out, I was humiliated,” she said. “I felt like an idiot. Sick.”

Alex’s jaw bunched. She knew he wanted to argue. He shifted uncomfortably. Daisy didn’t care. She was uncomfortable, too. They could suffer through this together.

“Weeks went by,” she continued. “Two, three, four—and instead of being able to put it behind me, I just felt sicker. And sicker. I started throwing up every morning. And that,” she said, lifting her eyes to look at him squarely now, “was when I realized that it wasn’t the memory of my idiocy that was making me sick. It was being pregnant.”

He flinched, then let out a slow breath.

“I didn’t even think about trying to find you,” she said levelly. “You’d made it quite clear you weren’t interested in any sort of involvement at all.”

“You could’ve —”

“No,” she said flatly. “I couldn’t.” She hesitated, then just told him the truth. “I was afraid you might want me to get an abortion.”

He stared at her, shocked. “How could you think—?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she demanded. “You didn’t want to care! I was afraid you’d say, ‘Get rid of it before anyone cares.’ Well, I cared. Even then I cared!” She could feel tears stinging the back of her eyes.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Exactly,” Daisy said, understanding the desperation that made him say it. “I did a lot of praying. You can believe that. I was scared. I didn’t know how I was going to cope. I could keep working for Finn while I was pregnant, but after the baby came, I thought I might have to go back to Colorado and stay with my mother till I could work something out. And then—” she breathed deeply “—Cal proposed.”

“Your savior. He was just standing around, waiting in the wings, for exactly that moment?” Alex demanded bitterly. “Ready to take some other man’s woman?” Alex ground out. “His pregnant woman?”

“I was not your woman! And he was my friend. He is my friend.”

“And yet you couldn’t stay married to him,” Alex said derisively.

Her jaw tightened. “It didn’t work out.” She folded her hands in her lap.

“Why not?”

“That’s not your business.”

Alex scowled blackly. “He married you, then dumped you? It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense.”

“He didn’t dump me! And it made sense,” Daisy insisted. “We hoped it would work. We wanted it to work. Cal’s a good man,” she said, looking over at the photo on the mantel. She stared at it for a long moment, then turned her gaze and met Alex’s, smiling a little sadly. “He’s been a good father.”

“But not Charlie’s only father!” Alex insisted.

“He knows he has a biological father. Well, as much as any four-year-old understands that. He knows he has two fathers. I figured I could explain you more to him as he got older.”

“I’ll explain myself to him now.”

“No,” Daisy said. “Not until I know how you feel.”

“You know damn well how I feel. I want my son!”

Their gazes locked, dueled. And in the silence of battle, the stairs creaked.

“Mommy?”

Daisy’s head jerked up to see Charlie peering over the bannister halfway down them. Alex stared up at him, too. Dear God, had he heard?

Daisy hurried up the stairs and scooped him up into her arms. “What is it, sweetie?”

“My arm hurts,” he whimpered, and tucked his head between her jaw and her shoulder. He clung to her, but his gaze was fixed on Alex who was slowly coming to his feet.

Daisy shifted so that her body blocked his view. “I know.” She kissed his hair and cuddled him close. “I wish it didn’t. I’ll take you back upstairs and sing to you. Okay?”

Charlie nodded. “Can Alex come, too?”

“Alex was just leaving.” But she turned and carried Charlie down the stairs. “We’ll just say good-night and see him out the front door.” She smiled into Alex’s suddenly narrowed gaze. “That will be nice, won’t it?” she said to her son.

Solemnly Charlie nodded. He looked at Alex.

Alex looked back with an intensity that made Daisy quiver.

Then Charlie lifted his head off her shoulder. “Night, Alex.”

Daisy held her breath as, slowly, Alex shrugged into his suit jacket and crossed the room, stopping mere inches from them. He didn’t look at her. He had eyes only for Charlie. To Daisy he looked dark, forbidding and positively scary.

But then he lifted a hand to touch Charlie’s cheek and his expression softened, a smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Good night, son.”