any of it.
“Really. I wouldn’t jeopardize Charlie’s future. You know that.” She looked at him steadily.
“Keep it in mind,” Cal warned.
“No fear. I’m not an airy-fairy fool anymore.”
Cal looked as if he doubted that. But at last he shrugged. “If you say so.”
“In fact,” Daisy added, “I think this may be a good thing. I can learn more about his real life, so I’ll be able to tell Charlie about it someday.”
“Oh, there’s a plus,” Cal muttered.
“It’ll be fine.” She put a hand on his sleeve. “Really, Cal. Don’t worry.”
Cal let out a slow breath. “I’m trying not to.” He started toward the door and then turned back. “Charlie hasn’t seen him? He hasn’t seen Charlie?”
“No!” She smiled her best reassuring smile.
“Someday …”
“Someday they’ll meet. Someday when Charlie is older. Grown-up. Settled. And if he has questions in the meantime, I’ll answer them. But I’m not setting him up to be hurt! You know that. We’ve discussed it.” When a man felt about having kids the way Alex did, deliberately introducing him into Charlie’s life wasn’t a risk she wanted to take.
Besides, he had a perfectly fine father in Cal. And one father was enough—for the moment at least.
“C’mon, Dad!” Charlie poked his head out of the window of the car.
“Go on, Dad,” Daisy urged him. “And don’t you worry. I’m doing enough for both of us. And it’s silly, really. I will be fine. I’ll shoot his photos, admire his handsome face and come home. End of story. Trust me. I can take care of myself.”
The building Alex had restored wasn’t far from Prospect Park. Daisy found it easily. It sat on the corner of a residential street filled with brownstones and trees and a business cross street that was wider, had fewer trees to block the view, and gave her plenty of scope.
She’d arrived early to scope out the neighborhood, wanted to get herself in work-mode before she ever laid eyes on him. The day was cool and crisp, the trees in their full autumn glory as she walked down the block, studying the building side on.
At a few minutes before three the sun was low enough that the shadows picked out some of the ornate carved relief on the facing of the top floor, sharpening the detail, showing the building to best advantage. Daisy took out her camera before she was halfway down the block, framed and shot. She took a dozen or more, then crossed the main thoroughfare to study the angles.
The building was tall and narrow, a four story redbrick like others in the neighborhood, but, unlike the rest of them, it seemed somehow to draw in the light.
She studied it more closely, trying to understand what she was seeing. The ground floor housed an electronics store which seemed an odd tenant for an old building. But somehow it fit the space easily and looked as if it belonged. Studying it, she began to realize why. The windows were taller than those in other buildings on the block and she remembered Alex saying he had changed the windows. But they still fit the period; they belonged. But he’d made the proportions just that little bit more generous.
Now they fit twenty-first century people. It made all the difference.
The second floor echoed the look with a series of gothic-arched windows and cream-colored facings that contrasted with the dark red brick. Stenciled just above waist height across the central largest window in black sans serif was Antonides Architectural Design. Simple, spare, elegant.
She could see possibilities forming as she moved quickly along the sidewalk. She would shoot Alex standing in that window, looking out, master of his kingdom. And another at his drafting table. She could envision him in her mind’s eye bending over a drawing, black hair drifting across his forehead as he studied his work intently.
There would doubtless be plenty of other possibilities inside; an open staircase perhaps or a period elevator or maybe a skylight and, she grinned delightedly—enough light to make it happen.
Suddenly enthused and feeling like a real competent professional photographer for the first time since Alex had asked her to do it, Daisy turned—and came up hard against a solid male chest.
“I SAW you wandering back and forth across the street. I thought you might be lost.” Alex had caught hold of her when she’d turned and crashed into him. He was still holding on now. Their bodies were touching.
Daisy’s heart was going a mile a minute. Hastily she pulled away from his hard chest. “I wasn’t lost,” she said, hating her sudden breathlessness. “I was studying the building. Looking at all the angles.”
She squinted up at him, trying not to be bowled over by the casual magnetism of the man. What was it about Alexandros Antonides that drew her like a moth to a flame?
Well, he was still gorgeous, there was that. Tall, whip-cord lean, broad-shouldered. Masculinity defined. Alex didn’t have to flaunt the testosterone. It wasn’t a veneer he put on. It was clearly bedrock in him.
“Well, if you’re done assessing all the angles, let me show you around.” He gave her one of those smiles, too, the one that had, from the beginning, undermined her common sense.
But she was older now, Daisy reminded herself. Made of sterner stuff. And she knew what he was made of, too.
“Fine,” she said briskly. “Lead on.”
He did just that, but not before he plucked her camera bag and one of the tripods out of her hands, leaving her with only her purse and the smaller tripod. “You could have left that in the building while you were looking around,” he said over his shoulder as he crossed the street.
“I suppose.”
“How’d you get here?”
“Subway.”
He turned as he stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of his building. “With all this stuff? For God’s sake, Daisy! They have cabs in Manhattan!”
“It’s more efficient to take the subway.”
“I’d have paid the cab fare.”
“I don’t need your cab fare. It’s a business expense. When I want to take a taxi, I take one. I prefer the subway when I’m coming to Brooklyn. No bridge tie-ups. Now can we get going?”
She didn’t want him fussing over her. He had no right. She didn’t need him—of all people—thinking he knew best what was good for her.
Alex grunted, but still he shook his head as if despairing of her as he pushed open the door to the building. The electronics store she’d already spotted had its entrance off this interior vestibule on one side of the building. On the other was a stationer’s shop—all
