There was color in her cheeks again.
He couldn’t help grinning. “No? Taking a phone call in the middle of a dance? Rushing out of the hotel? For a broken arm?”
“I apologized,” Daisy said tightly. She hugged her arms across her chest. “You didn’t have to come. I certainly didn’t invite you!”
“I thought he might be dying. You looked devastated. I didn’t want you to have to face it alone.”
Something flickered across her features. She hesitated for a moment, as if she was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Then she nodded. “That was kind of you. Thank you. But it really wasn’t necessary.” She straightened, pulled her arm out of his grasp, and gave him what he supposed was a dismissive smile. “It will be fine. He will be. I just … Maybe I overreacted. Don’t worry. No one’s going to die. Now, please excuse me.” She tried to slip around him.
But Alex was in no mood to be dismissed and he blocked her way. “Who is he, Daisy?”
She didn’t answer. He didn’t think she was going to. But then a nurse poked her head out of the examination room. “Mrs. Connolly, Charlie’s asking for you. Doctor is going to put the cast on now.”
Once more Daisy started to move away, but Alex caught her arm. “He’s asking for you?” he said mockingly. “To what? Hold his hand?”
Her teeth came together. Her eyes flashed. “Maybe. He’s a little boy,” she snapped, her eyes flashing anger. “He’s my son.”
Her son? Daisy had a son?
But before he could do more than reel at her words, Daisy had jerked her arm away, cut around him and stalked back into the examination room. The door shut behind her with a resounding bang.
A dozen people stopped talking and looked around in surprise.
Alex felt as if he’d been punched. Where the hell did she get a son?
Well, of course, he supposed she’d got the boy the time-honored way—she and her ex. But why hadn’t she mentioned him?
Not that it was his business. But still …
Alex glared at all the people who were still murmuring and staring at him as if it were his fault she’d stormed away and slammed the door. He wouldn’t have minded slamming one or two himself. Instead he stalked over to an empty chair by the windows and flung himself down.
He didn’t know how long he waited. Long enough to have plenty of second thoughts. Daisy wasn’t going to be happy to come out and find that he had waited. She’d made that perfectly clear.
And did he really want to meet Daisy’s child?
It was annoying enough to think that she had professed to love him, then turned around and married someone else. To be honest, Alex had felt a certain satisfaction knowing her rebound marriage hadn’t lasted.
That it had resulted in a child was somehow disconcerting.
A child. Charlie.
Alex tried to imagine a little boy who looked like Daisy. Would he have her mischievous grin, a dimple in one cheek, freckles across his nose and a mop of honey-colored hair?
Or would the boy look like her ex-husband? Was the ex holding Charlie’s other hand in the exam room with them now? Alex straightened in the chair, scowling at the thought.
Maybe he was going to be sitting here when all three of them came out of the room together. And wouldn’t that be awkward as hell?
The noise of a crying baby, a croupy cough, a parent and teenager arguing washed right over him. Alex paid no attention. So it would be awkward. So what? He’d walked out on her and their child, hadn’t he?
Alex almost hoped the S.O.B. was here. He’d like to see what was so wonderful that Daisy had ever married him. Scowling, he shifted irritably in the chair, then looked up to see Daisy coming out of the examining room.
On her hip was a little boy with a mop of brownish-blonde hair and one arm in a bright blue cast. He’d expected a two-or three-year-old. But this boy looked bigger. Alex leaned forward, studying him intently. But he couldn’t see much. There were people in the way.
Daisy was listening to the nurse. They were standing just outside the exam room door. The boy was listening, too. Then he turned his head to look out at the waiting room.
Alex’s breath caught. His heart seemed to stutter even as he stared.
Charlie’s jaw was squarer than Daisy’s, his lower lip fuller, his nose a little sharper, his cheekbones higher. His eyes weren’t blue, they were green.
He didn’t really resemble Daisy at all. Even his hair was actually a deeper gold than Daisy’s. But Alex knew exactly who he was. He had known another boy with those eyes, that jaw, whose hair had been exactly that color.
His brother. Vassilios.
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.”
