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
