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.”
IT was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Daisy half expected to find Alex standing on the stoop when she got up. But a peek out the curtains as soon as she got up proved that no one was there.
He didn’t call, either, though she jumped every time the phone rang.
Charlie, pushing his scrambled eggs around his plate, wanted to know what the matter was with her. “You’re all jumpy,” he remarked when a sound on the sidewalk made her flinch.
“Nothing’s the matter.” Daisy turned away, busying herself putting the dishes in the dishwasher. “Izzy said she and the boys were coming by.”
Izzy’s had been the first phone call she’d got this morning.
“How is he?” her friend had demanded even before Daisy had dragged herself out of bed.
“Still asleep,” Daisy reported. In fact he was asleep on the other side of her bed. She’d got him back to sleep after Alex had finally left, but he’d awakened and come into her room again at five-thirty. Barely able to pry her eyes open, Daisy had taken the easy way out and let him clamber into bed with her. Fortunately he’d gone straight back to sleep, and when Izzy had rung at eight, he was still dead to the world.
“Sorry. We’ve been up for hours thinking about him.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Daisy assured her. At least his arm was. How his life was going to change now that Alex was going to be part of it, she didn’t know. But at least Alex had been kind last night. He’d actually behaved—toward Charlie—very well. Maybe, given that, he would be fine. And kids were resilient.
It was her own resilience Daisy was worried about.
How was she going to deal with Alexandros Antonides in her life?
She didn’t want to think about it. So when Izzy asked if they could come and see Charlie in the afternoon, Daisy said yes without hesitation. The distraction would do them both good.
By midafternoon with no Rip and no Crash, Charlie was getting restless. Daisy had watched a Disney DVD with him, then read him a couple of dozen picture books. She tried unsuccessfully to talk him into a nap.
“I’m too big for naps,” he told her. “An’ I’m not tired.”
No, just cranky. She had a photo shoot to finish editing before tomorrow afternoon. So she brought her laptop down to the living room and worked on it there while Charlie played with his cars and his Legos on the floor.
“Maybe that Alex will come back,” he said hopefully, looking up from his cars.
“Mmm.” Daisy didn’t encourage that line of thinking. A man who had been as adamant as Alex had been about not wanting children might have had a brief change of heart when faced with a little boy who looked very much like his beloved deceased brother.
But having a son was a huge responsibility. And it wasn’t one that you could just pick up and put down as the whim struck you. Alex wasn’t a fool. He had to realize that. It was possible that Alex had gone home in the early hours of the morning, thought about the implications of having a son, and come to the conclusion that he’d made the right decision five years ago. Whatever he decided, Daisy was determined that she wouldn’t let him upset Charlie’s life to suit himself.
She didn’t have time to think about it more because finally the doorbell rang.
