Breaking the Greek's Rules (3 page)

Daisy had tried to imagine what living in Paris—living in Paris with Alex—would be like while she made them eggs and bacon and toast for breakfast. The thoughts made her smile. They made her toes curl.

She’d been standing at the stove, toes curling as she turned the bacon when hard muscled arms had come around her and warm breath had touched her ear.

“Morning,” Alex murmured, the burr of his voice sending a shiver of longing right through her.

“Morning yourself.” She’d smiled as he had kissed her ear, her nape, her jaw, then turned her in his arms and took her mouth with a hunger that said,
The hell with breakfast. Let’s go back to bed
.

But she’d fed him a piece of bacon, laughing as he’d nibbled her fingers. And she’d actually got him to eat eggs and toast as well before they’d rolled in the sheets once more.

Finally in the early afternoon he’d groaned as he sat up and swung his legs out of bed. “Got to grab a shower. Come with
me?” He’d cocked his head, grinning an invitation that, despite feeling boneless already, Daisy hadn’t been able to refuse.

The next half hour had been the most erotic experience of her life. Both of them had been wrung out, beyond boneless—and squeaky clean—by the time the hot water heater had begun to run cold.

“I need to go,” he’d said, kissing her thoroughly once more as he pulled on a pair of cords and buttoned up his shirt.

“Yes,” she agreed, kissing him back, but then turning away long enough to stuff her legs into a pair of jeans and pluck a sweater from the drawer. “I’ll go out to the airport with you.”

Alex had protested that it wasn’t necessary, that he was perfectly capable of going off by himself, he did it all the time.

But Daisy was having none of it. She’d smiled saucily and said, “Yes, but now you have me.”

She’d gone with him to the airport, had sat next to him in the back of the hired car and had shared long drugging kisses that she expected to live off until he returned.

“I’ll miss you,” she’d told him, nibbling his jaw. “I can’t believe this has happened. That we found each other. I never really believed, but now I do.”

“Believed?” Alex lifted his head from where he’d been kissing her neck long enough to gaze into her eyes. “In what?”

“This.” She punctuated the word with a kiss, then looked deeply into his eyes. “You. Me. It’s just like my mother said. Love at first sight.” She smiled, then sighed. “I just hope we get more years than they did.”

There was a sudden stillness in him. And then a slight movement as he pulled back. A small line appeared between his brows. “Years? They?”

“My parents. They fell in love like this. Took one look at each other and fell like a ton of bricks. There was never anyone else for either of them. They were two halves of the same soul. They should have had fifty years. Seventy-five,” Daisy said recklessly. “Instead of twenty-six.”

Alex didn’t move. He barely seemed to breathe. The sparkle in his light green eyes seemed suddenly to fade.

Daisy looked at him, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

He’d swallowed. She could remember the way she’d watched his Adam’s apple move in his throat, then the way he’d shaken his head slowly and said, “You’re talking a lifetime, aren’t you?”

And ever honest, Daisy had nodded. “Yes.”

There had been a split second before the world tilted. Then Alex had sucked in a harsh breath. “No.” Just the one word. Hard, decisive, determined. Then, apparently seeing the look on her face, he’d been at pains to assure her. “Oh, not for you. I’m not saying you won’t have a lifetime … with someone. But … not me.”

She remembered staring at him, stunned at the change in him. He seemed to have pulled inside himself. Closed off. Turned into the Ice Man as she’d watched. “What?” Even to her own ears her voice had sounded faint, disbelieving.

Alex’s jaw set. “I’m not getting married,” he’d told her. “Ever.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to.”

“But—”

“No.” His tone was implacable. Yet despite the coldness of his tone, there was fire in his eyes. “No hostages to fortune,” he’d said. “No wife. No kids. No falling in love. Too much pain. Never again.”

“Because … because of your brother?” She had only barely understood that kind of pain. Her parents had been gloriously happily married until her father’s death a month before. And she had witnessed what her mother was going through after. There was no doubt it was hard. It was hard on her and on her sister, too. But her parents had had a beautiful marriage. It had been worth the cost.

She’d tried to explain that to Alex in the car. He hadn’t wanted to hear it.

“It’s fine for you if that’s what you want,” he’d said firmly. “I don’t.”

“But last night … this morning …?” Daisy had been grasping desperately at straws.

“You were great,” he’d said. Their gazes had met for a moment. Then deliberately Alex looked away.

By the time they’d arrived at the airport, there were no more kisses, only a silence as big and dark as the Atlantic that would soon stretch between them. Alex didn’t look at her again. His fingers were fisted against his thighs as he stared resolutely out the window.

Daisy had stared at him, willed him to reconsider, to believe—to give them a chance!

“Maybe I was asking for too much too soon,” she ventured at last as their hired car reached the airport departure lanes. “Maybe when you come back …”

Alex was shaking his head even as he turned and looked at her. “No,” he said, his voice rough but adamant.

She blinked quickly, hoping he didn’t notice the film of unshed tears in her eyes as she stared at him mutely.

“I won’t be back, Daisy. A lifetime is what you want,” he’d said. “I don’t.”

It was the last thing he’d said to her—the last time she’d seen him—until she’d opened the door a few minutes ago.

Now she dared to stare at him for just a moment as she tried to calm her galloping heart and mend her frayed nerves, tried to stuff Alexandros Antonides back into the box in the distant reaches of her mind where she’d done her best to keep him for the past five years.

It wasn’t any easier to feel indifferent now than it ever had been. He was certainly every bit as gorgeous as he had been then. A shade over six feet tall, broad-shouldered in a pale blue dress shirt and a gray herringbone wool sport coat, his tie loosened at his throat, Alex looked like the consummate successful professional. His dark hair was cut a little shorter now, but it was still capable of being wind-tossed. His eyes
were still that clear, light gray-green, arresting in his tanned face with its sharply defined cheekbones and blade-straight nose. And his sensuous mouth was, heaven help her, more appealing than ever with its hint of a smile.

“Why are you here?” she demanded now.

“Lukas sent me,” he said.

“Lukas?”

Alex’s cousin Lukas had been her official “other half” at the wedding where she’d met Alex. He’d insisted she stay by his side at the reception long enough so that his mother and aunts wouldn’t fling hopeful Greek girls at his head. Once he’d established that he wasn’t available, he’d given her a conspiratorial wink, a peck on the cheek and had ambled off to drink beer with his brothers and cousins, leaving her to fend for herself.

That was when she’d met Alex.

Now Alex pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and poked it in front of her face. “He said I should talk to his friend Daisy the matchmaker.”

Yes, there it was—her name, address and phone number—in Lukas’s spiky handwriting. But she was more arrested by his words than what he was waving in front of her face. “You’re looking for a matchmaker?
You?
”

Alex shrugged. “No doubt you’re amazed,” he said easily. “Thinking I’ve changed my mind.”

She didn’t know what to think.

“I haven’t,” he said firmly. “I’m not looking for hearts and flowers, kindred spirits, the melding of two souls any more than I ever was.”

She wondered if he was being so adamant in case she decided to propose. No fear of that, she wanted to tell him. Instead she pressed her lips into a tight line.

“I want a marriage of convenience,” Alex went on. “A woman with her own life, doing her own thing. She’ll go her way, I’ll go mine. But someone who will turn up if a business engagement calls for it. And who’s there … at night.”

“A sex buddy?” Daisy said drily.

Was that a line of color creeping above his shirt collar? “Friends,” he said firmly. “We’ll be friends. It’s not just about sex.”

“Hire a mistress.”

“I don’t want a mistress. That
is
just about sex.”

“Whatever. I can’t help you,” she said flatly.

“Why not? You’re a matchmaker.”

“Yes, but I’m a matchmaker who does believe in hearts and flowers, kindred spirits, the melding of two souls.” She echoed his words with a saccharine smile. “I believe in real marriages. Love matches. Soul mates. The kind you don’t believe in.” She met his gaze steadily, refusing to look away from those beautiful pale green eyes that she’d once hoped to drown in forever.

Alex’s jaw tightened. “I believe in them,” he said harshly. “I just don’t want one.”

“Right. So I repeat, I can’t help you.” She said the words again, meant them unequivocally. But even as she spoke in a calm steady tone, her heart was hammering so hard she could hear it.

Their gazes met. Locked. And with everything in her, Daisy resisted the magnetic pull that was still there. But even as she fought it, she felt the rise of desire within her, knew the feelings once more that she’d turned her back on the day he’d walked out of her life. It wasn’t love, she told herself. It was something else—something as powerful and perverse and demanding as anything she’d ever felt.

But she was stronger now, and no longer an innocent. She had a life—and a love in it—that was worth resisting Alex Antonides.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said, holding his gaze. “It was nice to see you again.”

It was, she hoped, a clear dismissal. It was also a blatant lie. She could have gone the rest of her life without seeing Alex again and died a happy woman. She didn’t need a reminder of
the stupidest thirty hours of her life. But in another way, she was aware of owing him her unending gratitude.

That single day had forever changed her life.

“Was it?” he asked. His words were as speculative as his gaze. He smiled. And resist as she would, she saw in that smile the man who once upon a time had melted her bones, her resolve, every shred of her common sense, then broken her heart.

She turned away. “Goodbye, Alex.”

“Daisy.” His voice stopped her.

She glanced back. “What?”

The smile grew rueful, crooked, far too appealing. “Have dinner with me.”

“W
HAT?
No!
” She looked panic-stricken. Horrified.

Not at all like the Daisy he remembered. And yet she was so much the Daisy he remembered that Alex couldn’t just turn and walk away. Not now. Not when he’d finally found her again. “Why not?”

“Because … because I don’t want to!” Her cheeks had grown red in the throes of passion. Her whole body had blushed when he’d made love to her. His body—right now—was already contemplating doing the same thing again.

Which was a profoundly stupid idea, considering what he wanted, what she wanted, considering the present—and their past.

“Do you hate me?” he asked. He remembered the way they had parted. She’d looked devastated, about to cry. Thank God she hadn’t. But what she’d wanted—the hope of a lifetime of love—was his worst nightmare. It brought back memories that he’d turned his back on years ago. What had begun happening between them that weekend was something he wasn’t ready for. Would never be ready for.

So there was no point in making her hope in vain. He regretted having hurt her when he’d left her. But he could never bring himself to regret that weekend. It was one of the best memories of his life.

“Of course I don’t hate you,” she said briskly now. “I don’t care at all about you.”

Her words were a slap in the face. But he supposed he had it coming. And it was just as well, wasn’t it, that she didn’t care? It meant he hadn’t hurt her badly after all.

“Well, then,” he suggested easily, “let’s share a meal.” He gave her his best engaging grin. “For old times’ sake,” he added when he could see the word
no
forming on her lips.

“We don’t have old times.”

“We have one old time,” he reminded her softly.

Her cheeks grew brighter yet. “That was a long, long time ago. Years. Five or six at least.”

“Five,” he said. “And a half.” He remembered clearly. It was right after that weekend that he’d made up his mind to stay in Europe, to buy a place in Paris.

It made sense businesswise, he’d told himself at the time. But it wasn’t only business that had made him dig in across the pond. It was smarter to put an ocean between himself and the temptation that was Daisy.

She was still tempting. But a dinner he could handle. “It’s just a meal, Daisy. I promise I won’t sweep you off to bed.” Not that he wouldn’t like to.

“You couldn’t,” she said flatly.

He thought he could, but emotions would get involved. So he wouldn’t go there, as tempting as it was. Still, he wasn’t willing to walk away, either. “We have a lot to catch up on,” he cajoled.

But Daisy shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Her smile was brittle. He saw none of the sunny sincerity he’d always associated with his memories of her. Interesting.

He studied her now, wondering what her life had been like over the past five years. He’d always imagined she’d found the true love she’d been seeking, had found a man who’d made her happy. And if the thought occasionally had made him grind his teeth, he told himself a guy couldn’t have everything. He had what he wanted.

Now he wondered if Daisy had got what she wanted. Suddenly he wanted to know.

“Another time then,” he suggested.

“Thank you, but no.”

He knew he was going to get “no” if he asked a hundred times. And the knowledge annoyed him. “Once upon a time we had a lot to say to each other,” he reminded her.

“Once upon a time is for fairy tales, Alex. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

“Let’s,” he said readily. “I’ll walk with you.”

“I don’t mean go somewhere else,” she said. “I mean I have to go back inside. I have work to do. In my office.”

“Matchmaking?”

She shook her head. “Not tonight.”

“Photography?” He remembered the camera, how it had been almost a natural extension of who she was.

She nodded, smiling a little. It was a real smile.

“You’ve got your own business then?” he pressed.

“Yes.” She nodded. The smile stayed.

“Families? Kids? People of all shapes and sizes?” And at her further nod, he said, “Show me.”

She almost moved toward the door, almost started to invite him in. But then she stayed where she was, gave her head a little shake. “I don’t think so.”

“You took photos of us.” Sometimes he’d wished he had one. To take out and remember. But that was stupid. It was better to forget.

She shrugged and looked just a little uncomfortable. He wondered if she still had the photos.

“Why matchmaking?” he asked her suddenly.

She shrugged. “Long story.” And no invitation to ask her to tell it.

He lifted a corner of his mouth. “I’ve got time.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re scared.”

The color in her cheeks bloomed again. “I am not scared! What’s there to be scared of?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.” He cocked his head. “Temptation maybe?”

She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not tempted. I’m busy. I have things to do. I haven’t seen you in five years, Alex. I barely knew you then. We don’t have a past to catch up on.”

“We had a hell of a lot.” He didn’t know why he was persisting, but he couldn’t seem to leave it alone.

“And we wanted to do different things with it. Goodbye, Alex.” She turned away and started to go back inside.

But before she could, Alex caught her arm, and spun her slowly back, then did what he’d been wanting to do ever since he’d realized who she was.

He dipped his head and kissed her.

It was instinct, desire, a mad impetuous hunger that he couldn’t seem to control. It was a roaring in his ears and a fire in his veins. It was the taste of Daisy—a taste he’d never forgotten.
Never
. And as soon as he tasted her, he wanted more.

And more.

For a second, maybe two, Daisy seemed to melt under the touch of his lips. She went soft and pliable, shaping her mouth to his. And then, in another instant, it was over.

She jerked away from him, stared at him for one horrified moment, cheeks scarlet, mouth still forming an astonished O. Then she pulled out of his grasp and bolted back inside the foyer.

“Daisy!”

The door slammed in his face.

Alex stared after her, still tasting her. Jolted, intrigued, stunned. Aroused.

Five years ago Daisy had been like a siren he’d followed eagerly, mindlessly, hungrily. He’d wanted her on every level imaginable. And having her that weekend over and over hadn’t assuaged his hunger. He’d only wanted more.

Leaving, thank God, had removed the temptation.

And now—within minutes of having seen her again—it was back. In spades.

It was the last thing he wanted. The last thing he needed.

Alex turned and walked down the steps, pausing only to drop the paper with her name and address in the trash.

She had been right to say no. He would be smart and walk away.

Ten minutes later Daisy was still shaking.

She sat at her desk, staring at the photo she was editing, and didn’t see it at all. Eyes closed or open, she only saw Alex—older, harder, stronger, handsomer—in every way
more
, even more compelling than the younger Alex had been.

She shuddered and scrubbed at her mouth with her fingers, trying to wipe away the taste of his kiss.

But all the scrubbing in the world wouldn’t do that, and she knew it. She’d tried to forget it for years. It hadn’t done a whit of good.

She hadn’t even tried to forget him. That would have been impossible. But as time passed, at least she’d managed to put him on a shelf in the back of her memory’s closet. He was still there, but he couldn’t hurt her.

But now Alex was here.

She’d just seen him, talked to him. Been kissed by him. Had almost, heaven help her, kissed him back. It had felt so right, so perfect, so exactly the way it had felt the first time.

But she knew better now.

He had come. He had gone. The other shoe had finally dropped. He wouldn’t come back.

“And it wouldn’t matter if he did,” Daisy said aloud.

Because if one thing was completely obvious, it was that however much more he had become, in fundamentals, Alex hadn’t changed a bit.

He might want to get married now, but he obviously didn’t want anything more than “friends—with benefits.” He didn’t want love. He didn’t want a real marriage. He didn’t want a family.

He didn’t want her.

For a nanosecond her traitorous heart had dared to believe he’d finally come to his senses, had learned the value of love, of relationships, of lifetime commitment.

Thank goodness, a nanosecond was all the time it had taken her to realize that there was no point in getting her hopes up.

Of course he had proved he still wanted her on one level—the one he had always wanted her on. She wasn’t such an innocent that she didn’t know desire when she felt it. And she had felt it hard and firm against her when Alex had kissed her and pressed his body against hers.

But physical desire was just that—a basic instinctive response. It had nothing to do with things that really mattered—love, commitment, responsibility, sharing of hearts and souls, dreams and desires.

It was nothing more than an itch to be scratched.

And she wasn’t about to be a matchmaker for a pairing like that. If he was interested in nothing more than a woman to share his bed—but not his heart—he wouldn’t be interested in the sort of marriages she believed in. So he wouldn’t be back.

And thank God for that—because if her heart still beat faster at the very sight of him and her body melted under his touch, at least her mind knew he was the last person she needed in her life.

Not just in her life, but in the life of the person she loved most in all the world—the one who, at this very moment, she could hear pounding his way up the stairs from the kitchen.

“Mom!” His voice was distant at first, then louder. “Mom!” And louder still as the door banged open. “Mom! Aren’tcha finished working yet? It’s time to go.”

Charlie.

Four and three-quarter years of sunshine and skinned knees and wet kisses and impatience all rolled up in the most wonderful person she knew.

He skidded to a stop in front of her and looked up at her, importuning. “Mom!”

“Charlie!” She smiled at him, echoing his tone, loving him with all her heart.

“Are you ready?” he demanded.

“Almost.” She turned back to close the file she hadn’t done a thing to since Alex had shown up on the doorstep. “Almost,” she repeated, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, then shutting the file.

She wished she could shut her memories of Alex down as easily. She couldn’t. Particularly she couldn’t right now—faced with the small boy staring up at her, all quivering impatience.

Impatience wasn’t Charlie’s middle name, but maybe it should have been. He’d been eager and energetic since the moment of his birth. Before his birth, in fact. He’d come almost two weeks early, right before Christmas. And he’d been taking the world by storm ever since.

He had a chipped tooth from a fall out of a tree back in May. He had a scab on his knee beneath his jeans even now. Daisy had told him last week she was going to buy stock in the Band-Aid company, and after he’d wrinkled his nose and said, “What’s stock?” he’d listened to her brief explanation and said, “Good idea.”

His stick-straight hair, the color of honey shot through with gold, was very close to the same shade as her own. But his light eyes were nothing like her stormy dark blue.

He didn’t look like Alex—except for the shape of his eyes.

And after nearly five years, she was inured to it. She didn’t see Alex in him every time she looked at him. She saw Charlie himself—not Alex’s son.

Except today. Today the eyes were Alex’s. The impatience was Alex’s. The “let’s get moving” was Alex down to the ground.

“In good time,” she said now, determined to slow Charlie down—a little, at least. But she managed a smile as she shut the computer down. And she was sure she was the only one who noticed her hands were shaking.

“You said we’d go at six-thirty. It’s almost six-thirty. The game’s gonna start.” He grabbed one of Daisy’s hands and began to tug her back toward the stairs.

“Coming,” Daisy said. But she straightened her desk, made a note to reorder the Cannavarro files, put her pencil in the drawer. All very methodical. Orderly. Step by step. Pay attention to detail. From the day that she’d learned she was pregnant, it was how she’d managed to cope.

Charlie bounced from one foot to the other until she finished and finally held out a hand to him again. “Okay. Let’s go.” She allowed herself to be towed down the stairs.

“We gotta hurry. We’re gonna be late. Come on. Dad’s pitching.”

Dad. One more reason she prayed that Alexandros Antonides didn’t darken her door again.

“Hey, Sport.” Cal dropped down beside Charlie on the other side of the blanket that Daisy had spread out to sit on while they watched the softball game.

They had been late, as Charlie feared, arriving between innings. But at least Cal, Daisy’s ex-husband, had already pitched in his half, so he could come sit with them until it was his turn to bat.

“We made a fire engine,” Charlie told him. “Me ‘n’ Jess. Outta big red cardboard blocks—this big!” He stretched his hands out a couple of feet at least.

Cal looked suitably impressed. “At preschool?”

Charlie bobbed his head. “You an’ me could make one.”

“Okay. On Saturday,” Cal agreed. “But we’ll have to use a cardboard box and paint it red. Grandpa will be in town. I’ll tell him to bring paint.”

Charlie’s eyes got big. “Super! Wait’ll I tell Jess ‘bout ours.”

“You don’t want to make him jealous,” Cal warned. He grinned at Charlie, then over the boy’s head at his mother.

Daisy smiled back and told herself that nothing had changed. Nothing. She and Charlie were doing what they often
did—dropping by to watch Cal play ball in Central Park, which he and a few diehards continued to do well after the softball leagues ended in the summer. Now, in early October, there was a nip in the air, and the daylight was already going. But they continued to play.

And she and Charlie would continue to come and watch.