Breaking the Greek's Rules (7 page)

Daisy’s laugh made him feel like smiling. Her eyes always sparkled—either with joy or annoyance. It didn’t matter which. They drew his gaze. When she was with him, he couldn’t stop looking at her. Her voice was always like warm honey.

Not, of course, that he’d heard it since she’d walked out of
his place a week and a half ago. She’d taken his picture and said she’d be in touch and he’d never heard from her again.

He set down his fork sharply.

“You’re bored,” Tracie accused, staring hard at him over his empty plate. He hadn’t had to talk, so he’d eaten everything in front of him.

Now Alex shook his head. “No,” he lied. “I’m distracted. I just realized I have to be somewhere. I have an appointment.”

“Tonight?” Her eyes widened.

“I have to pick up some photos,” he said. “I need to get them to an editor in the morning.” It wasn’t entirely true. But the editor did need them. She’d called him yesterday inquiring about where they were. He’d thought Daisy had sent them in so she wouldn’t have to contact him again.

Tracie pursed her lips, then pouted. “But we’ve only reached the Duomo.” Which meant they had about six hundred more years of architecture to cover.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said firmly. “I really need to go.”

He did finish his coffee, but then called for the bill, saw her into a taxi and watched it drive off. Not until it disappeared around the corner did he breathe a sigh of relief. He was free.

For what?

It was just past nine. Not really late—unless you’d just spent the past two hours being systematically bored to death. Then you wanted some excitement, something to get the adrenaline going.

But the adrenaline was already going—and so were his feet.

They knew exactly where they were headed, and before Alex even realized it, he was on the corner of the street where Daisy’s office was.

Daisy—who was, let’s face it, the reason he’d been willing to go on five dates in the past ten days—so he would bloody well stop thinking about her.

But he hadn’t stopped.

Every night he lay in bed and stared at the damned skylight
and remembered her sparkling eyes, her smooth golden skin, her warm smile. And because he was in bed, he remembered other things, too.

He remembered touching her skin—all over. He remembered kissing her smiling mouth. He remembered stripping off her clothes and running his hands over her body, teasing, tasting—

Hell! He couldn’t show up on her doorstep halfway to wanting to bed her. Not that she’d even be there. It was her office, for God’s sake. Why would she be burning the midnight oil editing photos? Presumably she had a life.

She probably even went out on dates now that she was divorced. Maybe she had a boyfriend. His jaw tightened and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he started walking down the street.

He didn’t expect she would be there. So he was taken aback to discover lights on in the bay window of the apartment that was her office.

She didn’t have a life, after all? He stopped across the street and stared.

Now what? Turn around and walk back to Columbus? Catch a cab home? And stare at the damn skylight again?

Abruptly Alex crossed the street, took the steps to the front door two at a time, opened the door to the vestibule and punched the doorbell.

He waited. And waited. He shifted from one foot to the other, and wondered if she left the lights on all the time. Maybe she wasn’t even there.

He was ready to turn around and leave when all at once he heard the sound of the lock twisting and the door handle rattling. The door opened.

Daisy stared out at him, nonplused.
“Alex?”

“I came for the photos.”

“What?”

“The editor called me. She wants the photos. You said you’d have them ready.”

“I said I’d call you when they were ready.” She was gripping the door, glaring at him, and by God, yes, her eyes were sparking fire.

He almost smiled as he snaked past her into her office before she could object, then turned and let his gaze run over her again.

She was wearing a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt—about as inelegant as imaginable—and she looked as sexy as hell. Her blonde hair was hanging loose around her face. It was disheveled, as if she—or someone else?—had been running fingers through it.

“Am I interrupting something?” he snapped.

“What?” She frowned. Then she shrugged. “My work. If you want the photos, let me get back to them. They’re not done yet. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. I’ll have them for you tomorrow. I—”

“Let me see them.”

“No. Not while I’m still working.”

“Why? Afraid of someone else’s opinion?”

“Do I offer you opinions about the buildings you design?” she countered with saccharine sweetness. “Of course not. So go away.”

But Alex didn’t want to go away. He wanted to drop down in the chair and watch her work. He wanted to run his fingers through her hair and pull her close. He wanted to slide his hands down the curve of her spine, cup her buttocks—

He groaned.

“What’s wrong?” She was looking at him intently, worriedly.

He ground his teeth, then turned away, knowing he should get the hell out of here, but somehow he couldn’t go. It was as if she’d bewitched him, cast some spell that wouldn’t let him find the woman he knew had to be out there, the woman who would actually be right for him.

“Alex?” she pressed in the face of his silence.

Finally he snapped. “I’ve had five dates, and they’ve all been disasters!”

Daisy’s eyes widened. She stared at him, then let out a sound that might have been a laugh. Or a snort.

“What a shame,” Daisy said in a tone that told him it had been both a laugh and a snort.

“It is, damn it! And it’s a waste of time.” Alex cracked his knuckles and spun away to pace irritably around her office. But every step brought him closer to her. And he wanted her. Badly.

She stepped past him and moved toward her desk, and he wheeled to follow her when he found himself face-to-face with the photos on her walls.

None of them, of course, was Daisy.

But they all spoke of Daisy. Of what she wanted and he didn’t.

Families. Children. Pets.

He looked at her. Her cheeks were flushed. She ran her tongue over her lips. She watched him warily, worriedly.

“Never mind,” he said abruptly. “I have to go.”

Ignoring his desire, forcing himself to turn away from the most beautiful woman he’d ever made love to, he stalked out the door. He was halfway down the steps when he turned his head, his heart still hammering. “Send me those photos, damn it.”

T
HE
next day Alex got an email with a link to a site where he could download the photos Daisy had taken.

Here you are, the email said. Sorry it took so long. Hope they meet with your editor’s satisfaction. Thank you for the opportunity to work with you.

Kind regards, Daisy Connolly.

Kind regards?
Daisy
Connolly?

As if he would need her last name to distinguish her from all the other Daisys in his life.

Blast her, anyway! Alex smacked a hand on the desk next to his computer screen. So all it had needed was for him to turn up on her doorstep and make an idiot of himself and Daisy was suddenly inspired to finish editing the photos, send them along and get him out of her life.

Swell.

He’d lain awake half the night—staring at the damned skylight and cursing his own misplaced desire—and wishing Amalie would come up with a viable “option.”

In the morning he called her and demanded a better selection. “The last one was a charlatan,” he said. “If she was an architecture student, I play center field for the New York Yankees.”

“I’m talking to another young woman today,” she promised. “You’re very discerning. It takes time.”

It didn’t take time, damn it. That was the trouble. If Daisy wanted what he wanted there wouldn’t be any problem at all.

But she didn’t. That was perfectly clear. She probably hadn’t been stalling. She’d probably actually been busy, too busy to get right to his photos. But once he’d turned up on her doorstep, making demands, she’d outdone herself getting the photos finished so she didn’t need to have anything more to do with him.

They were amazing photos, though.

He stood in his office, staring at them now. He’d spread them out on his drafting table, studying them, seeing himself through her eyes.

They were every bit as sharp and insightful as the ones he’d seen on her wall last night. She’d taken most of the shots in black and white which, on first glance, surprised him.

But the more he studied them, the more he saw what she was doing: she had used the monochrome scheme to pare him down to his essence, exactly the way an architectural drawing or a blueprint did.

She caught him clearly—a man who had little patience with subtlety, who knew what he wanted.

He wanted her.

She had to know that. Didn’t she know that?

He sighed and scraped the photos into a pile and put them back into the envelope. Of course she knew it.

She didn’t want him—not on his terms.

So he’d seen the last of her.

End of story.

Daisy was still taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly a week later. But it was her own fault. She knew she should have got the photos edited and sent off right away. She hadn’t.

And so Alex had turned up on her doorstep. An intense, edgy, irritated Alex. An Alex who had looked at her with fire in his normally cool green gaze. An Alex who had shot into her office so quickly, she hadn’t even thought about how to
stop him. And once he was there, it had felt like being trapped in a cage with a full-grown, very hungry panther.

A panther who had complained about the meals he was being offered at the same time he was looking at her like he intended to make her the next one.

She’d skittered away, crossed the room, needing to put space between them, because the mere sight of him had set her heart to pounding. All her senses went on alert with Alex. Her body wanted him no matter what her brain—and her mother’s-heart—told her was wise.

She had been determined to resist—not just Alex, but her own desire.

Then abruptly he had turned and walked out!

And Daisy had been left staring after him as he strode off into the cold dark windy night. Then she’d shut the door and leaned against it, her heart still slamming against the wall of her chest, her pulse racing.

The adrenaline had kept her working half the night.

It took a week to wear off, more for her to be able to say with confidence to Cal that life was back to normal, and still more until she believed it herself.

So it was a blow on the first Saturday evening in November to hear a knock on the door, expect to get the Thai takeaway she’d ordered, and find Alex standing on her doorstep again.

She stared at him, dumbstruck.

“Good evening to you, too,” he said cheerfully. His tone was mild, friendly, completely at odds with the Alex who had shown up last time.

“Good evening,” she replied cautiously, trying not to look at his smooth-shaven face, his quirking smile, that groove in his cheek she always itched to touch. Deliberately she curled her fingers into the palm of her hand.

He hesitated a split second, then said, “I just wanted to say that I may have found the one.”

Daisy blinked. “The one? The one what?”

His smile widened. “Woman.” There was a pause. Then, “Wife,” he clarified.

Daisy’s stomach did an odd sort of somersault. She swallowed, then mustered her best polite smile. “Really. How nice.”

She shut her eyes for an instant, and opened them to discover that he’d done it again—slipped past her and was suddenly standing in her office. How did he do that?

“She’s a vice president in marketing for an international cosmetics firm,” he reported, his handsome face looking very pleased. “She runs campaigns in half a dozen places all over the world. Always on the move. She has two phones. A red one for emergencies.” He grinned, as if this were a good thing.

“Does she?” Daisy said drily. “Sounds perfect for you.”

“You think so, too?” He was still grinning, so she didn’t know if he heard her sarcasm as it had been intended or not. “That’s what I thought. I read Amalie the riot act after the first bunch, said if that was as good as she could do, I was finished. And then she came up with Caroline.”

Caroline. Even her name was right. Sophisticated, but approachable. She did sound perfect.

“And,” Alex went on with considerable enthusiasm, “there are other things, too—she’s beautiful, bright, funny, articulate, well-read.”

Daisy shut the door but stayed by it, keeping an eye out for the Thai deliveryman and thanking God that Charlie was at Cal’s this weekend. “So have you asked her to marry you yet?” she asked Alex flippantly.

“Considering it.”

Her jaw dropped. “On the basis of a couple of dates?”

“Three,” Alex corrected. He was moving around her office in panther mode, but looking better fed. He picked up an alabaster cat on the bookcase, and examined it while he talked. “Well, two and a half.” His mouth twisted wryly. “The red phone rang tonight. She had to leave in the middle of dinner. She’s on her way to San Francisco right now.”

“You’re joking.” He had to be joking.
Didn’t he?

But when he didn’t immediately agree that he was, Daisy shook her head, torn between despair and the prickling of awareness and wholly useless desire she always felt faced with Alexandros Antonides. Still. Damn it. “You’re insane.”

He put the cat down again and looked at her quizzically. “Insane? Why?”

“You can’t make a decision like that in a few weeks’ time!”

“Why not? She’s what I want.”

“But are
you
what
she
wants?” Daisy didn’t know why she was asking that. Didn’t know why she was arguing with him.

“That’s her problem.”

“Yours, too.” She couldn’t seem to help herself. “If you get married without knowing each other well, without thinking things through—”

“I could end up like you did?”

Daisy rocked with the punch of his words.
“What?”

“That isn’t why your marriage didn’t work?”

“No, of course it isn’t!” Daisy felt the heat of his accusation. But she denied it, and it wasn’t a lie, either. “And we’re not discussing my marriage.” She wrapped her arms across her chest, as if they would defend her. Fat chance.

“Why didn’t it, then?” he persisted.

“This is not about me!”

He raised his brows. “Maybe I’m trying to learn from your mistake.”

“You and I are not likely to make the same mistakes.”

Alex shrugged. “How will I know if you don’t tell me?”

“I’m not going to tell you, Alex! My marriage is none of your business.” She shoved away from the door and jerked it open. “I think you should go.”

But Alex didn’t go anywhere. On the contrary, he turned and flopped down into one of the armchairs, settling in, folding his arms behind his head. “Not yet. I want to hear why I shouldn’t pop the question.”

Daisy wanted to strangle him. But the quickest way to get him out of her life was to answer his questions. So she did.
“Because,” she said slowly and with the articulation of an elocution teacher, “you don’t want to get a divorce. Do you?” she challenged him. “Maybe you don’t care whether you do or not because you won’t care about her.”

“I don’t want a divorce,” he said evenly. The green eyes glinted.

Daisy shrugged. “Fine. Then take your time. Make sure you’re on the same page. That you want the same things. That … Oh, hell, why am I telling you this? You don’t understand!”

He cocked his head. “Weren’t you on the same page, Daisy?” He sounded almost sympathetic now.

She pressed her lips together and didn’t answer.

He gave her a little half smile. “Are you going to marry again?”

“I doubt it.” She turned away, then turned back and shrugged. “Maybe someday. It depends.”

“On?”

“On whether or not I’m in love with him.”

Alex’s jaw clenched.

Daisy smiled. It was a painful smile, hard-earned. “Yes, love. Still. I want the whole package, Alex. Now more than ever.”

Alex didn’t move. A muscle ticking in his temple was the only betrayal of anything beyond casual interest in what she had to say. Then, with studied nonchalance, he rose slowly. “I wish you the joy of it then.”

“And I you,” Daisy said automatically.

He gave her a sardonic look.

“No, truly.” She almost put a hand on his arm as he passed. But then she laced her fingers together instead. Still, she looked up at him earnestly. “I mean it, Alex. You deserve a wonderful life. I hope … Caroline is the right woman for you. I hope she gives you what you want.”

He had stopped and was standing now, quite close. She kept her gaze on the rise and fall of his chest, knew that she could reach out and touch him. Knew she should back away.
But she didn’t. She stayed quite still and met his gaze. “Regardless of what you think, marriage is more than you expect. You should … take your time, get to know this … woman you’re considering marrying. Make sure it’s right for both of you.”

Alex stood staring at her as if he couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

Daisy couldn’t believe them, either. It wasn’t any of her business. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. And maybe she did owe him the benefit of her experience with Cal. Certainly it had taught her something.

“No matter what you think you want out of marriage,” she finished, “it can surprise you. You shouldn’t take it lightly.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed further, and she expected he would tell her to mind her own business. But his jaw just tightened again, then he nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Their gazes locked—all the electricity flowing through New York City at that moment had nothing on what arced between them.

Then, carefully, consciously, Daisy swallowed. “Have a good life, Alex.”

For a long moment he didn’t reply, and she couldn’t read his gaze. Then he said flatly, “I will. Shall I invite you to the wedding?”

No! It was her gut-level response. But she squelched it. “When you’re sure she’s the right one,” she said slowly, “I would be delighted to come.”

Alex’s lips pressed together in a thin line. He nodded, then walked past her wordlessly out the door.

She closed it after him, leaned back against it, knees wobbling. Only after the sound of his footsteps had long faded away, did Daisy breathe again.

Moving on.

That’s what her father always used to say when Daisy or her sister got all wrought up about something they could do nothing
about. He’d listen to them anguishing for, oh, maybe thirty minutes, and then he’d say, “Can you do anything about it?”

They’d say, “No.”

And he’d flash them his sunny grin and say, “So … moving on …”

He didn’t mean,
get over it
. He meant,
stop dwelling on it. Get past it
.

You might still ache with disappointment. You might remember it forever. But you’d done all you could do. Now it was time to pull up your socks and move on.

Daisy moved on.

She still thought about Alex. How could she not? She had loved him once. He was the father of her child, even if he didn’t know it. She owed him for that—for Charlie. And she wished things could have been different.

But they weren’t.

Life moved on, and determinedly Daisy moved on with it. She did her work. She introduced a great couple, Debbie whom she’d met at a yoga class and Mark, who played baseball with Cal, and was delighted when they seemed to hit it off. She wasn’t losing her touch with other people at least. Cal bought Charlie a point-and-shoot camera, and she went with the two of them for walks in the park and on the streets and took loads of pictures. It was fun to discover Charlie’s interest, and restful to be with him and Cal.

Every time her thoughts drifted to Alex and she wondered if he’d proposed yet, she deliberately focused them elsewhere. So she wasn’t even thinking about him the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving when Cal came into the kitchen and asked, “Whatever happened with Alex?”

Her ex had stopped by that afternoon to take Charlie for a bike ride in the park. When they’d come back, Daisy had invited him to stay for leftovers. After, he’d helped Charlie build a fire station with his Legos. Now Charlie had gone upstairs to get ready for his bath while Daisy put dishes in the dishwasher.

She felt a moment’s jolt at the sound of his name. But then
she just shrugged. “No idea. Haven’t seen him for a while. I believe he’s got a woman in his life. He seems to think she’s ‘the one.’” Daisy couldn’t help adding that.