LITMIR.BIZ

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So I did. I had to go to Paris for work anyway. It was a commitment. I spent ten days there. Then I went to see my parents.”

      Daisy took a quick look into his eyes.

      He bent his head, held her closer. “We’ve … barely talked in years. It was, I suppose, easier for all of us that way. Not to be reminded.”

      Daisy slid her arms around his back, holding him close, feeling the tension in him.

      He cleared his throat, scuffed his boot in the snow, then pulled back a little so he could look down into her eyes. “They’re both in Greece these days. Not together. My mother’s divorced a third time. My dad is still buried in his books. But I … talked to both of them. About Vass. About … what happened, about what I thought. They were shocked. They had no idea.” His eyes were brimming again. He shook his head. “I’m glad I went. And I … expect I’ll see them again.” He hesitated. “I told them about you … and Charlie. They’d like to meet you both someday … if you’re agreeable.”

      “Of course,” Daisy said faintly, her heart spilling over with love for him, thrilled that he’d taken the step to reconnect with his parents, delighted that they might all now find a beginning to their healing.

      Alex pressed a kiss into her hair. “Thank you.”

      Then he drew back and dug into the pocket of his jacket. “Will you give this to Charlie?” He took out a small silver Matchbox car and handed it to her. “I have real Christmas presents for him, but he’s got them already. I left them with Cal.”

      “Cal?” She stared at him in wonder. “You’ve never even met Cal.”

      “I have now. I went to your place from the airport. You weren’t there. I didn’t know where you were. I thought you might be with him.”

      “How do you know where he lives?”

      “I told you once before—” Alex’s mouth quirked “—the internet is a wonderful thing.”

      Apparently it was. “But I wasn’t there.”

      “No,” Alex said. “But he knew where you were.”

      “And he told you?” That didn’t sound like Cal. He was generally very protective.

      “After he’d threatened me within an inch of my life. Said I’d be sorry if I hurt you. And I believed him. I liked him. And … I don’t ever want to hurt you, Daze.” His voice was rough and warm and intense.

      And he wasn’t hurting her, he was killing her, Daisy thought desperately. She looked down at the tiny car in her hand. Without having to be told, she knew what it was.

      “The car you fought over,” she said.

      He nodded. “It was Vass’s. He gave it to me before … before he died.” Alex choked on the words. “I’ve carried it with me ever since.”

      “Your hair shirt?” Daisy asked gently.

      “I didn’t think so then, but yes, it was. I lived with the guilt a long time. I might have lived with it forever—without you.”

      “Oh, Alex.” She nestled close again.

      “Charlie should have it. He doesn’t need to know its past. Only that it’s for him—a gift from the uncle he’ll never know. Vass—” Alex swallowed “—would have loved him.”

      Daisy blinked furiously, her fingers tightening around the tiny car. “Yes.” She tucked it into the pocket of her jacket. “Oh, yes.”

      “I have something for you, too.” He fished in his other pocket and pulled out a small box, the sort that jewelry came in. A ring box?

      Daisy’s heart hammered furiously. More manipulation? Or were they past that?

      Alex held it out to her. “This is for you. I saw it at a little shop in Paris and I thought of you. Of us. It’s the way I’d like us to be.” He looked into her eyes and pressed it into her palm, then closed her fingers over it. Snowflakes dusted his dark lashes, settled on his midnight hair. He smiled gently. “I love you, Daisy. I hope someday you believe it.”

      Then he drew away from her, turned and set off through the snow.

      Numbly, Daisy stared after him. What?

      He was just going to leave her here? He was going to tell her he loved her, give her his heart, then walk away?

      No insistence? No demand? No renewed proposal?

      She looked down at the tiny box in her hand, then fumbled to open it. Inside was a silver necklace—real silver, unlike the Porsche—of two interlocking, entwined open hearts.

      I thought of you, he’d said. Of us.

      Two open hearts entwined.

      Daisy bit down on her lip. Her fingers trembled. She clutched the box with the necklace in one hand and her camera bag in the other and broke into a run. “Alex! Alex, wait!”

      He stopped, turned. Looked at her, half stricken, half hoping. She recognized that look now. She skidded to a halt bare inches in front of him, blinking furiously into the sun, into the dawning hope in those beautiful pale green eyes. “Ask me.”

      He frowned. “Ask what?”

      “You know what!”

      He raised a brow. A corner of his mouth quivered, almost smiled.

      “Ask,” Daisy demanded.

      Then he took a breath. “Will you let me love you?” he asked. “Forever?”

      “Yes.” She threw her arms around him.

      “Will you love me?” he asked as she kissed him. His voice was suspiciously hoarse.

      “Yes!” She breathed the word against his lips.

      “Will you marry me, Daze?” He barely got the words out because now he was kissing her back.

      “Yes, Alex. Oh, yes, yes. Yes.”

      Daisy didn’t miss Charlie that night as much as she’d thought she would. She took Alex home and didn’t even open the other Christmas present he’d brought her from Paris.

      She put on her necklace—or, rather, he put it on for her. Then she took him upstairs to her bedroom. There, slowly, he took off her sweater, her jeans, her shirt, her socks. Then he lowered her to the bed, and, smiling, began to take off everything else she wore.

      Everything but the necklace. Daisy wouldn’t let him take off that. But the rest—oh, yes. She shivered with pleasure at the way his fingers traced the lines and curves of her body, the way his lips followed and his tongue, as well.

      When he unfastened her bra and slipped it off her shoulders, then bent his head to kiss her breasts, she lifted her hands and threaded them in the silky softness of his hair.

      Alex kissed his way across her breasts, laved her nipples, made her tremble with longing. Then, smiling at her reaction, he dropped kisses down the line between her breasts, on down to her navel and beyond. And Daisy quivered with need for him.

      “Alex!” She squirmed when he peeled her panties down, tossed them aside, then ran his fingers back up her calves, then her thighs, then touched her—there. “Wait. My turn. You’re overdressed.”

      He lifted his head and smiled. “Am I?”

      “Oh, yes.” And then Daisy set about unwrapping the Christmas present she wanted more than anything—him.

      “I love you,” she whispered as she tugged his sweater over his head. “I’ve never forgotten doing this.” She tossed his sweater on the bedside chair, then quickly disposed of the buttons of his shirt.

      “You’re faster at that than I remember.” Alex kept his hands at his sides as he watched her, but there was a flame of desire in his eyes.

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