LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

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