Breaking the Greek's Rules

by Anne McAllister

  “You’re a brave guy,” he said, keeping his gaze on Charlie.

  The boy nodded solemnly.

  “We’ll ride bikes together sometime soon,” Alex promised, his smile crooked. “Okay?”

  Another nod and a tentative smile.

  He could hear Daisy’s indrawn breath. “Good night, Alex.” She paused, then added evenly, “Thank you for … everything.”

  For everything? His eyes asked her.

  For giving you a son?

  “Who’s he?” Charlie asked as Daisy carried him up the stairs.

  “A man I used to know. A … friend.” But she was distracted as she spoke, remembering Alex’s narrowed gaze as he’d watched her carrying Charlie across the emergency room.

  He didn’t know, she assured herself. He couldn’t.

  It was Charlie’s mere existence that had surprised him—that she had a son. And his terseness simply meant that he was annoyed she hadn’t told him.

  In Charlie’s room, she flicked on the light and deposited him gently on the bed. She rarely carried him anywhere these days, and having done so now, she was almost out of breath, surprised at how big he’d gotten since she used to carry him all the time.

  “My arm hurts.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” She bent to kiss his soft hair, then smoothed her hand over it, pulling back as she remembered that Alex had just done the same thing. “I guess maybe you won’t leap from bunk beds anymore?”

  Charlie pursed his lips, considering. “Not till I’m bigger,” he decided. “Crash can do it.”

  “Maybe you should wait till you’re nine or ten then.” She got his pajamas off the hook behind the door.

  “Maybe.” Charlie took the pajamas, then tried to wriggle out of the jacket he still had over his shoulders and one arm.

  “I’ll help you tonight,” Daisy said. “But you’re going to have to figure out how to do it yourself, too.” She eased off the jacket, then lifted the hem of his shirt and began to slide it up and over his good arm and his head.

  “Maybe Alex could teach me.”

  “What?” She jerked back, then stared at the pair of bright eyes that popped into view as the shirt came off. “Why would he?”

  “‘Cause he broke his arm,” Charlie said simply. “He’d know how.”

  “Oh. Well …” Daisy made a noncommittal sound. “I’m pretty sure you can figure it out without Alex’s help.” She finished getting his clothes off and his pajamas on. “Go wash your face and brush your teeth.”

  Charlie flopped back on the bed. “But I’m tired. Do I hafta?”

  “Yes. Even boys who fall off bunk beds have to maintain a minimum of civil decorum.”

  “I didn’t fall,” Charlie protested. But he allowed her to pull him up. “I jumped. An’ what’s ‘civil deck-somethin’?” Charlie loved big words.

  “Civil decorum,” Daisy repeated. It was what she had tried to maintain for the past hour and a half. She said, “Behaving like a well-brought-up clean child.”

  “Ugh.” But Charlie slid off the bed and padded toward the bathroom while Daisy gathered up his clothes. “Oh!” she heard him say brightly. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” The unexpected sound of Alex’s voice right outside the door sent Daisy hurrying out. She skidded to a halt a second before she collided with his chest.

  “You didn’t leave.”

  “No.” He had propped a shoulder against the wall outside Charlie’s bedroom door and stood there meeting her gaze, then his eyes dropped to Charlie, and Daisy felt more than a flicker of unease.

  He didn’t say anything. But even quiet and unmoving, his presence seemed to overpower everything else. He was too big. Too close. The space was too intimate. And the situation didn’t bear thinking about. She didn’t want him here.

  But she didn’t know how to get rid of him without causing Charlie to wonder what was going on. He already had to wonder. No man but Cal had ever been upstairs.

  But Alex was, right here in the hallway, his dark hair disheveled, as if he had run his fingers through it. He looked incongruous here in his formal evening wear, but even as she thought it, she realized the formal evening wear wasn’t so formal anymore. He’d removed his tie—it dangled from his pocket—and he’d undone the top two buttons of his shirt.

  It had the effect of making him look more masculine and primal than ever—with the added misfortune of reminding her of how he’d looked five years ago when she’d brought him into her tiny apartment after the wedding. He was all the things he’d been then and all the things she’d been at pains to resist earlier this evening—too broad-shouldered, too imposing and too damned predatorily male.

  “I came to say good night to Charlie.” His tone was measured, his words easy, understandable and, to Charlie, unthreatening.

  But Daisy knew a threat when she heard one. She took a quick breath. “Say good night, Charlie.”

  Charlie tipped his head back to look up at Alex, but instead of saying good night, he said, “Can you teach me to get my shirt on an’ off over my cast?”

  Alex nodded. “I can.”

  “No, he can’t. It’s after one in the morning. You need to go to bed,” Daisy said firmly.

  “I’ll show you,” Alex promised smoothly. “Tomorrow.”

  “But—” Charlie began.

  “Your mother’s right,” Alex said firmly. “You need to sleep.”

  “I can’t sleep. My arm hurts,” Charlie argued.

  “But you’re tough,” Alex reminded him. The two of them looked at each other. Two men understanding each other—even though one of them was only four.

  “Teeth, Charlie,” Daisy said firmly. “And wash your face. Now.” She took hold of his shoulders and steered him past Alex, doing her best not to brush against him in the narrow hallway. If she’d hoped he’d take the hint and go, she was out of luck.

  He didn’t budge, just waited until Charlie had brushed his teeth—awkwardly because he had to do it left-handed—and scrubbed at his face with a washcloth. He didn’t use soap, but Daisy didn’t make him do it again. She just wanted him in bed.

  “Right,” she said briskly. “Off to bed.”

  Obediently Charlie headed back down the hall, but stopped directly in front of Alex. He looked up again. “G’night.”

  And Daisy remembered when she’d seen the photo of Charlie looking up at Cal’s father and had realized how similar her son’s profile was to Alex’s. They were indeed remarkably alike.

  Was that how Alex had known? Or was it some scary primal innate recognition between father and son? She didn’t know. She only knew that the still-deep emotion that she could sense simmering in Alex was more elemental than just a response to discovering she had a child she hadn’t told him about.

  The question was no longer: Did he know?

  The question was: What was he going to do now?

  He reached out a hand and brushed the top of Charlie’s head once more. “Good night,” he said gravely. “It was nice meeting you, Charlie.” His fingers lingered for a moment, then he withdrew them and tucked them into the pocket of his trousers and brought his gaze up to meet Daisy’s. “At last.”

  She suppressed a shiver, then swallowed. With her eyes she beseeched him to be silent, and was relieved when he didn’t say anything else. Giving him a fleeting grateful smile, she slipped past him to follow Charlie into his bedroom where she shut the door with a solid click.

  Whatever Alex might have to say to her—and she had no doubt he had plenty to say—he could say it tomorrow. Or next month. Not now.

  Her priority was Charlie. It was the middle of the night and he’d been hurt, and it didn’t matter that her brain was whirling a million miles a minute. If she pushed him, he would balk and take even longer.

  So she did everything in his bedtime routine. She tucked him in, then read him a bedtime story. She listened as he told her about his day, including a long involved account of everything he’d done at Rip and Crash’s house, what he didn
’t like about the emergency room, and ultimately, as she’d feared, questions about Alex.

  “Do you think he’ll ride bikes with me?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s a busy man.”

  “He said he would.”

  “Yes. And maybe he will.”

  “Remind him.”

  Daisy made a noncommittal sound. “Prayers,” she reminded him, and when he’d finished, she added a desperate silent one of her own. Then she kissed her son good-night.

  Charlie clutched her hand when she got up to leave. “Stay.”

  “Charlie.”

  “My arm hurts. Sing to me,” he pleaded.

  That wasn’t part of the regular nightly routine, but sometimes when he was sick and irritable, she could calm him with some silly songs. “You’re tired.”

  His big eyes drooped even as he nodded. “I’ll sleep. Sing.”

  So Daisy turned out the light, determinedly shut out the turmoil roiling around in her mind, and sat back down on the bed beside him.

  Maybe it would soothe them both, she thought as she began to sing. There was a boat song, and a campfire song, and a bus, train and truck song. She had made them up about Charlie’s life when he was a toddler. He knew them by heart. Now he settled against her, his eyes shut, the blue cast dark against the pale blanket that covered him. His breathing slowed.

  Her voice slowed, too, and finally stopped. Waited. Watched him. And finally when she was sure he was asleep, she dipped her head and kissed him.

  “I love you,” she whispered, brushing a hand over his hair. Then she put out the bedside light and slipped quietly out of his room, shutting the door after her.

  The clock in her bedroom said five minutes of two. Daisy felt as if she’d been up for two days. Or weeks.

  Wearily, she stripped off Izzy’s dress. It still sparkled in the soft bedside light. It had made her sparkle in the beginning. She didn’t sparkle now. She felt as if she’d been run over by a truck. She flexed her bare shoulders and shivered as she stared into the mirror over her dresser. A pale, hollow-eyed, haunted version of herself stared back.

  She felt ill. Exhausted. And scared.

  Alex knew. And soon he would confront her about Charlie. He would say whatever he had to say about the son he hadn’t known he had. The son he never wanted. She felt a tremor run through her.

  Whatever he said, he could say it to her. He wasn’t going to say it to Charlie. Charlie wasn’t ever going to hear that he wasn’t wanted. Ever!

  Maybe, with luck, Alex would pretend he didn’t know. Maybe he would simply walk away. She could hope.

  Quickly pulling on her nightgown, she wrapped up in her fuzzy chenille robe and tiptoed down the hall to brush her teeth and wash her face. Then she went downstairs to let Murphy out. She would have done it when she first got home, but Charlie had taken precedence.

  Murphy wagged his tail, delighted to see her. She rubbed his ears and kissed the top of his head. Then she slid open the door to the back garden, Murphy went out, and she slid it closed against the snowy December night. Then, while he was out there, she went to put the dead bolt on the front door. Alex couldn’t have done it when he left.

  If he had left.

  He hadn’t. He was sprawled, eyes closed, on the sofa.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FOR a moment Daisy didn’t even breathe, just pressed a hand protectively against her breasts and felt her heart pound wildly beneath it.

  She dared hope he was asleep—because hoping he was a figment of her imagination was not a possibility. But even as she did so, Alex’s eyes fluttered open and he rolled to a sitting position.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Alex rolled his shoulders, working the stiffness out. He had taken off his coat and the stark white of his shirt made his shoulders seem broader than ever. He looked at her levelly. “Waiting for you.”

  “It’s late!”

  His eyes bored into her. “Five years late.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. Her fingers knotted together.

  “You know.” His gaze was steady, his eyes chips of green ice.

  “Alex,” she protested.

  “We’re done playing games, Daisy.”

  “I’m not—”

  “We’re going to talk.” There was a thread of steel in his voice now, and as he spoke, he stood up. Slightly more than six feet of whipcord muscle and testosterone somehow filled the room.

  Daisy stepped back. “I have to let the dog in.”

  He shrugged. “Go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Exactly what she was afraid of. She hurried through the kitchen and fumbled with shaking fingers to open the sliding-glass door for Murphy. It wasn’t just her fingers shaking, her whole body was trembling, and it had nothing to do with the cold December night. The cold in Alex’s stare was a different story.

  Murphy trotted in, wagging his tail cheerfully. Daisy shut the door and slid the bolt home, then cast a longing look at the stairs that led up to her room. But retreat wasn’t an option. So, wiping damp palms down the sides of her robe, she went back to the living room.

  Alex was standing by the mantel, holding the photo of her and Charlie and Cal taken last Christmas. At her footsteps, he took one last look and he set it back on the mantel, then looked over at her. “Is this your ex?”

  She nodded. “That’s Cal.”

  “Very cozy.”

  “It was Christmas. Christmas is cozy.”

  “You look happy.”

  “We were happy.” She hugged her arms across her chest.

  “You were still married to him then?”

  “No.”

  One dark brow arched in surprise. “But you had a picture taken together?”

  “Yes.” She wasn’t giving him any explanations. She didn’t owe him any.

  “He’s not Charlie’s father.”

  “Yes, he is.” She had been married to Cal when Charlie was born. He was the father on Charlie’s birth certificate. He was the father that Charlie called Dad. He was a father to Charlie in every way that mattered.

  “Not by blood, he’s not.”

  Daisy swallowed, then lifted her chin. “And you know this how?”

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thin black leather billfold. Opening the wallet, he took out a photo, crossed the room and handed it to her. It was a small color snapshot of two young boys, grinning at the camera.

  Daisy saw only one. He could have been Charlie.

  He was older than Charlie, maybe nine or ten. But his eyes were Charlie’s—the same shape, the same light color. He had the same sharp nose, spattered with freckles, the same wide grin. He even had the same straight honey-blonde hair that she’d always assured herself had come from her side of the family.

  She clutched the photo so tightly, her fingers trembled. Her throat tightened and she shut her eyes. She couldn’t breathe.

  Alex didn’t seem to be breathing, either. He was stone silent and unmoving. Waiting for her to speak?

  But what could she say?

  Slowly she opened her eyes again and began to study the picture more carefully. The two boys were standing on a beach, bare-chested and wearing shorts, the sea lapping bright blue behind them. They had their arms slung around each other’s shoulders and they were laughing into the camera. The older boy was the one who looked like Charlie. The other was younger, maybe six or seven, with a front tooth missing. He had dark shaggy hair and light eyes. Daisy knew those eyes.

  Slowly, cautiously, she looked up at them now. “It’s you …” she said so softly she doubted he could hear her. Her thumb stroked over the dark-haired boy’s face. “And your brother.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. He nodded. “Vassilios.”

  Of course it was. His beloved brother, his hero, the beautiful loving boy whose death had destroyed his family looked almost exactly like Charlie.

  Dear God, what a shock seeing his son must have b
een.

  Outside a siren wailed as a fire truck went up Central Park West. Inside, the room was so silent she could hear the old oak mantel clock tick. She could hear Murphy two rooms away in the kitchen lapping up water. It was the calm before the storm.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” His voice accused her, anguished, ragged, furious. He plucked the photo back out of her hand, his fingers fumbling as he slid it back in his wallet and shoved it into his pocket.

  She heard the pain, the anguish, the accusation. On one level she understood them. But she remembered pain and anguish of her own.

  “Why the hell should I?” she countered, stung by his fury. “You didn’t want a child. You said so! I babbled about marriage and family and you were quite clear. No marriage. No family! Why should I have told you?”

  “That was before I knew I had one! How could I say I didn’t want my son when I didn’t even know he existed?”

  “You didn’t want him to exist!”

  His nostrils flared and his jaw clamped shut. He balled his fingers into fists, as if he were trying to control what he did with them. Like strangle her. “You kept my son from me!”

  “I took you at your word!”

  “Damn it!” Alex let out a harsh breath. He glared at her, then raked his fingers through his hair and paced the room. At the far end, he whirled around. “You knew how I felt about my brother!”

  Yes, she had known. She knew that Vassilios had been the favorite son, the star, the heir. She knew that everyone had loved him. Even Alex. Especially Alex. Vassilios had been bright, funny, caring, social. Everything, Alex had told Daisy five years ago, that he himself was not.

  But Vass had been so wonderful that Alex hadn’t envied him. He’d only wanted to be like him. He had loved his brother deeply. Vassilios’s death had irrevocably changed his life.

  She had known that losing his brother was the main reason Alex never wanted children. It was the reason Alex had originally never wanted to marry. He didn’t want to love, he’d told her. Love hurt.

  Dear God, she could agree with that. She’d hurt more in the aftermath of his leaving and her discovering she was having his child than she could ever have imagined. She’d loved him—and lost him—and for nearly five years now had Charlie to remind her of that loss.