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.
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 been.
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