by him. Had almost, heaven help her, kissed him back. It had felt so right, so perfect, so exactly the way it had felt the first time.
But she knew better now.
He had come. He had gone. The other shoe had finally dropped. He wouldn’t come back.
“And it wouldn’t matter if he did,” Daisy said aloud.
Because if one thing was completely obvious, it was that however much more he had become, in fundamentals, Alex hadn’t changed a bit.
He might want to get married now, but he obviously didn’t want anything more than “friends—with benefits.” He didn’t want love. He didn’t want a real marriage. He didn’t want a family.
He didn’t want her.
For a nanosecond her traitorous heart had dared to believe he’d finally come to his senses, had learned the value of love, of relationships, of lifetime commitment.
Thank goodness, a nanosecond was all the time it had taken her to realize that there was no point in getting her hopes up.
Of course he had proved he still wanted her on one level—the one he had always wanted her on. She wasn’t such an innocent that she didn’t know desire when she felt it. And she had felt it hard and firm against her when Alex had kissed her and pressed his body against hers.
But physical desire was just that—a basic instinctive response. It had nothing to do with things that really mattered—love, commitment, responsibility, sharing of hearts and souls, dreams and desires.
It was nothing more than an itch to be scratched.
And she wasn’t about to be a matchmaker for a pairing like that. If he was interested in nothing more than a woman to share his bed—but not his heart—he wouldn’t be interested in the sort of marriages she believed in. So he wouldn’t be back.
And thank God for that—because if her heart still beat faster at the very sight of him and her body melted under his touch, at least her mind knew he was the last person she needed in her life.
Not just in her life, but in the life of the person she loved most in all the world—the one who, at this very moment, she could hear pounding his way up the stairs from the kitchen.
“Mom!” His voice was distant at first, then louder. “Mom!” And louder still as the door banged open. “Mom! Aren’tcha finished working yet? It’s time to go.”
Charlie.
Four and three-quarter years of sunshine and skinned knees and wet kisses and impatience all rolled up in the most wonderful person she knew.
He skidded to a stop in front of her and looked up at her, importuning. “Mom!”
“Charlie!” She smiled at him, echoing his tone, loving him with all her heart.
“Are you ready?” he demanded.
“Almost.” She turned back to close the file she hadn’t done a thing to since Alex had shown up on the doorstep. “Almost,” she repeated, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, then shutting the file.
She wished she could shut her memories of Alex down as easily. She couldn’t. Particularly she couldn’t right now—faced with the small boy staring up at her, all quivering impatience.
Impatience wasn’t Charlie’s middle name, but maybe it should have been. He’d been eager and energetic since the moment of his birth. Before his birth, in fact. He’d come almost two weeks early, right before Christmas. And he’d been taking the world by storm ever since.
He had a chipped tooth from a fall out of a tree back in May. He had a scab on his knee beneath his jeans even now. Daisy had told him last week she was going to buy stock in the Band-Aid company, and after he’d wrinkled his nose and said, “What’s stock?” he’d listened to her brief explanation and said, “Good idea.”
His stick-straight hair, the color of honey shot through with gold, was very close to the same shade as her own. But his light eyes were nothing like her stormy dark blue.
He didn’t look like Alex—except for the shape of his eyes.
And after nearly five years, she was inured to it. She didn’t see Alex in him every time she looked at him. She saw Charlie himself—not Alex’s son.
Except today. Today the eyes were Alex’s. The impatience was Alex’s. The “let’s get moving” was Alex down to the ground.
“In good time,” she said now, determined to slow Charlie down—a little, at least. But she managed a smile as she shut the computer down. And she was sure she was the only one who noticed her hands were shaking.
“You said we’d go at six-thirty. It’s almost six-thirty. The game’s gonna start.” He grabbed one of Daisy’s hands and began to tug her back toward the stairs.
“Coming,” Daisy said. But she straightened her desk, made a note to reorder the Cannavarro files, put her pencil in the drawer. All very methodical. Orderly. Step by step. Pay attention to detail. From the day that she’d learned she was pregnant, it was how she’d managed to cope.
Charlie bounced from one foot to the other until she finished and finally held out a hand to him again. “Okay. Let’s go.” She allowed herself to be towed down the stairs.
“We gotta hurry. We’re gonna be late. Come on. Dad’s pitching.”
Dad. One more reason she prayed that Alexandros Antonides didn’t darken her door again.
“Hey, Sport.” Cal dropped down beside Charlie on the other side of the blanket that Daisy had spread out to sit on while they watched the softball game.
They had been late, as Charlie feared, arriving between innings. But at least Cal, Daisy’s ex-husband, had already pitched in his half, so he could come sit with them until it was his turn to bat.
“We made a fire engine,” Charlie told him. “Me ‘n’ Jess. Outta big red cardboard blocks—this big!” He stretched his hands out a couple of feet at least.
Cal looked suitably impressed. “At preschool?”
Charlie bobbed his head. “You an’ me could make one.”
“Okay. On Saturday,” Cal agreed. “But we’ll have to use a cardboard box and paint it red. Grandpa will be in town. I’ll tell him to bring paint.”
Charlie’s eyes got big. “Super! Wait’ll I tell Jess ‘bout ours.”
“You don’t want to make him jealous,” Cal warned. He grinned at Charlie, then over the boy’s head at his mother.
Daisy smiled back and told herself that nothing had changed. Nothing. She and Charlie were doing what they often did—dropping by to watch Cal play ball in Central Park, which he and a few diehards continued to do well after the softball leagues ended in the summer. Now, in early October, there was a nip in the air, and the daylight was already going. But they continued to play.
And she and Charlie would continue to come and watch.
It was the joy of a civilized divorce, Daisy often reminded herself. She and Cal didn’t hate each other—and they both loved Charlie.
“—you?”
She realized suddenly that Cal was no longer talking to Charlie. He was talking to her. “Sorry,” she said, flustered. “I was just … thinking about something.”
“Apparently,” Cal said drily. Then he looked at her more closely. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She looked around. “Where’s Charlie?”
Cal nodded in the direction of the trees where Charlie and the son of another one of the players were playing in the dirt. “He’s fine. You’re not. Something’s wrong.”
“No. Why should anything