Breaking the Greek's Rules (17 page)

A corner of his mouth quirked up. “It was until I ran into
you again back in September. Then, short answer—no. You’re under my skin. I can’t get rid of you. Wherever I go, wherever I am, there you are.” He made it sound awful, but Daisy suddenly couldn’t stop smiling.

Despairing, Alex shook his head. “I couldn’t get you out of my mind, though God knows, I tried. I told myself I needed a woman who didn’t make me feel all the things you made me feel. But you must have noticed, I couldn’t stay away.”

“Every time I thought I’d seen the last of you, you came back,” Daisy realized. “It made me nervous.”

“Because of Charlie?”

“Partly. But really, I suppose, because I’d … never quite got over you.” She didn’t want to admit it, but if they were being honest, she owed him that. The heat of his gaze was warming her, making her tingle all the way to her toes. At the same time she was still trying to get a grip on the notion that five years ago he’d been falling in love with her, too.

“I wanted you as soon as I saw you again,” he told her.

“On your terms.”

“Hell, yes. Safer that way. And Caroline was safe. I never felt for her the tiniest bit of what I feel for you. I never wanted her. Never missed her. I knew I could live without her. I can’t live without you.”

“Alex.” She touched his cheek with her palm and he turned his face to press his lips into it, his kiss making her shiver.

“I couldn’t ask her to marry me,” he admitted. “I was going to, but I never could.”

“You must have realized she needed someone else.”

He reached up a hand to press her palm against his cheek. He looked down into her eyes, his full of an emotion she’d never dared hope to see there. “Yeah, maybe that was it.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “No, damn it. I was still in love with you.”

Daisy stared at him in astonishment.

“And then I discovered Charlie.”

“And you wanted Charlie.”

“Yes. I love Charlie,” Alex said with an intensity that made her believe it. “Not just because he reminds me of Vass, though God knows he does. I love him because he’s yours. And mine. Because he’s bright and inquisitive and fun and just knowing he’s alive gives me joy.” He shook his head slowly. “And I would give my life for him—and for you. I will go to the ends of the earth for you. I will slay dragons for you. I will get hurt for you. I swear it, Daisy.” There was wonder in his voice.

Daisy opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn’t know what to say. Her eyes brimmed. So did her heart. Dear God, she’d loved this man for years, but never more than she loved him now, now that he had discovered the love he was capable of, the love he was willing to dare to share.

He reached out and touched her cheek, stroking away a tear she didn’t even know was there. Then he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close, let her feel the pounding of his heart, the warmth of his love, the shelter of his embrace.

She leaned against him, letting herself sink into him, loving his strength, his steadiness. She rested her head in the crook between his shoulder and his chin.

“I would have been here sooner,” Alex went on. He spoke softly, his lips against her hair. “But I didn’t think you probably wanted to talk to me again after what you said the last time.”

Daisy raised her eyes to look up at him, feeling guilty. “I didn’t know—”

But Alex shook his head. “No, you were right. It was my problem. You gave me a reason to confront it, to deal with it. And I needed to before I could come back. 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.

“Practice,” Daisy said, beginning to work on the zip of his jeans.

“Practice?” Alex frowned.

“Charlie couldn’t always dress himself.”

He grinned, then sucked in a quick breath when she made quick work of the zipper and her fingers found him. He swallowed hard, then shrugged off his jeans and came to her on the bed, settled next to her, stroked his hands over her with an almost hesitant wonder.

And Daisy felt the same. “I love you,” she whispered, glorying
in being able to say it, to acknowledge it, and to know that he wanted to hear the words.

“I know. But not as much as I love you,” he said, a tremor in his voice and another in the hands that stroked her sensitive skin.

“I’ll show you,” she insisted, and rolled onto her back, drawing him on top of her, wrapping herself around him.

“And I’ll show you,” Alex countered, teasing, tasting, touching. He was so exquisitely gentle, yet possessively so. His fingers found her, knew her, parted her. And then he slid in. “Daze!” His body tensed, froze. And then—at last—he began to move.

“Alex!” Her nails dug into his buttocks. Her head thrashed on the pillow. Her body tightened around him. He made her shiver, he made her quiver, he made her shatter. And he shattered right along with her, his face contorting, his body going rigid, then collapsing to bury his face against her neck.

She stroked his sweat-slick back, then turned her head and kissed his ear and along the whisker-roughened line of his jaw.

When at last he lifted his head it was to look down into her eyes with wonder. “Why did it take me so long to realize?” he murmured, sounding awestruck.

Daisy shook her head. She didn’t need to ask why anymore. She had the answer she needed. “I’m just glad you did.”

He rolled onto his back then and pulled her on top so that she rested her head on his chest and felt the gallop of his heart beneath her cheek. Softly, rhythmically, Alex stroked her hair.

Daisy didn’t know how long they lay like that. She might have slept a little. She thought he did. But when they roused and began to touch, to love again, he raised his head from the pillow and peered down his nose at her. “Is this the sort of match you try to make?” he asked, giving her his heart with his eyes.

Daisy returned his gift full measure. But then she shook her head no.

“It’s better,” she told him, rising up to meet his lips, to love him, to share the wonder once more.

*****

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Barbara Schenck 2012

eISBN: 978-1-408-97473-5