Breaking the Greek's Rules (4 page)

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 be wrong?” That was the trouble with Cal. He’d always been able to read her like a book.

“You’re edgy. Distracted. Late,” he said pointedly.

“I didn’t realize you were timing me. I’ve got things on my mind, Cal. Work—”

But he cut her off. “And you’re biting my head off, which isn’t like you, Daze. And you must’ve come on the bus.”

“The bus?” she said stupidly.

“You always walk, so Charlie can ride his bike.” Cal looked around pointedly. There was no bike because, he was right, they hadn’t had time to bring it. Charlie wanted to ride his bike everywhere. It was the smallest two-wheeler Daisy had ever seen, but Charlie loved it. Daisy was sure he would have slept with it every night if she hadn’t put her foot down. Cal had given it to Charlie for his fourth birthday.

Daisy had protested, had said he was too young, that no four-year-old needed a bike.

“Not every four-year-old,” Cal had agreed. “Just this one.” He’d met her skeptical gaze with confident brown eyes and quiet certainty. “Because he wants it more than anything on earth.”

Daisy couldn’t argue with that. If Charlie’s first word hadn’t been
bike
it had been in the first ten. He’d pointed and crowed, “Bike!” well before his first birthday. And he’d been desperate for a bicycle last winter. She hadn’t thought it would last. But Cal had insisted, and he’d been right.

Charlie’s eyes had shone when he’d spotted the bike that morning. And over the past six months, his love for it had only grown. Since Cal had helped him learn to balance and he could now ride it unaided, Charlie wanted to ride it everywhere.

Usually she let him ride to the park while she walked alongside him. But they had been late today because … because of her visitor.

She was suddenly aware that Cal was watching her, not the game. “He doesn’t have to ride his bike every time,” she said testily. “And it’s nearly dark.”

“True.” Cal stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back, resting his weight on his elbows and forearms as his gaze slowly moved away from her to focus on the game, yelling at the batter to focus. Then, still keeping his gaze on the batter, he persisted quietly, “So why don’t you just tell me.”

He wasn’t going to leave it alone. She’d never won an argument with Cal. She’d never been able to convince him of anything. If he was wrong, he couldn’t be told. He always had to figure it out himself—like his “I can love anyone I will myself to” edict. He’d been as wrong about that as she had been about her “love at first sight” belief.

Clearly, when it came to love, the two of them didn’t know what they were talking about.

Now he stared at her and she plucked at the grass beside the blanket, stared at it.
Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed
. She tried to make it into a mantra so she could convince herself. But she was no better at lying to herself than she was at
lying to her ex-husband. Finally she raised her gaze to meet his as he turned away from the game to look at her. “I saw Alex.”

There was the crack of bat hitting ball. Whoops and yells abounded.

Cal never turned his head to see what happened. His eyes never left Daisy’s. He blinked once. That was all. The rest of his body went still, though. And his words, when they came, were quiet. “Saw him where?”

Daisy ran her tongue over dry lips. “He came to my office.”

Cal waited, not pressing, allowing her to tell the story in her own way, in her own time.

And she couldn’t quite suppress the ghost of a smile that touched her lips. “Looking for a matchmaker.”

“What!”
Cal’s jaw dropped.

Hysterical laughter bubbled up just as it had threatened to do when Alex told her. This time Daisy gave in to it. “He’s looking for a wife.”

“You?” Cal demanded.

“No. He was as surprised as I was when he knocked on my door. He didn’t know he was coming to see me.”

“Then how—?”

“Lukas sent him.”

Cal’s eyes widened. His teeth came together. “Lukas needs to mind his own business.”

“Of course. But Lukas never does. Besides, he didn’t have any idea what he was doing. He never knew about Alex and me. No one did.” No one ever had except Cal—and only because when she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d had to talk to someone. “Don’t blame Lukas. He thinks he’s doing me a favor sending clients my way. And he is, I suppose. Most of the time. Not this time,” she said quietly.

“No.” Cal stared down at his fingers plucking at the grass for a moment. Then his gaze lifted and went toward Charlie who was still playing with his friend in the dirt. The question was there, but unspoken.

“I didn’t say a word.”

“But he—”

Daisy shook her head. “No. That hasn’t changed. He wouldn’t want to know.”

“Still?” Cal persisted.

“No. He doesn’t want relationships any more than he ever did,” Daisy said firmly. “He doesn’t want a real wife—he wants a woman to take to social events and go to bed with. It will save him the effort of having to go out and find one, charm one.”

“He charmed you,” Cal pointed out.

Cal, of course, knew that. He knew the whole sordid story.

She had met Cal Connolly when she’d taken the job with Finn after college. Cal had been the photographer she’d replaced, Finn’s assistant before her.

Even after Cal hung out his own shingle, he had regularly come by Finn’s to talk shop. Daisy had been included in the conversation. She learned a great deal from both of them.

Finn was brilliant, mercurial—and impatient. Cal was steadier, calmer, more methodical. He didn’t yell quite as much. Finn had a wife and growing family. Cal was single, on his own. So it was Cal she began to spend time with. And while Finn had always remained her mentor, Cal had quickly become her best pal.

When she wasn’t working for Finn, she had spent hours working with Cal, talking with him, arguing with him. They argued about everything from camera lenses to baseball teams to sushi rolls, from free will to evolution to love at first sight.

That had always been their biggest argument: did you love because—bang!—it hit you between the eyes? Or did you love because you decided who the right person was and made up your mind?

Because of her parents, Daisy had been a staunch believer in the “love at first sight” notion.

“I just haven’t met the right person,” she had maintained over and over. “When I do, I’ll know. In an instant. And it will be perfect.”

But Cal had scoffed at that. Ever the logical realist, he’d said, “Nonsense. I don’t believe it for a minute. That makes you nothing but a victim of your hormones.”

“It’s not hormones. It’s instinct.”

But Cal had disagreed. “You can will whom you love,” he’d told her firmly. “It’s a rational decision.”

So when he’d proposed to her, he’d been determined to demonstrate just that. “Obviously your way doesn’t work,” he’d pointed out. “So we’ll try it my way now.”

And Daisy, because she did love Cal—just not the way she thought she loved Alex—had faced the truth of her own folly. And she’d said yes.

It turned out they were both wrong. But they’d given it their best shot. And Daisy still did believe in love—now she had a codicil: it was apparently for other people.

Now Daisy let out a sigh and wrapped a blade of grass around her finger where Cal’s wedding ring once had been.

“So, are you going to do it? Matchmake for him?” Cal asked.

“Of course not.”

He grunted. “Good.” He stared out across the field. “Was it … the same? Did you feel … this time … what you felt before?”

It was all Daisy could do not to touch her tongue to her lips. Instead she pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, in full cocoon mode. “He’s still charming,” she admitted.

Cal had been watching the next batter swing and miss. But at her words he turned his head and shot her a sharp glance.

Daisy gave him a quick humorless smile. “Speaking objectively. Don’t worry. I’m not a fool anymore.”

“So I should hope.”

The batter swung and missed. Cal hauled himself to his feet to go pitch another inning. “You all right? Anything I can do?”

“No. He won’t be back.”

Cal cocked his head. “No?” He didn’t sound so sure.

“Why would he? I didn’t invite him in. I didn’t encourage
him at all.”
I didn’t kiss him back!
“And he doesn’t want me. He wants some woman who won’t care.”

“And Charlie?”

“He doesn’t know about Charlie. I’m doing him a favor, really,” she said firmly. “He doesn’t want kids. He never did.”

“Because he doesn’t think he has any,” Cal pointed out. “What if he finds out he does?”

“He won’t.”

“But if—” Cal persisted. It was what she hated about him.

“Charlie is mine! And yours.”

She had always told Charlie—not that he understood yet really—that he had two fathers—a birth father who had given him life, and Cal, the father he knew. Charlie didn’t question it. Someday he would, no doubt. But by then it would be ingrained in his mind. There would never be a time when she had to “tell him” his father was not Cal.

Because in every way that counted, his father was Cal. Cal was the one who had been there for her. He’d been her husband when Charlie was born. Charlie bore his surname. He was the only father Charlie knew.

If someday he wanted to know about Alex, she’d tell him. If someday in the distant future, Alex learned he had a child, perhaps they would meet. But not now. Now Charlie was a child. He was vulnerable. He didn’t need a father who didn’t want him.

“You don’t know what he’ll do, Daze,” Cal said heavily, “if he finds out.”

“He won’t find out.” She would make sure of that.

Cal’s smile was grim. “We hope.”

A
DAY
went by. Two.

Daisy still kept looking over her shoulder—well, out the window, actually—feeling skittish. Apprehensive.

She checked the caller ID every time the phone rang. Her breath caught whenever she saw a shadow on the front steps.

She actually dropped the kettle she was filling this morning, even though it was just the FedEx man bringing an order to Mrs. Kaminski upstairs.

Now she was filling it again for her friend Nell, who had just brought Charlie home from preschool and was staying for a cup of tea and regarding her curiously all the while.

“Something wrong?”

“No. I just … dropped the kettle this morning. I’m trying to be more careful now.” Daisy set it on the burner and turned the gas on.

“Cal giving you trouble?” It was always the first thing Nell thought of because her own ex-husband, Scott, was a continual source of irritation.

“Cal never gives me trouble,” Daisy said. She glanced out the sliding door to the garden where Charlie and Nell’s son Geoff were playing with trucks.

Nell grimaced. “Lucky you. Scott’s driving me crazy.”

Daisy wasn’t glad to hear that Scott was creating difficulties in her friend’s life, but talking about it did avert Nell’s further interest in Daisy’s edginess. She gave Daisy an earful
about her ex while they drank their tea and ate biscotti. Daisy made soothing sounds, but Nell was still grumbling when she decided it was time to go. She called Geoff in and they headed out the front door.

Relieved that her life was nowhere near as complicated as her friend’s, Daisy was feeling much more sanguine when the phone rang as the door shut behind Nell and her son.

“Daisy Connolly,” she said brightly into the phone.

“Daisy.” The voice was warm, slightly gruff and instantly recognizable. The intimate tone of it made the hairs on the back of Daisy’s neck stand straight up. Why hadn’t she checked the ID this time?

“Yes. This is Daisy,” she said crisply. “Who is this?”

“You know who it is.” There was a smile in his voice as he called her bluff.

“Alex,” she said flatly because playing the fool any longer wasn’t going to help matters a bit.

“See. I knew you’d figure it out.” He was grinning now. She could hear that, too.

“What do you want?”

“Are you married?”

“What?”

“I remembered you weren’t Daisy Connolly back then. Wasn’t your last name Harris? Morris?”

“Harris.”

There was a brief silence. “So you did marry.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” she said firmly.

“And now?”

“What do you mean, and now?” Why did he have to ask? What business was it of his?

“Are you still … married?”

What kind of question was that? Damn it. She wanted to lie. But she’d never been a good liar, and though her acquaintance with Alex hadn’t been long, it had been intense. She was sure he would be able to tell if she did.

“I’m divorced.” She bit the words out.

“Ah.”

Which meant what? Never mind. She didn’t want to know. “Alex,” she said with all the patience she could muster. “I’m working.”

“This is work.”

“No. I told you, I’m not matchmaking for you.”

“I got that. You don’t want what I want.” He parroted her sentiments back to her. “This is photography. Or are you going to turn me down for that, too?”

She opened her mouth, wanting desperately to do exactly that. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled her. “What sort of photography?” she said. “I do family stuff.”

“And weddings. And bar mitzvahs. And some professional head shots. Some editorial. Recreation. Ice skating,” he added. “Frisbee in the park. Baseball games.” He ticked off half a dozen scenarios that were all shoots she had actually done.

“How do you know that?”

“You have a website,” he reminded her. “The internet is a wonderful thing.”

Daisy, grinding her teeth, wasn’t so sure. Her fingers tapped an irritated staccato on the countertop. Outside Charlie was making vrooming noises as he pushed his cars around the patio. Any minute he’d slide open the door and want a snack. To prevent it, she latched the sliding door and got some crackers out of the cupboard and cheese from the refrigerator, preempting his demand. “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

“I need photos. An architectural journal is doing a piece on me and some of the work I’ve done. They’ve got photos of my projects from all over the world. Now they want some of me on one of the sites.” He paused. “They said they could send a photographer—”

“Then let them.”

“But I’d rather have you.”

She wanted to say, Why? But she didn’t want to hear his answer. Besides, asking would open a whole new can of worms.

“Not my line,” she said briskly as she slapped cheese between the crackers and made little sandwiches for Charlie.

“You do editorial. I’ve seen magazine articles.”

“Yes. But I don’t traipse all over the world. I work in the city.”

“The building is in Brooklyn.” He gave her a second to digest that, then added, “I seem to remember you cross the river.”

They had crossed the river together coming back from the wedding on Long Island. Daisy felt the walls closing in.

“Yes, I cross the river.
If
I have time. I’m busy.”

“Any time in the next two weeks,” he said smoothly. “And don’t tell me that every minute of your life is booked.”

Daisy heard the challenge in his voice. It was just another way of saying,
I don’t believe you’re really over me at all. You still want me. And now that you’re divorced you might not believe in that ridiculous “love at first sight” notion anymore. You might be glad for a roll in bed
.

And, if it weren’t for Charlie, heaven help her, she might.

“Are you still there? Daisy?” he prompted when she didn’t reply.

She drew a breath. “I might have something next week. Let me check.” It was the only way she could think of to prove to him—and to herself—that she wasn’t a weak-willed fool.

She put the cracker sandwiches on a paper plate, flipped up the latch and slid open the door. Charlie looked up and, at the sight of the plate, grinned and jumped to his feet.

Daisy put a finger to her lips to shush him before he could speak, grateful that she’d taught him almost since he could talk not to blurt things out where people on the phone could hear him. That way, she’d explained, he wouldn’t have to have a babysitter as often if she could take calls as if she were in her office when, in fact, she was at home.

Charlie had learned quickly. Now he stuffed a cracker
sandwich into his mouth, then carried the plate back to his trucks. For a moment, Daisy just watched him and felt her heart squeeze with love. Then quietly she slid the door shut and went to look at her appointment book.

“Where in Brooklyn? What sort of photos?” she asked as she flipped through the pages of her day planner.

“Park Slope.” Alex gave her the address. “It’s a pre-war building.”

“I thought you were an architect. Don’t you design new buildings?”

“Not this one. I built this one from the inside out. The outside is pretty much intact, except for the windows. I fixed the windows. The place was in really awful shape and the guy who owned it wanted it removed. He wanted me to put up a new building there. But when I got into it, I couldn’t see tearing it down. Structurally it was sound. And it had some really strong period architectural features. It fit the block, the surroundings. So I made him a deal. I bought it from him and he bought land a couple of miles away. Then I built him what he wanted there, and I kept this one for myself.”

The eagerness and the satisfaction in his voice reminded her of when he’d talked about his hopes for his career. He’d already done some big projects for the company he’d worked for then. But those had been projects he’d been assigned, ones that had been the vision of someone else. Now it sounded like he had taken the reins and was making his own choices, his own decisions.

“Are you your own boss now?” she asked, unable not to.

“For the last five years.” He hesitated, then went on so smoothly she might have imagined the brief pause. “There was never going to be the perfect time to leave, so I just … jumped in.”

“You like it?”

“Couldn’t be happier,” he said. “What about you? You’ve obviously left the guy you were working for.”

“Finn? Yes. And I like what I’m doing, too.”

“You can tell me all about it—if you can see a way to work me into your schedule?”

He made it sound very straightforward. A job. No more. No less. Maybe this really was all business.

Daisy could almost—but not quite—forget the way he’d kissed her. Deliberately she shoved the thought away. “What sort of thing does the writer have in mind?” she asked. “What do they want to feature?”

“Me,” Alex said ruefully. “Up-and-coming architect, blah, blah, blah. I designed a hospital wing—first one I’ve done—and it’s up for some award.”

“That’s great.” And not surprising, really. She imagined that Alex would be good at whatever he did. “Where? Nearby?”

“Upstate a ways. Same side of the river, though,” he added drily. “They used staff photos for that. They want ones of me and of the place in Brooklyn because it’s a new departure for me. So you’d be shooting it now—plenty of awful ‘then’ photos already available. And then they want some of me ‘in my environment.’” His tone twisted the words wryly. “With a pencil protector in my pocket.” She could hear his grin. “Playing with blueprints. I don’t know. You will.”

If
she did it. And maybe she should. Maybe it was exactly what she needed to do—learn about the man, demythologize him, turn him into some digital files and eight-by-ten-inch glossies.

“I can spare a bit of time next Thursday afternoon. Say, around three?”

“Great. I’ll pick you up.”

“I’ll meet you. Just give me the address again.” It was business. Just business.

He gave her the address. She wrote it down.

Then he said, “See you Thursday. Bye.”

And he was gone. Just like that.

She had second thoughts. And third. And thirty-third. By the time Saturday rolled around, it was all she could think about.

“So call him and tell him you can’t,” Cal said when he came by to pick up Charlie Saturday morning. Charlie had already given her a smacking kiss goodbye and bolted out the door eager to tell his grandfather about the fire engine they were going to make.

But Cal hadn’t followed him. He was eying her curiously as Daisy told him about Alex’s call and his offer of the photography job. She also admitted to her qualms.

“It’s just … distracting!” She stuck her hands in her hair and tugged.

“Why do it then? Call him up and tell him no.”

“He’ll want to know why.”

“You’re not obliged to tell him.”

“If I don’t, he’ll get suspicious.”

“About what? Is he going to think you’re hiding his son from him?”

“No, of course not. He’ll think—” Daisy hesitated “—that I’m still in love with him. That I don’t trust myself around him.”

“Possible,” Cal agreed. “Or maybe you don’t trust him.”

Maybe she didn’t trust either of them. The attraction was still there on a physical level. She hadn’t told Cal about Alex’s kiss. Or her reaction to it. There were some things better left unsaid. Now she just shrugged. “It’ll be all right,” she murmured.

Cal gave her a long hard look. She tried to remain indifferent under his gaze, but Cal was a photographer, too. He saw things that other people couldn’t see.

“Is it just hormones?” he said at last. “Or something more?”

Daisy flushed, giving him yet another telltale sign. “I’m curious about what he’s done with the building. About the sort of work he’s doing.”

“Uh-huh.” Cal wasn’t having any of it.

“Really. I wouldn’t jeopardize Charlie’s future. You know that.” She looked at him steadily.

“Keep it in mind,” Cal warned.

“No fear. I’m not an airy-fairy fool anymore.”

Cal looked as if he doubted that. But at last he shrugged. “If you say so.”

“In fact,” Daisy added, “I think this may be a good thing. I can learn more about his real life, so I’ll be able to tell Charlie about it someday.”

“Oh, there’s a plus,” Cal muttered.

“It’ll be fine.” She put a hand on his sleeve. “Really, Cal. Don’t worry.”

Cal let out a slow breath. “I’m trying not to.” He started toward the door and then turned back. “Charlie hasn’t seen him? He hasn’t seen Charlie?”

“No!” She smiled her best reassuring smile.

“Someday …”

“Someday they’ll meet. Someday when Charlie is older. Grown-up. Settled. And if he has questions in the meantime, I’ll answer them. But I’m not setting him up to be hurt! You know that. We’ve discussed it.” When a man felt about having kids the way Alex did, deliberately introducing him into Charlie’s life wasn’t a risk she wanted to take.

Besides, he had a perfectly fine father in Cal. And one father was enough—for the moment at least.

“C’mon, Dad!” Charlie poked his head out of the window of the car.

“Go on, Dad,” Daisy urged him. “And don’t you worry. I’m doing enough for both of us. And it’s silly, really. I will be fine. I’ll shoot his photos, admire his handsome face and come home. End of story. Trust me. I can take care of myself.”

The building Alex had restored wasn’t far from Prospect Park. Daisy found it easily. It sat on the corner of a residential street filled with brownstones and trees and a business cross street that was wider, had fewer trees to block the view, and gave her plenty of scope.

She’d arrived early to scope out the neighborhood, wanted to get herself in work-mode before she ever laid eyes on him.
The day was cool and crisp, the trees in their full autumn glory as she walked down the block, studying the building side on.

At a few minutes before three the sun was low enough that the shadows picked out some of the ornate carved relief on the facing of the top floor, sharpening the detail, showing the building to best advantage. Daisy took out her camera before she was halfway down the block, framed and shot. She took a dozen or more, then crossed the main thoroughfare to study the angles.