Daisy's Choice (A Tale of Three Hearts) (36 page)

“
What?” Daisy gasped.

“
Come to Auntie Amy.” Janette reached for her niece. Amy turned away, but Janette pulled her from Aiden’s arms. Reluctantly, he parted with her. Amy moaned in protest but went without much of a fight.

“
You smell like a little boy. Let’s get you cleaned up,” Janette chuckled, walking past Daisy. Daisy looked at her sister, gesturing with her brows for an explanation.

“
He came to see you. I guess you need to see why,” she said, walking off. She climbed the stairs and disappeared.

“
What did you tell her?” she said, tossing her purse and keys.

“
She invited me in,” Aiden said.

“
I doubt that. Janette?”

“
She thinks we need to talk and I agree. You took Amy and spent the day with Pete? Why?”

“
That’s none of your business.” Daisy walked by him, but he followed looking at her backside in her jeans and the way her messy ponytail swayed at her back. Where did Pete take her? Was it the dirt hills of Kentucky? She stopped at the fridge and got a bottle of Pepsi. He watched her fuming while she drank, eyeing him.

“
You and Petie-boy have fun?”

“
What do you want, Aiden?”

“
To tell you about tomorrow.”

Daisy lowered the bottle. “Tomorrow what?”

“
Tomorrow we take the test. I’ve arranged it at the hospital. We can get the results rushed through.”

“
Who the hell do you think you are doing that?”

“
Her father, that’s who. And I’m sick of waiting for you to acknowledge it. I sure as hell don’t want her with Petie-boy! You’re confusing her!”

“
I’m confusing her! You have her calling you daddy!” She slammed the fridge door.

“
I’ve been waiting all day to talk to you and to talk to her to help you explain things to her.”

“
Waiting? You haven’t waited for anything, Aiden. You walk in and out of here like you own my place. You keep pushing me. I want you to stop.”

“
Answer this. Why is it you can go play ‘old-times’ with Pete and I’m wrong for wanting the same thing?”

“
Because there are no old times with us. There is no us. It was one night! One night, damn it, and you won’t let it go!” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “It’s a night I want to forget. Don’t you get that?”

“
So what? You going to be her again?”

“
Be who?”

“
Be the Daisy they want and ignore all the reasons why we shared that one night?”

“
Get out.” She tried to pass, but he stepped with her to block her way.

“
I get it. You spend a day with him rolling in the dirt, letting him play daddy to my little girl.”

“
Aiden, stop. She’s not yours.”

“
And everything that happened between you and me was just some fluke, forgiven, forgotten.”

“
Pete loved me more than anybody, Aiden. He spent five years trying to find me after the way I hurt him. That’s real love.”

Aiden shouted in frustration: “I’m sick of hearing how Pete is some hero, and I’m demented for doing the same thing he did!”

“
That’s not what I’m saying. He’s my fiancé. I mean he was. We share something, damn it. There is history, first love, things and Pete and me are like destiny or something.”

“
And me? I was just chasing you because what? What do you think I’m doing here? I can’t sleep. I can’t do my business. I can’t eat. I can’t fucking concentrate.”

“
I don’t think about you at all!” she snapped. Pushing past him, she left the kitchen.

“
Damn it!” he cursed to the air, turning to see her go out of the newly replaced patio door. He went after her. On the deck, he found her pacing. She glared at him. “Pete was my first love. You know that. Remember how you mocked it? If we hadn’t met you, we’d be married now. Amy would be his!”

Aiden slid the door shut. “You’d be divorced by now and wishing you never had a kid.”

“
You bastard!”

Aiden looked away. He was losing her, and it killed him inside that he didn’t know how to hold on.

“
You make me say things to you that I don’t want to. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want you to go away.”

“
I make you honest. Even if it’s to tell me that you don’t want me. It’s more honesty than leading Petie-boy to think you want to start over again.”

“
You don’t know us!”

“
No? Fine, I don’t! I know you. I know that you didn’t do it for the money. Not just the money.”

“
Shut up.” She paced.

“
I was there, Daisy. They weren’t. You want them all to think that you’re running away because of the money, because of the sex and some big guilt because you lost yourself with me.”

“
I did! I did! That’s the only reason. I made a mistake. You’re my sin,” she said, exasperated.

“
That’s a lie! You’re running because you finally found out who you were inside. The real you was with me. You didn’t lie in my bed on that boat with a million dollars on your mind. You wanted me, just as badly as I wanted you.”

“
I did it because you tricked me, damn it. You showed me that tape.”

“
I freed you! Treated you like a woman. Like my woman. And you liked it. Admit it.”

“
Back up off me.”

“
You were so tender, so ready. No man had touched you the way I had. I saw it in your eyes. Pete never made you feel what you found with me. Never. Has he? I’m sorry, Daisy. I betrayed your trust. I hurt you and I spent five years wishing to have done it a different way. I was wrong.”

“
You’re twisting things! Move back.”

“
And you’re hiding, but you can’t hide from me. You walk in and see me after five years and you’re in my arms again. And I felt it again.”

“
No… no.”

“
You laid on that conference table and took me in because you wanted it.”

“
I wanted to get you to leave me alone! I wanted to protect Amy.”

“
She’s mine. You’ve always known. A mother knows. Doesn’t she Daisy? Now you have your sister here, Pete is here and you’re thinking that you can wipe it all away and deny what you felt in my arms. Be what they want you to be. It’s too late for us both. Too fucking late!”

She pushed him back and escaped the railing he had her pinned against. She paced a tight circle, shaking with anger and something else. He knew he should back off. Stop. But he was tired. She was making him crazy.

“
Janette saw it,” he said.

She stopped.

“
Janette wanted me here to face you and for you to face me. We need to deal with each other once and for all. She wants you to grow the fuck up! You’re the only one too damn blind to see it.”

“
I will have the test. Amy isn’t yours and I’ll prove it. Then we’re done.”

“
Then what? You think you have a future with Pete? You ready to go back to the hollow and live in a trailer? Or is Pete going to come here and live off you?”

Daisy froze.

Aiden was right. That’s exactly what she was planning, to atone through Pete. “I’m right. Aren’t I? You want your family and you think Pete’s the way. You’re going to be whatever he wants, play his game and grovel for his forgiveness.”

“
Shut up!”

“
No!” he shouted back.

She went for the door but he cut her off. She tried to go for the stairs off the deck but he caught her arm and yanked her back. Putting her against the wall of the house with his hands on either side of her head, she was trapped. “What did you do today? Huh?”

She looked away.

“
You play family? Get close? Offered him Amy? My fucking kid!”

“
I did not! I would never use Amy… like that.”

“
Amy’s mine.”

“
No.”

“
You’re mine.”

“
You won’t stop.”

“
No, I won’t. Not until you look me in the eye and tell me flat out that you want me too.” She looked him in the eye. He held his breath as he stared into her eyes and waited for her to do just that. But she didn’t. She just stared.

He softened and the panic eased. “Daisy's not Pete’s girl anymore. Is she? Those days are over. Am I right? Are you her? No. I didn’t think so. You’re a woman. A woman they don’t know: a mother, a survivor, a fighter. You’re much more than any of us know.” His breathing grew labored as his face came in closer. To this, Daisy pressed her palms flat to the wall. “I see you, Daisy. I always have. You can face Pete and make peace; I need you to face me. Tell me to fuck off and I’ll go. But you better mean it.”

“
No you won’t go. You just don’t listen. You won’t stop. You want me to hurt you… and you know I can’t do that.”

“
Why? If I mean nothing to you, why not hurt me? I hurt you.”

“
Because you are… because I can’t. It’s not who I am.” Her eyes lifted to his. “Please, just let it go, Aiden. It’s not meant to be. We aren’t.” She let the words of denial flow. With his face now close, her gaze lowered to his lips and his to hers. He took the plunge. What did he have to lose? With the touch of their lips, all protest silenced and she moved up against him, welcoming him in.

Aiden stroked his tongue persuasively against the tremulous line of her lower lip, insisting she grant full access. With a little gasp, she capitulated and opened her mouth so that he could thrust deep into her moist inner warmth. The kiss was so long awaited he dug his nails into the wood paneling of the siding to the back of the house.

“
Let’s be alone. Give me a chance,” he said after he pulled his mouth away and licked his lips, savoring her flavor: candied sizzle of the Pepsi was still there. “Stop fighting me, Daisy.”

She stared at him, unaware that the half-hopeful, half-uncertain expression in her eyes gave him reason to believe. The slight tremor of her lower lip made her impossible for him to resist. She was so sweet. In fact, he shivered as he resisted the surge of undiluted desire coursing through him. He should be furious with her for being with another man, that man. Damn! She knew what she was doing to him. Still, he couldn’t process a single emotion other than his need to have her want him, see him and believe in him. He’d behave for it. If he thought it was possible, he would change.

Aiden put his weight into her. He enjoyed the cushion of her bosom pressed into the wall of his chest. “I got too much to lose to mess this up. Spend a day with me with no fighting. Let it be just us and let’s talk… go somewhere with me… let me… let me be alone with you, Daisy. I need it. I need you.” Before she could answer, he kissed her again.

****

His mouth was warm. His lips firmly demanded a response she was powerless to deny, especially under the firm controlled way he moved his hand around her nape, gently pulling her from the wall so that her mouth was angled to his satisfaction. She pushed at his chest. Daisy’s futile attempt at defiance failed miserably. The threads of his shirt felt temptingly rich under her palms. She gathered the fabric of his shirt into her hands and held to him. Heat boiled the blood in her veins, and her breasts felt heavy and ultra-sensitive as the swollen peaks of her nipples jutted to attention.

Daisy lost all notion of time and space; she was only aware of his magnetism melting away her resistance. He was warm all over and the way he craved her was so enticing that she failed at remembering his reasons.

Daisy believed him and it scared her. She sensed his heart and his vulnerability as she lifted her fingers to trace his jaw. He moaned in her mouth from her touch, more like whimpered. She needed to comfort him, the wounded him, the part of him no one ever truly saw but her. Their tongues twined lazily… a smoothing of their lips as they kissed and kissed more. The musk of his cologne swamped her senses. And when she was full of him, ready to throw all caution to the wind, the kiss came to a natural end. Once again, she was left breathless by her weakness. It was physical she reasoned, or at least she tried to reason.