Second-Time Bride

Alessio sent her a look of derision. ‘Why else did I marry you if not for our child’s sake?’

Daisy snatched in a shaken breath, stunned by the whiplash effect of that one dauntingly simple question.

‘I think I need a little time to come to terms with this before I meet my daughter.’ Having made that charged acknowledgement from between clenched teeth of reluctance, Alessio abruptly thrust his glass away. ‘Keep Tara home on Wednesday. I’ll call around ten. I’ll take her out somewhere. At this moment,’ he asserted with icy conviction, ‘I have nothing more to say to you.’

‘You’ll need the address.’

In the shattering, pulsing silence which followed, Daisy, employing his gold pen, scrawled her address on the back of the business card he presented to her.

Alessio stood up. ‘If it is the last thing I do in this lifetime, I will punish you for this,’ he swore half under his breath.

Daisy was left alone with an uncorked bottle of vintage wine and two untouched glasses. Her knees were knocking together under the table. For a weak moment, she was seriously tempted to try drowning her sorrows. Guilt and bewilderment were tearing her apart. Alessio was outraged and appalled by what she had done. And Daisy was in shock. Alessio, who had once blithely leapt in where angels feared to tread, was backing off for two days to take stock of the situation. Why did that frighten her even more?

CHAPTER FOUR

THE doorbell went in two short, impatient bursts. It was only twenty past nine.

‘Do you think it’s him?’ Tara shrieked in panic from her bedroom. ‘My hair’s still wet!’

Daisy skimmed damp palms down her slender thighs, breathed in deep and opened the door. It was Alessio, strikingly elegant in a pearl-grey suit, pale blue silk shirt and tie.

‘I thought you’d be at work.’

‘I took the morning off,’ Daisy told his tie.

‘Does that mean you’re planning to accompany us?’ The ice in that rich dark drawl let her know how unwelcome an idea that was.

‘No...but Tara’s not ready yet. Would you like to come in?’ Daisy enquired, her fingernails scoring purple crescents into her palms. His cold hostility bit deep.

‘I’ll wait in the car.’

Her tremulous mouth tautened. ‘Alessio...please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’

There was a sharp little silence.

He released his breath in a hiss and thrust the door shut. The fierce tension in Daisy’s slight shoulders gave a little. She walked into the lounge. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

He uttered a cool negative.

‘She’ll be a while. She’s not even dressed yet. She was earlier, though. She got up at seven and trailed out her whole wardrobe. Then she decided she needed to wash her hair...’ Conscious that she was babbling, Daisy compressed her lips and jerkily folded her arms. She no longer had any excuse to avoid looking at him.

Alessio’s vibrantly handsome features were ferociously tense, his strong jawline harshly set. A frown drew his ebony brows together. He looked back at her with glittering golden eyes that chilled her to the marrow. ‘What did I do that was so bad that you had to steal my child from me?’

Daisy’s strained eyes burned and she spun away, not trusting herself to speak. An intimidating amount of bitter incomprehension had splintered through that demand.

‘With that poor a start to our marriage, we were bound to have some problems,’ Alessio continued harshly. ‘But we had no arguments.’

Daisy almost smiled. To argue with someone you had to speak to them, didn’t you? And doormats did not start arguments. Alessio had been able to stride about being mean, moody and silently macho without the smallest challenge from her corner. Indeed, Daisy had grown steadily more afraid of what she might hear if he did break that silence.

‘I was never deliberately unkind to you,’ Alessio asserted.

Daisy resisted an urge to mention his reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Sophia. Why dig up something so long buried? It would be demeaning and petty to confront him about that now. Teenage boys were not programmed for fidelity. And she didn’t even know if he had been sleeping with the other girl or merely seeking out more entertaining company. She wanted to be fair. Their marriage had been over by then anyway.