When she got back from work, Tara still wasn’t home. It was after ten that evening when the bell went. Daisy went to the door, expecting it to be Tara but wondering why she hadn’t used her key. Thirty seconds later, she knew why. Her daughter came through the door, smothering a yawn, with Alessio a mere step behind her. Caught unprepared, Daisy was appalled. She stood there barefoot, clad in a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt that had shrunk in the wash, while Alessio looked as infuriatingly immaculate and sleekly beautiful as he had done twelve hours earlier.
‘I’ve had a fantastic day,’ Tara confided, engulfing her small, stiff mother in a brief hug without even noticing her tension. ‘But I’m really tired. ‘Night, Dad.’
Dad? She said it so naturally, so easily that Daisy was shaken. As Tara vanished into her bedroom, she met Alessio’s shrewd gaze and hurriedly cloaked her own.
‘I’ll take that cup of coffee now,’ he drawled smoothly.
Daisy’s cheeks coloured. For an instant, she had a dismaying image of herself hovering like a little girl obediently awaiting her instructions and Alessio taking control of the situation in his own good time. ‘Coffee,’ she said tightly, and marched into the kitchen, leaving him to find his own way into the lounge.
So Tara and her father had got on like a house on fire. She was pleased for them both—she was! A good relationship with Alessio could only benefit her daughter. Now that Tara had met him, the ice was broken and they could all settle down into the kind of detached sharing practised by thousands of divorced parents. Alessio and Tara would form a relationship in which Daisy would play little part.
Maybe she was a bit jealous of that, a bit scared... well, possibly very scared...that Tara might start preferring Alessio to her. But that was childish, wasn’t it? Love stretched. Tara was perfectly capable of loving them both. And thirteen years had to count for something, hadn’t they? Having rammed down her own insecurities, Daisy entered the lounge, determined to be mature and reasonable regardless of how Alessio chose to behave.
She was taken aback to find Tara down on her knees in front of the bookcase, extracting the last of a pile of photo albums, most of which were already stacked suggestively at Alessio’s feet. She gave her mother an anxious look. ‘You don’t mind if Dad borrows these for a while, do you? I said he could.’
Thirteen years of Daisy’s life were documented in those albums. Daisy felt that her privacy was being cruelly invaded and had to bite back words of dismayed refusal. Those were Tara’s records too. What could be more natural than that her daughter should want to share that pictorial account of her childhood with her father?
‘I’ll look after them.’ Alessio’s faint smile was sardonic and Daisy registered the fact that he knew exactly how she felt.
Flushed and uncomfortable, she set a cup of coffee in front of him.
‘We can go over them together after I come back from my school trip,’ Tara told Alessio earnestly as she scrambled up again. “Night, Mum...Dad.’ She stopped in the doorway, grinned widely at both her parents and slowly shook her head in bemusement. ‘It sounds so weird to say that, to have you both here...like a real family.’
Daisy shrank deeper into her armchair as the door closed. Why did Tara have to go out of her way to sound like a deprived child within Alessio’s hearing? she thought in distress. A real family!
‘Family... not a concept you ever knew a great deal about,’ Alessio murmured. ‘So in one uniquely selfish move you thought nothing of denying her her own family.’
Daisy thought of the family who had made her feel like a tarty little adventuress at her own wedding. Everyone had known she was pregnant. Bianca had made sure of that. And Alessio’s mother had cried so much that people could have been forgiven for believing that she was attending her son’s funeral. Taking the hint, the guests had stopped mouthing good wishes and had offered sympathy instead.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she countered.
‘You know as well as I do that there would never have been a divorce if my father had known that you were still expecting a child. The subject would not even have been broached.’
Daisy thrust up her chin. ‘Do we have to keep harping back to the past?’
Brilliant golden eyes rested on her. ‘That past formed the present and will undoubtedly alter the future. Did you really think that I could meet my daughter and then walk away from her again? She’s tremendous!’ Alessio acknowledged, with a sudden surge of appreciative warmth that sharply disconcerted Daisy. ‘Half-child, half-woman, and she slides from one to the other between one sentence and the next.’
Her tense mouth softened. ‘Yes,’ she conceded.
‘She’s funny and bright and very open...but do you know what I found hardest to take?’ Alessio sprang upright and moved restlessly across the room before swinging fluidly back to her, his strong dark face taut. ‘At first, it was like she was getting this one big chance to impress me and she was terrified that she might not make the grade. That’s why she’s exhausted. She’s been living on her nerves all day.’
A lump ballooned in Daisy’s throat. She focused studiously on her bare feet.
‘I believe that I have set her fears at rest. I told her that I would have been there for her from the very beginning of her life had I been offered that opportunity.’
‘I can see how popular I’m going to be,’ Daisy muttered helplessly, but he wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t expected. She was the fall guy in this newly formed triangle. Nothing would be allowed to come between Alessio and his desire to win his daughter’s affection. No excuses would be made for Daisy. He would emerge from the debris of their broken marriage shining white and squeaky clean. After all, Daisy hadn’t given him a chance to be a father.
‘On the contrary, you will be very popular, Daisy,’ Alessio drawled in honeyed contradiction. ‘You are about to play a leading role in fulfilling our daughter’s painfully obvious desire for a real family.’
Her violet eyes were strained. ‘I’m more than willing to meet you halfway for Tara’s sake. You can see her whenever you like.’
‘I expect much more than that from you.’
Daisy paled at that uncompromising assurance and curled her hands together on her lap. ‘I know that you’ll probably want to fly her over to Italy to meet the rest—’
‘Of the cast of the horror movie you mentioned?’
Daisy reddened fiercely, finding that reference ungenerous when she was bending over backwards to be reasonable. ‘You have to make allowances for the fact that I never knew that you would feel like this about Tara—’
‘And you have to accept that now I’ve found her I’m not letting go of her again.’
‘I am accepting that.’
‘And that either you share on my terms or risk getting left behind,’ Alessio extended drily.
Daisy struggled to work out what it was he wanted that she had not already offered. ‘What are your terms?’
‘Another home, two parents and complete security for my daughter.’
For a moment, Daisy looked back at him blankly. Then her sensitive stomach churned. Two parents? He cold only be talking about marrying Nina Franklin. She vented a hiss of angry disbelief. ‘You’re planning to marry Nina and fight me for custody!’
‘Give me one good reason why I would try to take an already insecure adolescent girl away from the mother she adores and give her a stepmother she would undoubtedly loathe,’ Alessio invited with evident impatience.
‘You said that if it took you a lifetime you would punish me!’
‘Not at the cost of my daughter’s happiness.’
Daisy’s brain felt as if it was functioning at half its usual capacity. If Alessio was not talking about marrying Nina...But then he hadn’t actually mentioned marriage specifically, had he? He had referred to another home and two parents. So what was he talking about? He simply couldn’t be talking about what was currently crossing her mind. That would be sheer insanity.
‘When did you last have a good night’s sleep?’ Alessio asked.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘It shows. I feel as though I’m banging my head against a brick wall.
‘We were talking about Tara.’ Daisy was still shaken and embarrassed by the mad thought that had briefly occurred to her and she reached out for her cup of coffee with what she hoped was an air of cool, detached composure.
‘I’ve already made the decision which will best serve all our needs.’ Alessio studied her with brooding eyes, his wide, sensual mouth suddenly setting hard. ‘We will get married again.’
As her fingers involuntarily loosened their grip on the cup and hot liquid splashed down her jeans, Daisy vented a startled shriek of pain and sprang up, pressing her palms against her burning thighs. Alessio dealt her a split-second look of raw incredulity and then strode forward. Snatching her unceremoniously up into his arms and tumbling her down on the sofa, he proceeded to unzip and peel down her jeans at speed.
‘What are you doing?’ Daisy screeched in horror, endeavouring without success to evade his determined ministrations.