‘You haven’t even taken time to consider the idea,’ Alessio returned very drily.
‘Time? You think I need time? Are you out of your mind?’ Daisy gasped with unhidden incredulity. ‘I couldn’t face being married to you again!’
A dark surge of blood had risen over Alessio’s savagely high cheekbones. He breathed in deep.
‘You always did have the sensitivity of a stone,’ Daisy condemned shakily, her temper suddenly engulfed by a violent tide of debilitating memory. Slowly she shook her silver head. ‘I would be a very wicked woman to deserve that much misery twice in one lifetime. Most people who sin have to die to go to hell but I got my punishment while I was still breathing.’
‘That is not very funny, Daisy.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ Daisy stole a reluctant, fleeting glance at him.
Alessio was broodingly still, eyes of aristocratic ice fixed to her with chilling intensity. The temperature had dropped to freezing point.
‘I wasn’t trying to be rude. I was just being frank,’ she protested, intimidated more than she wanted to admit by the chill in the air but determined that he should realise that he had suggested an act of sheer insanity which it would be a complete waste of time to discuss in any greater depth. ‘I suppose you feel that if you’re willing to make a huge sacrifice for Tara I should be too... and that most women would take one look at you and your bank balance and flatten you in the rush to the altar... but—’
‘Not you,’ Alessio slotted in grittily.
‘Well, been there, done that... grateful to have got out alive,’ Daisy said helplessly.
As the heavy silence stretched unbearably, she suddenly scrambled up again. Walking out fast into the hall, she prayed that he would take the hint and leave without argument. ‘The next time you collect Tara, maybe you could just honk the horn... and I’d really appreciate it if you could keep any conversations you feel we must have to the phone—’
‘When you bolt from reality, piccola mia, you literally streak. And it is done with such a complete lack of shame, it takes my breath away,’ Alessio drawled with lethal emphasis.
Her face as hot as hell-fire, Daisy dragged open the front door. ‘Goodbye, Alessio.’
CHAPTER FIVE
DAISY slammed the door, shot every bolt home and sagged, until she heard movement in Tara’s bedroom. Creeping into her own room, she dropped the towel, grabbed up her nightdress, hauled it over her head and dived at supersonic speed into bed.
The door creaked open. ‘Mum...?’
Daisy shut her eyes tight and played dead.
‘I won’t stay long...’ Tara promised, making Daisy feel a total heel. ‘I just can’t sleep.’
Daisy surrendered. ‘So what did you think of...Alessio?’
‘He’s terrific. We talked about just everything!’ Tara bounced down on the end of the bed and stuck her feet in below the duvet. ‘I even asked him about his girlfriend for you!’
‘You did what?’ Daisy moaned in horror.
‘I knew you were dying to know if it was serious. Relax. We don’t need to worry about her. Dad’s finished with her.’
‘Has he? It’s none of my business,’ Daisy said, but not quite quickly enough.
‘Well, I thought it was very much our business,’ Tara returned with a meaningful look. ‘You should see the way women eye him up when you’re out with him...it would frighten the life out of you! He’s not going to be alone for long and you haven’t got time to play hard to get if you want him back. You need to get in there quick!’
Daisy was aghast. ‘Tara—’
‘Mum, I know you still fancy him like mad! That’s why you have that photo of him in your purse and read the Financial Times and look tragic when I mention him,’ Tara reeled off with overflowing sympathy in her eyes. ‘But don’t worry—I didn’t even drop a hint to him! I did ask him what he thought of you, though.’
Daisy rolled over and sank anguished teeth into the pillow.
‘Well, I mean, if Dad didn’t still fancy you even a bit, I thought we should know about it now. Mum, he’s still single and he hasn’t got anyone either! Don’t you think that kind of means he’s meant to be ours?’ Tara pressed, as if she were talking about a stray dog in need of a loving home.
‘No, I don’t think that,’ Daisy mumbled, but she had a terrifyingly inappropriate urge to giggle.
‘Dad said you would never have got divorced if he’d known about me. He said he really loved you but he wasn’t much good at being a husband when he was a teenager. He looked dead guilty too,’ Tara revealed with a satisfaction she couldn’t hide. ‘I think you should have told him about me when I was born. If I’d been you, I wouldn’t have let him go! It was his duty to be with us and he would have got used to being married eventually.’
That was definitely a self-centred Leopardi talking. Daisy’s blood was now running cold in her veins. Tara had already decided that she didn’t want Alessio as a part-time father and she was far too possessive to want to share him with any woman other than her mother. ‘Very open,’ Alessio had said of his daughter. Did that mean he had read Tara like a book? Very probably, Daisy conceded.
Alessio was as sharp as a knife. He was also a Leopardi, born to go from cradle to grave in the belief that he had a hotline to heaven and knew the wisest, smartest move in every situation. Had Tara let Alessio see exactly what she wanted from him? Had Alessio’s blood run cold too? Had he then appreciated that Tara could be a real, manipulative handful? Was that why he had said they should remarry? If he was that impressionable, Tara would run rings round him.
Tara got off the bed and sent Daisy a cheeky grin. ‘I know you’re gasping to hear what he said. Dad thinks you’re still gorgeous...and I think he’d be doing really well for himself getting a second chance with you—’
‘It’s not going to happen, Tara,’ Daisy said as gently and firmly as she could.
‘I don’t see why not.’ Her daughter looked distinctly smug and gave her mother a warm and approving appraisal. ‘Lots of men go for you. Why shouldn’t he?’
That revealing and explosive dialogue haunted Daisy throughout the next morning. She couldn’t keep her mind on her work and found herself drifting off into thoughts of what life might have been like if she hadn’t divorced Alessio. Would he have changed after she had had the baby? Would he have wanted her again then? Would he have dumped Sophia and become a faithful husband? Daisy looked out of the window in cynical search of a flying pig or a blue moon.
‘You know, there’s something different about you this week,’ Barry commented, watching her doodle interlocking triangles on her pad. ‘You’re much more approachable.’
‘Barry—’
‘Have dinner with me tonight,’ he urged, dropping down athletically into a crouch in front of her swivel chair so that they could meet eye to eye. ‘I won’t lay a finger on you...I promise!’
‘Give over, Barry,’ Daisy groaned.
‘So I used to show off a little when I first started here but that was three years ago,’ Barry stressed with a winning smile as he reached for her hands. ‘I’ve grown up since then. I don’t boast about my one-night stands any more. I know you’re not impressed by how fast I drive my Porsche. I think I could even be faithful for you’
Daisy studied him and experienced a very, very faint stab of remorse. Deep down inside, she had always known why she had loathed Barry on sight. In build, colouring and brash confidence, he reminded her just a little of Alessio as a teenager. Poor Barry. He had been chasing her for so long that it was a running office joke. ‘Sorry—’ she began.
‘Daisy...’
Releasing her fingers, Barry vaulted upright. Daisy might have got whiplash if Alessio hadn’t spun her chair round so fast that she saw whirling lights instead.
‘Lunch,’ Alessio drawled with definite aggression.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Daisy muttered out of the corner of her mouth as she turned her chair back to her desk. ‘Go away...’
‘Mr Leopardi?’ Barry cleared his throat after a lengthy pause. ‘We spoke on the phone last week—’
‘You may inform your superior that Miss Thornton won’t be returning to work here,’ Alessio interposed, smooth as glass. ‘She’ll be far too busy roasting in the fires of eternity as my wife.’
‘Your... your wife?’ Barry spluttered incredulously.
Ignoring him, Alessio lifted Daisy’s slim handbag from the desk and studied it with scepticism. ‘Where’s all the rest of the junk?’
‘Junk?’ Daisy’s voice fractured as she rose jerkily upright, unable to believe that he had made such an announcement in front of the entire office.
‘Daisy, you couldn’t get through one day with a purse this tiny. This is for show. Somewhere else there has to be a holding tank for the hundred and one things you have to keep within reach. Ah...’ With unhidden satisfaction, Alessio reached below the desk and lifted the large, battered leather holdall he had espied. ‘Yours? How often do you feed the purse? Hourly? Half-hourly?’