THE VALQUEZ SEDUCTION(18)

                Daisy gave him a coy look over her loaded fork. ‘Why do you ask? Are you thinking of visiting me?’

                His eyes didn’t waver as they held hers. ‘I don’t do relationships, especially long distance ones.’

                She squashed a little niggle of disappointment. Last night she had thought him the most obnoxious upstart.

                But now…

                She gave a mental shrug and loaded up her fork again. ‘I live in Belgravia.’

                His brow lifted ever so slightly. ‘So you’re no stranger to money in spite of your comment about the tip earlier.’

                Daisy gave him a sheepish glance. ‘It’s not my flat. It belongs to my father. I pay him a nominal rent. He insists I live in a high security complex. He’s kind of overprotective, to put it mildly.’

                He leaned forward to refill his cup from the silver percolator on the table. ‘You’re lucky to have someone watching out for you.’

                Daisy wondered if he’d think she was so lucky if she told him the rest. Like how her father often turned up unannounced at her flat, checking her fridge or pantry for contraband food. Not to mention dates. Making comments about her clothes and appearance or the amount of make-up she was wearing. Offering his opinion on every aspect of her life. She had put up with his controlling ways for too long. The trouble was she had no idea how to get him to change without hurting him. So many of her friends didn’t have fathers, or had fathers who weren’t interested or involved in their lives. She had already lost one parent. The thought of losing another—even through estrangement—was too daunting.

                She studied Luiz’s face for a moment. ‘You mentioned your mother. What about your father? Is he still alive?’

                His expression gave the tiniest flinch as if the mention of his father was somehow painful to him. ‘He died a couple of years ago.’

                ‘I’m sorry.’

                ‘Don’t be.’ He stirred his coffee with a teaspoon even though she hadn’t seen him put sugar or cream into it. ‘He was glad to go in the end.’

                ‘Was he ill?’

                ‘He had a riding accident when I was a kid. He wasn’t expected to survive but he did—much to my mother’s despair.’

                Daisy frowned. ‘But surely—?’

                His expression was cynical. ‘It wasn’t my mother’s idea of marital bliss to be shackled to a quadriplegic who couldn’t even lift a cup to his mouth. She left six months after the accident.’ He swirled the coffee in his cup until it became a dark whirlpool. Daisy watched with bated breath for some to spill over the sides but it didn’t. It told her a lot about him. He was a risk-taker but he knew exactly how far he could push the boundaries.

                ‘Did she take you and your brother with her?’

                He laughed a brittle-sounding laugh. ‘She hadn’t wanted kids in the first place. She only married my father because her family pressured her into it once she got pregnant with my brother.’ He put the cup down again with a precise movement before he sat back, hooking one ankle over the top of his muscled thigh. ‘She came back a couple of years later to get me but our father wouldn’t hear of it.’

                ‘Would you have wanted to go?’

                His lips rose and fell in a shrug-like movement. ‘It was no picnic being brought up in a sickroom. My brother did his best but he wasn’t able to be both parents and a brother to me. But I wouldn’t go unless he came too and there was no way he would ever leave my father.’