THE VALQUEZ SEDUCTION(54)

                Luiz put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I’m sorry.’

                She looked up at him again. ‘Do you know what was really awful?’

                ‘What?’

                ‘My father refused to allow me to go to the funeral. I begged and pleaded but he wouldn’t listen.’ Her frown was so heavy it made her look fierce in a cute and endearing way. ‘He said a funeral was no place for a child. So I held my own for her. I got all my dolls and toys and took them down to the rose garden. I even made a special shrine for her out of modelling clay. I had to make the gardener, Robert, promise not to tell my father. We hid it behind her favourite rose bush. It’s still there.’

                ‘You must have loved her very much.’

                She smiled a sad-looking smile. ‘Yes, but don’t all children love their mothers?’

                Luiz thought of the shallowness of his mother. Of the way she cut down his brother every chance she got. Of the way she had insulted Teddy at the cocktail party Luiz had held recently, seeming to enjoy the hurt and cruelty she inflicted. How she publicly fawned over him as if he could do no wrong, treating him like a favourite toy instead of a son she would give her life for. ‘Not all.’

                Daisy put her hand over his on her shoulder. ‘You hate your mother?’

                Luiz gave her a rueful look. ‘So, Miss Daisy, you’ve uncovered another well-kept secret.’

                She brought his hand down to her lap, stroking the back of it with her soft fingers. ‘Maybe she can’t help being the way she is. Some people are not good at being parents. I see it all too often. They have this idea of how their child will be but the child is someone else entirely. They’re not blank slates when they’re born. They’re their own little person. You can’t make them into something they’re not.’

                Luiz suddenly had a vision of Daisy with a brood of kids around her. Not just the ones she taught, but her own children. He could imagine a little girl with a dimpled smile and bright eyes and chestnut hair and creamy skin. He thought of a little boy with—

                He jerked back from where his thoughts were heading. Kids meant commitment. Long-term commitment. A lifetime of commitment and care and concern and responsibility.

                But, even so, an image kept popping into his head of a little boy with black hair and brown eyes, with a little starfish hand reaching for his…

                ‘You shouldn’t hate her, Luiz.’ Daisy’s soft voice jolted him out of his daydream. ‘Hate is such a destructive emotion.’

                Luiz took a tendril of her hair and curled it around his finger. ‘I should let you get back to bed.’

                ‘Aren’t you coming too?’

                He tucked the hair behind her ear. ‘You need a rest.’

                ‘But I’m not tired.’

                ‘I saw you wince when you got off the bed.’

                She suddenly scowled at him and pushed his hand away to fold her arms across her body. ‘I wish you wouldn’t treat me like I’m made of glass. It reminds me too much of my father. Telling me what’s good for me as if I couldn’t possibly know myself.’

                Luiz drew in a long breath through his nostrils. ‘I’m sorry for being so considerate. Maybe I should just throw you down on the bed and take my pleasure without any thought of yours, like that creep you picked up the other night would’ve done if I hadn’t stepped in.’