That he woke up every morning with a smile on his face, in anticipation of spending the day with them.
That he had the feeling his apartment was going to have all the warmth of a morgue after they left next weekend.
That it was testament to how much he liked Samantha that he had shared those confidences of his childhood, a subject he had never discussed with anyone outside his immediate family.
Damn it, Xander valued all of those things so highly that he had deliberately chosen to keep his desire for Samantha to himself, for fear that it might damage the peaceful existence they now had.
Maybe he did need to get out of his apartment for a while, away from both Samantha and Daisy, and try to get some perspective back into his life?
His assistant had been arriving promptly at the apartment at nine-thirty every morning this week so that the two of them could spend an hour or so going through what needed to be dealt with urgently, and what could wait until Darius either came back from his honeymoon or Xander was fit enough to spend the day in his office.
But he hadn’t been out of his apartment for weeks on a social basis, apart from to attend the wedding last weekend.
Security was downstairs, so Samantha would be safe enough from her ex-husband in his apartment, and a couple of hours checking out the Midas nightclub might be just what Xander needed to put himself, and this situation, back into perspective.
‘Xander?’
He had been so lost in deep and brooding thought that he hadn’t even heard Samantha open the study door. She hovered in the doorway looking across at him uncertainly.
She looked so very beautiful, with her flame-coloured hair loose and curling about her shoulders and down her back, her face slightly flushed from cooking and clearing away after dinner. Her small and perfectly rounded breasts were pert against the white fitted shirt she wore, her tailored black trousers clinging lovingly to the sweet curve of her hips and bottom.
Xander’s body reacted sharply to the sight of her.
So much so that the need he now felt, to stand up and move restlessly about his study, became an impossibility. ‘What is it, Samantha?’ he enquired softly.
‘I wanted to apologise. I didn’t mean to imply—I know that you genuinely care for Daisy—I just don’t want—I would never deliberately insult you,’ she finished lamely.
‘Just indirectly,’ Xander drawled. ‘Let’s just forget it,’ he dismissed. ‘You were probably right to be concerned.’ He shrugged. ‘I am basically shallow and insensitive.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘No, I did.’ He sighed. ‘What do I know about five-year-olds anyway?’
‘Well, you were once one yourself.’
Yes, he had been, and he knew exactly how it had felt to be so young and so totally bewildered by his own father’s dislike of him. As Malcolm Howard’s years of lack of interest in his own daughter seemed to imply the other man also disliked Daisy.
So yes, on that level Xander could relate totally to Daisy.
It was the increasing desire he felt to make love to her mother that had become the biggest danger.
‘Let’s not argue, Xander.’ Tears glistened in her eyes as Samantha looked across at him imploringly. ‘This business with Malcolm has unsettled me. I certainly didn’t mean to insult you by anything I said earlier.’