“Oh, hell.”
Her heart hammering, Daisy stooped quickly and began gathering up the photos. Focusing on that gave her a few moments of time and a little bit of space to get her bearings. Ha. What was he doing here?
She hadn’t seen Alex in years and she had never expected to ever see him again. Only the fact that he seemed as surprised as she was allowed her to breathe at all.
She stopped doing that, though, when he crouched down beside her and began to help pick up the photos.
“Don’t do that. Leave them,” she said, trying to snatch them away from him. “I can do it!”
But Alex didn’t let go. He simply kept right on. He only said, “No.”
And there it was—the same single word, delivered in the same implacable tone that he’d said five years ago—that one that had pulled the rug right out from under her hopes and dreams.
Worse, though, was that his rough-edged, slightly accented, unconsciously sexy baritone still resonated all the way to the core of her exactly as it had from the moment she’d first heard him speak. It was as if he had been her very own personal pied piper of Hamelin. And foolishly, mindlessly, Daisy had fallen under his spell.
Then she’d called it “love at first sight.” Then she had believed in the foolishness of such fairy tales.
Now she knew better. Now she knew the danger of it, thank God. There would be no falling under his spell again. She gathered the last of the photos, no longer in any shape to be presented to Philip Cannavarro, and got to her feet.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, stepping away as he rose to his feet, too.
He shook his head, looking as dazed as she felt. “You’re Daisy?” He glanced at a piece of paper he held in his hand, then frowned. “Well, of course you are, but … Connolly?”
Daisy lifted her chin. “That’s right. Why?”
But before she got an answer, another man appeared outside on the stoop, just beyond the heavy front door and looked past Alex questioningly.
Daisy’s knees went weak with relief. “Phil! Come on in!” He might as well have been the cavalry come to her rescue. She beamed at him.
Alex turned and stared over his shoulder, his brows drawing down. “Who’s he?” he demanded as if he had more right there than her client.
Fortunately Phil was already pulling the door open, glancing in quick succession at Daisy’s relieved face and Alex’s scowl and finally at the photos in Daisy’s hands. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt—”
“You weren’t,” Daisy said quickly. “But I heard the bell. I thought it was you, not—” she gestured helplessly toward Alex who was standing so she could almost feel the heat of his body “—and I accidentally dropped your photos. I am so sorry.” She gave Phil a hopeful smile. “I need to have them redone.”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re probably just a little frayed at the edges,” Phil said cheerfully. “No problem.” He held out his hand and doubtless would have taken them from her, but Daisy shook her head and clutched them against her chest like a shield.
“No,” she said. “I guarantee my work. And I don’t give less than my best. You and Lottie deserve my best.” He and Lottie had been one of the first matches she’d made. Lottie had been a makeup artist she’d met when she first began working as a photographer after college. Phil used to do her taxes. She felt almost like their mother even though they were older than she was. And she wasn’t giving them less than her best.
“I’ll put a rush on it,” she promised. “You should have them in two days. I’ll have them couriered directly to your house.”
Phil looked doubtful. “We won’t mind,” he said. “Lottie will want …”
“Take these then.” Daisy thrust them at him. “But tell her they’re just until the new ones come in. Tell her I’m so sorry. Tell her—” She shut her mouth, the only way to stop babbling.
Phil fumbled with the photos, too, then stuffed them in his briefcase, shooting Daisy worried sidelong glances. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
But she knew why he was asking. Phil and Lottie were used to the unflappable Daisy, the one who rolled with the punches, adjusted on the fly, never worried if life threw pitchforks in her path.
“Daisy always copes,” Lottie said. It was like a mantra.
Daisy wasn’t exactly coping now. Alex’s mere presence created an electricity in the air, a force field of awareness she could never manage to be indifferent to. Damn it.
“She’ll be fine,” Alex said smoothly now. “She’s just had a bit of a shock.” He stepped even closer and looped an arm over her shoulders.
Daisy nearly jumped out of her skin. At the same time, though, her traitorous body clamored to sink into his embrace. Muscle memory was a dangerous thing. Daisy held herself rigid, resisting him, resisting her own inclination.
“She’ll be all right. I’ll take care of her.” Alex’s tone was all reassurance as he smiled and somehow put himself between her and Phil, edging the other man toward the door, making it clear that Phil didn’t need to hang around.
Phil didn’t hang around. He understood male territoriality as well as the next guy. “Right,” he said, all smiles and cheerful bravado. “I’ll tell Lottie.”
And he was out the door and down the steps without glancing back.
“Thank you very much,” Daisy said drily, slipping out from beneath his arm, which still managed to leave her with a sense that it was still there. She could feel the warm weight of it even though she’d stepped away. Instinctively she wrapped her own arms across her chest.
What was he doing here? The question pounded again in her brain.
“Daisy.” The way he said her name was somewhere between musing and caressing. It sent the hairs on the back of her neck straight up. A slight smile played at the corners of his mouth. “It is fate,” he murmured.
“What?” Daisy said sharply.
“I was just thinking about you.” His tone was warm. He acted as if they were old friends. Well, maybe to him that was all they were.
“I can’t imagine why,” Daisy said, which was the absolute truth.
“I’m looking for a wife.”
She stared at him, her jaw dropping.
He just smiled, expecting no doubt to hear her say, Oh, yes, please! Pick me.
Daisy hugged her arms more tightly across her chest. “Good luck with that.” She could have said, You don’t want a wife. You made a huge point of telling me you didn’t want a wife!
Now Alex raised his brows. The smile still lurking. “I wasn’t proposing,” he said mildly.
Mortified, Daisy said stiffly, “Of course you weren’t.”
She wasn’t going to bring up the past at all. It did her no credit. She’d been young and stupid and far too romantic for her own good when they’d met five years ago at a wedding reception.
Daisy had been one of her college roommate, Heather’s, bridesmaids, and Alex had been pressed into service as a last-minute substitute for a sick groomsman. Their eyes had met—something wild and hot and amazing had sparked between them—and to Daisy’s fevered romantic twenty-three-year-old brain, it had been one