Breaking the Greek's Rules

by Anne McAllister

  “You do editorial. I’ve seen magazine articles.”

  “Yes. But I don’t traipse all over the world. I work in the city.”

  “The building is in Brooklyn.” He gave her a second to digest that, then added, “I seem to remember you cross the river.”

  They had crossed the river together coming back from the wedding on Long Island. Daisy felt the walls closing in.

  “Yes, I cross the river. If I have time. I’m busy.”

  “Any time in the next two weeks,” he said smoothly. “And don’t tell me that every minute of your life is booked.”

  Daisy heard the challenge in his voice. It was just another way of saying, I don’t believe you’re really over me at all. You still want me. And now that you’re divorced you might not believe in that ridiculous “love at first sight” notion anymore. You might be glad for a roll in bed.

  And, if it weren’t for Charlie, heaven help her, she might.

  “Are you still there? Daisy?” he prompted when she didn’t reply.

  She drew a breath. “I might have something next week. Let me check.” It was the only way she could think of to prove to him—and to herself—that she wasn’t a weak-willed fool.

  She put the cracker sandwiches on a paper plate, flipped up the latch and slid open the door. Charlie looked up and, at the sight of the plate, grinned and jumped to his feet.

  Daisy put a finger to her lips to shush him before he could speak, grateful that she’d taught him almost since he could talk not to blurt things out where people on the phone could hear him. That way, she’d explained, he wouldn’t have to have a babysitter as often if she could take calls as if she were in her office when, in fact, she was at home.

  Charlie had learned quickly. Now he stuffed a cracker sandwich into his mouth, then carried the plate back to his trucks. For a moment, Daisy just watched him and felt her heart squeeze with love. Then quietly she slid the door shut and went to look at her appointment book.

  “Where in Brooklyn? What sort of photos?” she asked as she flipped through the pages of her day planner.

  “Park Slope.” Alex gave her the address. “It’s a pre-war building.”

  “I thought you were an architect. Don’t you design new buildings?”

  “Not this one. I built this one from the inside out. The outside is pretty much intact, except for the windows. I fixed the windows. The place was in really awful shape and the guy who owned it wanted it removed. He wanted me to put up a new building there. But when I got into it, I couldn’t see tearing it down. Structurally it was sound. And it had some really strong period architectural features. It fit the block, the surroundings. So I made him a deal. I bought it from him and he bought land a couple of miles away. Then I built him what he wanted there, and I kept this one for myself.”

  The eagerness and the satisfaction in his voice reminded her of when he’d talked about his hopes for his career. He’d already done some big projects for the company he’d worked for then. But those had been projects he’d been assigned, ones that had been the vision of someone else. Now it sounded like he had taken the reins and was making his own choices, his own decisions.

  “Are you your own boss now?” she asked, unable not to.

  “For the last five years.” He hesitated, then went on so smoothly she might have imagined the brief pause. “There was never going to be the perfect time to leave, so I just … jumped in.”

  “You like it?”

  “Couldn’t be happier,” he said. “What about you? You’ve obviously left the guy you were working for.”

  “Finn? Yes. And I like what I’m doing, too.”

  “You can tell me all about it—if you can see a way to work me into your schedule?”

  He made it sound very straightforward. A job. No more. No less. Maybe this really was all business.

  Daisy could almost—but not quite—forget the way he’d kissed her. Deliberately she shoved the thought away. “What sort of thing does the writer have in mind?” she asked. “What do they want to feature?”

  “Me,” Alex said ruefully. “Up-and-coming architect, blah, blah, blah. I designed a hospital wing—first one I’ve done—and it’s up for some award.”

  “That’s great.” And not surprising, really. She imagined that Alex would be good at whatever he did. “Where? Nearby?”

  “Upstate a ways. Same side of the river, though,” he added drily. “They used staff photos for that. They want ones of me and of the place in Brooklyn because it’s a new departure for me. So you’d be shooting it now—plenty of awful ‘then’ photos already available. And then they want some of me ‘in my environment.’” His tone twisted the words wryly. “With a pencil protector in my pocket.” She could hear his grin. “Playing with blueprints. I don’t know. You will.”

  If she did it. And maybe she should. Maybe it was exactly what she needed to do—learn about the man, demythologize him, turn him into some digital files and eight-by-ten-inch glossies.

  “I can spare a bit of time next Thursday afternoon. Say, around three?”

  “Great. I’ll pick you up.”

  “I’ll meet you. Just give me the address again.” It was business. Just business.

  He gave her the address. She wrote it down.

  Then he said, “See you Thursday. Bye.”

  And he was gone. Just like that.

  She had second thoughts. And third. And thirty-third. By the time Saturday rolled around, it was all she could think about.

  “So call him and tell him you can’t,” Cal said when he came by to pick up Charlie Saturday morning. Charlie had already given her a smacking kiss goodbye and bolted out the door eager to tell his grandfather about the fire engine they were going to make.

  But Cal hadn’t followed him. He was eying her curiously as Daisy told him about Alex’s call and his offer of the photography job. She also admitted to her qualms.

  “It’s just … distracting!” She stuck her hands in her hair and tugged.

  “Why do it then? Call him up and tell him no.”

  “He’ll want to know why.”

  “You’re not obliged to tell him.”

  “If I don’t, he’ll get suspicious.”

  “About what? Is he going to think you’re hiding his son from him?”

  “No, of course not. He’ll think—” Daisy hesitated “—that I’m still in love with him. That I don’t trust myself around him.”

  “Possible,” Cal agreed. “Or maybe you don’t trust him.”

  Maybe she didn’t trust either of them. The attraction was still there on a physical level. She hadn’t told Cal about Alex’s kiss. Or her reaction to it. There were some things better left unsaid. Now she just shrugged. “It’ll be all right,” she murmured.

  Cal gave her a long hard look. She tried to remain indifferent under his gaze, but Cal was a photographer, too. He saw things that other people couldn’t see.

  “Is it just hormones?” he said at last. “Or something more?”

  Daisy flushed, giving him yet another telltale sign. “I’m curious about what he’s done with the building. About the sort of work he’s doing.”

  “Uh-huh.” Cal wasn’t having any of it.

  “Really. I wouldn’t jeopardize Charlie’s future. You know that.” She looked at him steadily.

  “Keep it in mind,” Cal warned.

  “No fear. I’m not an airy-fairy fool anymore.”

  Cal looked as if he doubted that. But at last he shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “In fact,” Daisy added, “I think this may be a good thing. I can learn more about his real life, so I’ll be able to tell Charlie about it someday.”

  “Oh, there’s a plus,” Cal muttered.

  “It’ll be fine.” She put a hand on his sleeve. “Really, Cal. Don’t worry.”

  Cal let out a slow breath. “I’m trying not to.” He started toward the door and then turned back. “Charlie hasn’t seen him? He hasn’t seen Charlie?”

&n
bsp; “No!” She smiled her best reassuring smile.

  “Someday …”

  “Someday they’ll meet. Someday when Charlie is older. Grown-up. Settled. And if he has questions in the meantime, I’ll answer them. But I’m not setting him up to be hurt! You know that. We’ve discussed it.” When a man felt about having kids the way Alex did, deliberately introducing him into Charlie’s life wasn’t a risk she wanted to take.

  Besides, he had a perfectly fine father in Cal. And one father was enough—for the moment at least.

  “C’mon, Dad!” Charlie poked his head out of the window of the car.

  “Go on, Dad,” Daisy urged him. “And don’t you worry. I’m doing enough for both of us. And it’s silly, really. I will be fine. I’ll shoot his photos, admire his handsome face and come home. End of story. Trust me. I can take care of myself.”

  The building Alex had restored wasn’t far from Prospect Park. Daisy found it easily. It sat on the corner of a residential street filled with brownstones and trees and a business cross street that was wider, had fewer trees to block the view, and gave her plenty of scope.

  She’d arrived early to scope out the neighborhood, wanted to get herself in work-mode before she ever laid eyes on him. The day was cool and crisp, the trees in their full autumn glory as she walked down the block, studying the building side on.

  At a few minutes before three the sun was low enough that the shadows picked out some of the ornate carved relief on the facing of the top floor, sharpening the detail, showing the building to best advantage. Daisy took out her camera before she was halfway down the block, framed and shot. She took a dozen or more, then crossed the main thoroughfare to study the angles.

  The building was tall and narrow, a four story redbrick like others in the neighborhood, but, unlike the rest of them, it seemed somehow to draw in the light.

  She studied it more closely, trying to understand what she was seeing. The ground floor housed an electronics store which seemed an odd tenant for an old building. But somehow it fit the space easily and looked as if it belonged. Studying it, she began to realize why. The windows were taller than those in other buildings on the block and she remembered Alex saying he had changed the windows. But they still fit the period; they belonged. But he’d made the proportions just that little bit more generous.

  Now they fit twenty-first century people. It made all the difference.

  The second floor echoed the look with a series of gothic-arched windows and cream-colored facings that contrasted with the dark red brick. Stenciled just above waist height across the central largest window in black sans serif was Antonides Architectural Design. Simple, spare, elegant.

  She could see possibilities forming as she moved quickly along the sidewalk. She would shoot Alex standing in that window, looking out, master of his kingdom. And another at his drafting table. She could envision him in her mind’s eye bending over a drawing, black hair drifting across his forehead as he studied his work intently.

  There would doubtless be plenty of other possibilities inside; an open staircase perhaps or a period elevator or maybe a skylight and, she grinned delightedly—enough light to make it happen.

  Suddenly enthused and feeling like a real competent professional photographer for the first time since Alex had asked her to do it, Daisy turned—and came up hard against a solid male chest.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I SAW you wandering back and forth across the street. I thought you might be lost.” Alex had caught hold of her when she’d turned and crashed into him. He was still holding on now. Their bodies were touching.

  Daisy’s heart was going a mile a minute. Hastily she pulled away from his hard chest. “I wasn’t lost,” she said, hating her sudden breathlessness. “I was studying the building. Looking at all the angles.”

  She squinted up at him, trying not to be bowled over by the casual magnetism of the man. What was it about Alexandros Antonides that drew her like a moth to a flame?

  Well, he was still gorgeous, there was that. Tall, whip-cord lean, broad-shouldered. Masculinity defined. Alex didn’t have to flaunt the testosterone. It wasn’t a veneer he put on. It was clearly bedrock in him.

  “Well, if you’re done assessing all the angles, let me show you around.” He gave her one of those smiles, too, the one that had, from the beginning, undermined her common sense.

  But she was older now, Daisy reminded herself. Made of sterner stuff. And she knew what he was made of, too.

  “Fine,” she said briskly. “Lead on.”

  He did just that, but not before he plucked her camera bag and one of the tripods out of her hands, leaving her with only her purse and the smaller tripod. “You could have left that in the building while you were looking around,” he said over his shoulder as he crossed the street.

  “I suppose.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “Subway.”

  He turned as he stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of his building. “With all this stuff? For God’s sake, Daisy! They have cabs in Manhattan!”

  “It’s more efficient to take the subway.”

  “I’d have paid the cab fare.”

  “I don’t need your cab fare. It’s a business expense. When I want to take a taxi, I take one. I prefer the subway when I’m coming to Brooklyn. No bridge tie-ups. Now can we get going?”

  She didn’t want him fussing over her. He had no right. She didn’t need him—of all people—thinking he knew best what was good for her.

  Alex grunted, but still he shook his head as if despairing of her as he pushed open the door to the building. The electronics store she’d already spotted had its entrance off this interior vestibule on one side of the building. On the other was a stationer’s shop—all fine paper and cards and pens.

  “The old and the new,” Daisy remarked, looking from the stationer’s to the electronics store, nodding. She’d work that in, too.

  Meanwhile he was leading her into the electronics store, pointing out the new windows and the old oak paneling, the new built-in oak cabinets and the old tin ceilings now restored. It was an artful blend of the best of both, and it showed off the latest electronic devices spectacularly well. After a quick tour there, he took her into the stationer’s shop, and the same was true there, as well.

  The exquisite paper products looked appealing against the same oak cabinetry. The displays of calligraphic pens and multicolored inks and artists’ tools were equally appealing.

  Against the tall narrow windows Alex had created window seats which the proprietor had set up as inviting nooks for one or two people to sit and try out the various products. They were all full—and many of the customers were as young and hip as those in the electronics store across the vestibule.

  “I’ll show you photos of how it was before when we go upstairs,” he said. “In the meantime, shoot whatever you want. Den and Caroline—the owners of the stores—have given their permission.”

  “Great. Thanks. You don’t have to hang around,” she said when he made no move to go. “I’ll shoot down here. Then I can come to your office.”

  “I’ve cleared my calendar.” He set her bag down, then propped his shoulders against the wall and watched every move she made.

  Daisy was used to going about her work single-mindedly forgetting everything and everyone else but the focus of her shots. She was, this time, aware every second of Alex’s eyes on her. She tried to tell herself he was just being polite. But he didn’t simply watch while she took photos in the stationer’s shop and in the electronics store. He followed her outside so she could shoot a couple from down the block.

  Daisy shot him a hard look. He smiled back blandly.

  “Fine,” she muttered, “if you’re going to tag along …” Then she raised her voice loud enough for him to hear and motioned him to stand in front of one of the heavy oak and etched glass doors. “Stand there and look ‘lord of the manor-ish.’”

  He was Greek. What did he know about lords
of the manor?

  But apparently some things were universal, and he understood perfectly, leaning casually against one of the walls by the front door, a proprietorial air about him that said exactly what she wanted it to—that this was his domain. He owned the place.

  “Got it,” she said, clicking off half a dozen so she could have her pick.

  “Come on upstairs, then.” He led the way back inside.

  The elevator was utilitarian, so she wasn’t sure what to expect when the doors opened—a hallway and doors to offices, she would have guessed. But that wasn’t what she got.

  The elevator opened into one big room facing north. There were expanses of gleaming oak flooring broken up by areas covered with dove-gray carpet. In one of the carpeted areas, a woman sat at a desk making some notes while she talked on the phone. Not far away, on another carpet there was soft furniture—sofas and armchairs that invited you to sit and peruse books from floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

  Where the floor was wood, she saw several large tables with projects on display, detailed architectural models in place. Around the sides of the room, in their own spaces but accessible to everyone, there were drafting tables, a couple of which had people working at them. They had glanced up when the elevator doors opened, but seeing Alex, they’d nodded and gone back to work.

  Daisy’s gaze swiveled to take in the whole room. “Wow,” she said, impressed. “Very nice.”

  “I like it. Let me show you around.” He introduced her to Alison, his middle-aged office manager. Then he took her to meet the two at the drafting tables. A young dark-haired woman, Naomi, was deeply involved in whatever she’d been assigned and barely glanced up to smile. But the other, an intern named Steve, had some questions about his project, so Daisy was able to take some shots of Alex and Steve, leaning over one of the drafting tables, studying blue prints.

  Then, while Alex answered Steve’s questions, she wandered around, taking other shots of the room, of Alex on the job.

  It was just the way she’d imagined him—in his element, his easy competence apparent. He drew her gaze as he bent over the table, his dark hair falling across his forehead as he pointed out something to Steve. She snapped off a couple of shots. But even when she lowered the camera, she couldn’t seem to look away.