But everything about her was alive—from her unruly hair to her lively sparkling eyes to her kissable lips.
Alex tried not to think about her kissable lips. It wasn’t as if he was going to be tasting them again this evening. Furthermore, he reminded himself, he shouldn’t even want to. He was this close to buying Caroline an engagement ring.
But Caroline’s kisses had never intoxicated him. They’d never made him hot and hard and hungry in a matter of an instant. He’d lost every bit of his common sense that weekend with Daisy—and she hadn’t had any at all.
There had never been anything cool, calm and collected about her. She was a lead-with-her-heart, damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead sort of woman.
Basically the anti-Caroline. And Caroline was what he wanted.
Wasn’t she?
“Are you coming?”
Alex jerked his brain back into gear to see that Tom had disappeared into the hotel, but that Daisy was still standing at the top of the stairs by the revolving door, waiting.
“Got distracted. Sorry.” He bounded up the steps, feeling awkward, caught out. And feeling that way, he challenged her. “Been running?” he asked her gruffly.
“I told you,” she said with some asperity. “The cab was caught in traffic. I left it in the middle of Columbus Circle.”
“You walked from Columbus Circle?” Wide-eyed he stared at her high pointy-toed heels.
“No,” she said flatly. “I ran.”
Definitely the anti-Caroline. Alex shook his head, dazed and amazed, and unable to keep from grinning. “Of course you did.”
Daisy glared, her eyes flashing. “You said not to be late!”
“So I did.” His grin widened briefly, then he met her gaze. “Thank you.”
Their eyes locked. And Alex felt the electricity arc between them exactly the way it always did. It didn’t seem to matter that she was all wrong for him. He jerked his gaze away from hers, but it only went as far as her lips. Nervously she licked them.
Alex’s body went on full alert.
Daisy tore her gaze away. “It sounded like the sort of occasion where it wouldn’t do to waltz in late,” she said, a little ragged edge to her voice. “Not if you’re at the head table.”
She was right, of course. He was being a fool—again.
Impatient with his own weakness, Alex gestured her brusquely into the revolving door. “Well, let’s not waste your sacrifice, then. We’ll go in.”
Daisy was in complete control.
She might as well have had a squadron of singing mice and a fairy godmother the way everything had fallen into place. Izzy was keeping Charlie, the glitzy shimmery dress fit perfectly, the sophisticated black dress coat her mother had given her for her birthday was beautifully appropriate. Other than the stupid traffic jam and having to run quarter of a mile and that she could feel her hair slipping from its knot, she didn’t have a care in the world.
Granted her first glimpse of Alex in formal attire, complete with black tie, pristine white shirt, checking his watch impatiently as he waited for her, had made her mouth dry and her heart gallop. But, Daisy assured herself, that was because she’d just been running, not because of the man himself.
Still, once in the hotel, on the arm of the handsomest man in the room, it was hard not to believe she was channeling Cinderella.
Daisy had been to the Plaza before. But she’d never been to An Event.
This was An Event—in a cavernous room that despite its immensity, managed somehow to seem warm and appealing and elegant with matte gold walls, burgundy drapes, glimmering sconces and crystal chandeliers. The dozens of tables wore pristine white damask linens, sported napkins folded by origami experts, and had settings of gleaming china and rows of delicate stemware.
Not a bowl of mac and cheese in sight.
When she worked for Finn, Daisy had gone to plenty of glitz-and-glamour events. In the fashion industry they’d been brasher and flashier, not to mention, thousands of decibels louder than this one. A girl from small town Colorado had been very much out of her league. But after the first half dozen or so, she had become blasé and soon she began waltzing through them without batting an eyelash.
Of course those rarely required her to look suave and elegant and remember which fork to use. Tonight there looked to be a surfeit of forks. But it wasn’t the number of forks that was making her blood race. It was Alex.
“Can I get you something to drink? Wine? A cocktail?”
“I’ll have a glass of wine,” Daisy decided. “Red.”
They’d drunk a smooth dark burgundy when they’d first met. If she was going to rewrite the ending of their encounter, she would begin tonight the way they’d begun before. But this time she wouldn’t let herself embroider the circumstances with airy-fairy fantasies of happily ever afters.
“Burgundy,” Alex said, surprising her. Did he remember? But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask.
“I’ll be right back.” He headed toward the bar.
When he returned, drinks in hand, Daisy was standing near the wall right where Alex had left her. She drew his eye clear across the room. The dress he’d glimpsed before she’d shed her coat definitely lived up to its promise. Its blue-green iridescence sparkled like northern lights as it molded her every curve. The short embroidered jacket covered more than he wished, hinting at bare shoulders beneath, smooth shoulders he remembered kissing all too well.
But it was more than the dress that drew his gaze, more than the dress that made the woman. There was a warmth and a vibrant energy in Daisy—as if she were the only person there in three dimensions. Everyone else seemed flat by comparison.
She had been alone when he’d left her, but now she was chatting with hospital CEO Douglas Standish and his wife. Daisy’s expression was animated, interested. He remembered her that way from the moment he’d first seen her. She engaged with people, drew them out. She had drawn him.
Never particularly social, Alex had attended the wedding with the intent of leaving as soon as it was reasonable to do so. He’d drifted around the periphery of the room, keeping his eye on the exit—until he’d seen Daisy.
Then he’d only had eyes for her. It was still that way.
Now he wound his way through the crowds of people, heading toward her as determinedly as he had that long-ago day.
“Here you go.” He handed the drink to Daisy, then turned to Standish’s wife. “May I get you a drink?”
“No, thank you, dear. Douglas will do that. I just wanted to meet your lovely lady—and tell her how lovely you are—” her eyes twinkled merrily when Alex opened his mouth to protest “—and what an amazing gift you’ve given us with the design for the hospital wing.”
“Thank you for saying so.”
She patted him on the sleeve. “Have a wonderful evening. You deserve it. So nice to meet you, dear,” she said to Daisy, before taking her husband’s arm and guiding them into the crowd.
“So,” Daisy said, looking him in the eye when the other woman had left, “you’re the guest of honor. And you couldn’t be bothered to tell me?”
Alex shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
Daisy’s eyes glittered. “It’s a huge deal,” she contradicted him. “Huge. Apparently your hospital wing has broken new ground in patient services. It’s celebrated worldwide.” She had gone beyond glitter to glare now. “They’re giving you an award.”
“I told you that when you did the photos for the article.”
“An award, you said. You didn’t tell me anything about it. It might have been for perfect attendance at meetings for all I knew! This is wonderful!” And now her wonderful eyes sparkled with warmth and delight, and in spite of himself, Alex felt a rush of pleasure. “Did you tell Caroline?”
“No,” he said, surprised.
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing to do with her.”
“Of course it is!”
Baffled, he shook his head. “Why?” She hadn’t done anything.
He hadn’t even known her when he’d done it himself.
“Because you did it! Because you’re her man.”
But he wasn’t Caroline’s man. He wasn’t anyone’s man. But he wasn’t going to have that argument with Daisy now. Fortunately people were beginning to head to their seats. So he just said, “Come on. We need to go sit down.” He took her arm, more aware of touching her than he was whenever he touched Caroline. He led her to the table where they would be sitting, then pulled out her chair.
Daisy flounced down into it, but she still wasn’t done. She looked up at him, her expression annoyed. “She’d be thrilled,” she told him. “And proud. I am—proud,” she said, “and it’s nothing at all to do with me.”
Alex felt a warm flush of pleasure at her admitting that. What he didn’t do was tell her that it wasn’t entirely true.
He would never have taken the commission at all if something she’d said to him hadn’t stuck with him for the past five years. Initially he’d said no. He had no interest in hospital design. He didn’t like hospitals. Hated them, in fact.
After his brother had got leukemia, Alex had spent far too much time in hospitals watching his brother suffer and become more and more remote. It had devastated him. Even now Alex associated hospitals with the most painful period of his life.
After Vass’s death, Alex had never set foot in one again. Even when he broke his arm playing lacrosse in college, he’d insisted on having it set at a doctor’s office. “No hospital,” he’d said firmly. It was the last place he wanted to be.
He didn’t talk about hospitals, either. Didn’t talk about Vass. Never had to anyone. Except that weekend when Daisy had got under his skin.
He supposed it was because she was just getting her equilibrium back after losing her father. Barely fifty, he’d been born with a heart defect that had grown worse over time. He’d been in and out of the hospital often, she’d said. And the sad wistful look on her face had prompted Alex to confide that he, too, hated hospitals.
“They take away your life,” he’d said harshly, remembering how remote and sterile they had seemed, how they’d isolated his brother, how Vass had wanted to come home so badly, to be out, to be anywhere but there. “They don’t save it.”
He’d expected her to agree.
Instead she’d shaken her head. “It wasn’t the hospital’s fault. Without the care my dad got there, we’d have lost him sooner. But it was hard for him to feel connected. He felt so isolated, like he wasn’t really a part of things anymore.”
Vass had said the same thing.
“There was only one window,” she’d gone on. “But he couldn’t see outside from his bed. So we used to pretend. We’d close our eyes and pretend he was home or we were going fishing in the San Juan or even doing chores, chopping wood for the fireplace. He loved that fireplace …” Daisy had swallowed then, and her eyes had glistened with unshed tears. She’d blinked them back rapidly. “It wasn’t the hospital’s fault,” she repeated. “But it could have been better. It could have been more.”
Her words had made Alex think.
What if Vass had had a chance to spend time in a hospital that had allowed him to feel connected. What if he’d been able to do, at least virtually, the things he wanted to do—like go back to the beach near their island home, or drive a race car, or sail over the Alps in a hot-air balloon?
Once Alex opened the floodgates, the ideas wouldn’t stop coming. And what hadn’t been possible twenty-five to thirty years ago was within reach now.
Alex’s hospital wing was full of windows—floor-to-ceiling in many rooms. Even treatment rooms, wherever possible, brought the outside in. If a patient wanted to see the world beyond the walls, he could. The semirural setting just across the river north of the city provided views of the countryside as well as the city skyline. And it wasn’t just about the visuals. Alex worked in sound systems and even olfactory ones, connecting senses to the world beyond the hospital’s confines.
He had provided virtual worlds, as well. Patients in the wing he’d designed could close their eyes as Daisy’s father had, but they could also use modern electronics to create the sights, sounds and smells of the seashore, the woods, the inside of a race car or the ballroom of a fairy-tale palace.
He told her about it now, aware of the way she looked at him, as if he could hang the moon. The salads that had been in front of them when they’d sat down remained virtually untouched.
“It sounds like an amazing place.” Daisy smiled, a smile that went all the way to her eyes, that touched—as it always did—a place hidden somewhere deep inside him that no one ever reached but her.
He cleared his throat. “If you have to be in a hospital,” he agreed gruffly, “if you can’t have what the rest of the world takes for granted, I guess it will do.”
Their eyes met. And Alex knew that whether or not he mentioned his brother or her father, Daisy remembered. Daisy knew.
What surprised him, though, was her withdrawal. One minute she’d been gazing at him with warmth and admiration. The next some shadow seemed to settle over her, her expression shuttered.
“I’m sure that all the children will appreciate it.” Her tone was polite, but she seemed suddenly more remote. She turned to her salad and began to eat.
Alex was more nettled by her withdrawal than he would have liked. But really, what difference did it make? He hadn’t done it for her. He’d done it for people like her father, his brother. He dug into his own salad.
Neither of them spoke until the salads were taken away and the entree was set before them. Then Daisy turned toward him again. “What sort of building are you working on now?”
So they were going to be polite and proper and distant. Fine by him. Alex was glad to talk about the present so he told her about the office building he was designing on the edge of Paris.
Daisy had never been to Paris. And as he talked, he saw her eyes begin to sparkle again. Her remoteness vanished. Her questions came more quickly, and her enthusiasm was contagious. He wanted to make her smile, wanted to have her cock her head and listen eagerly. Alex found himself telling her not just about his work in Paris, but about the city itself, about places he liked, things he’d seen, galleries he visited, buildings he admired.
“You used to live there, didn’t you?” It was the first time she’d alluded to the past.
“Yes. And then I was here for a while. But I went back four or five years ago,” he said. He knew precisely when he’d gone—and why. After the disastrous end to his weekend with Daisy, New York had more memories than he wanted. Paris seemed like a far safer place to be.
It was only in the past six months or so—when he’d made up his mind to marry, in fact—that he’d returned to live more or less permanently in New York. Even now, though, he kept his small flat in the fifth arrondissement.
Their talk moved from Paris to the Riviera, to other places he’d been. Daisy asked about all of them. The women Amalie had set him up with had asked questions, too, but not like Daisy. Not as if they cared about the answers.
Daisy did. And her interest and enthusiasm drew him out. He would have liked to show her Paris, to walk the wide boulevards and narrow lanes with her, to sit at a tiny table in an outdoor café and drink strong dark coffee with her, to wander through the museums and the galleries hand in hand with her, to walk along the Seine with her and kiss her there, to run through a rainstorm with her.
To take her back to his little garret flat and make love with her. He could imagine Daisy there, letting him strip off her little embroidered jacket, then letting him find the zip at the back of her dress and lower it slowly. He’d kiss his way down—inch by luscious inch and—
“And what?” Daisy was looking at him, curious and impatient.
Hot. God, he was hot. And hard. And suddenly aware that he was in the middle of a crowded room with the object of his fantasy studying him worriedly. Her eyes were still bright and eager, but she was looking at him with puzzlement.
“What happened? You stopped talking,” Daisy said. “Did you just get distracted?”
Alex’s heart was still hammering, his body still feeling the effects of what he’d been thinking about—her. He shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “I did, yes.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “Sorry about that.”
He didn’t let it happen again, even though he was still intensely aware of her. It was almost a relief when dinner ended. Except then the speeches began, and Alex knew he would have to say something when the award was presented.
Public speaking wasn’t his forte. He preferred to speak with his work, with his design, with his buildings, not his words.
But when the time came, Daisy clapped madly and beamed at him encouragingly when Douglas Standish beckoned him to the podium to accept his award.
Alex made it brief. He gripped the podium and stared into the bright lights as he thanked the hospital board who had given him the opportunity to design the wing and the committee who had given him the award. It was what he had prepared, and it was all he had intended to say.
But before he could walk away, his gaze slid across the hundreds of people in the room and, looking down, he didn’t see the lights. He saw Daisy.
His mouth went dry at the sight of her upturned face, at her avid expression, her tantalizing smile. And he didn’t walk away. He looked at her, spoke to her.
His voice was less stilted and more ragged as he said, “I hope this wing makes a difference to the patients. I hope it gives them the safe haven they need to get well and—” he paused, his eyes still locked with hers “—the connections to the world outside to keep them strong.”
Like your father never had. Like my brother never had. And you ‘re the only one who knows why I did it.
He could see that in her eyes, the realization dawning, her lips parting in a silent O.
Alex jerked his gaze away and abruptly shut his mouth. Then, clutching the award in a sweaty hand, he said hoarsely, “Thank you all,” and strode back to his chair and sat down.
His heart was crashing in his chest. He didn’t look at Daisy. He didn’t have to. He could sense her eyes on him. The awareness, the emotion vibrated between them. So damn much emotion it felt like being swept off by a tidal wave. He kept his gaze resolutely on the platform where Douglas was coming back to speak.
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