for months, rather than hours. With a laugh, Daisy petted her lavishly, then went to the kitchen to put food in her dog dish.
She didn’t bother to take off her coat. She knew how this would go. As expected, Sunny gulped down her food, then immediately leaped back to the door with a happy bark. Daisy sighed a little to herself. Sunny did love her walks. Even when it was cold and threatening rain.
Grabbing the leash, Daisy attached it to the dog’s collar and left the apartment.
Once outside, she took a deep breath of the cold, damp air. It was late afternoon as she took the dog for their usual walk along the river path. By the time they returned forty minutes later, the drizzle was threatening to deepen into rain, and the sun was falling in the west, streaking the fiery sky red and orange, silhouetting the sharp Manhattan skyline across the East River. As busy as she’d been, she’d forgotten to eat that day, and she was starving. Seeing her co-op building ahead, Daisy hurried her pace, fantasizing about what she’d have for dinner.
Then she saw the black Rolls-Royce parked in front of the building. A chill went down her spine as a towering, dark-haired figure got out of the limo.
She stopped cold, causing a surprised yelp from Sunny. She wanted to turn and run—a ridiculous idea, when she knew Leonidas Niarxos could easily run her down, with his powerful body and long legs.
Their eyes met, and he came forward grimly.
She couldn’t move, staring at his darkly powerful form, with the backdrop view of the majestic bridge and red sunset.
Please, she thought as he approached. Let her black puffy coat be enough to hide her pregnancy. Please, please.
But her hope was crushed with his very first words.
“So it’s true?” Leonidas’s voice was dangerously low, his black eyes gleaming like white-hot coal in the twilight. He looked down at her belly, bulging out beneath the long black puffy coat. “You’re pregnant?”
Instinctively, she wrapped her hands over her baby bump. How had he heard? She trembled all over. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you, Daisy?”
She could hardly deny it. “Yes.”
His burning gaze met hers. “Is the baby mine?”
She swallowed hard, wanting more than anything to lie.
But she couldn’t. Even though Leonidas had lied to her about his identity, and lied about Daisy’s father, she couldn’t fall to his level. She couldn’t lie to his face. Not even for her child.
What kind of mother would she be, if she practiced the same deceit as Leonidas Niarxos? She felt somehow, even in the womb, that her baby was listening. And she had to prove herself worthy. She, at least, was a good person. Unlike him.
“Am I the father, Daisy?” he pressed.
Stiffening, Daisy lifted her chin defiantly. “Only biologically.”
“Only?” Leonidas’s eyes went wide, then narrowed. Setting his jaw, he walked slowly around her, as if searching for weaknesses. He ignored her dog, who traitorously wagged her tail at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I?”
“Because it’s the decent thing to do?”
She glared at him. “You don’t deserve to be her father.”
Leonidas stopped, as if he’d been punched in the gut. Then he said evenly, “You are legally entitled to child support.”
She tossed her head. “I don’t want it.”
“You’d really let your pride override the best interests of the child?”
“Pride!” she breathed. “Is that what you think?”
“What else could it be? You want to hurt me. You don’t care that it also injures our baby in the process.”
It was strange, Daisy thought, that even after all this time, he could still find new ways to hurt her.
It didn’t help that Leonidas was even more devastatingly handsome than she remembered, standing in the twilight dressed in black from head to toe, in his dark suit covered by a long dark coat. His clothing was sleek, but his black hair was rumpled, and his sharp jawline was edged with five o’clock shadow. Everything about him seemed dark in this moment.
“This isn’t about you,” she ground out. “It’s about her. She doesn’t need a father like you—a liar with no soul!”
For a moment, they glared at each other as they stood on the empty pathway along the East River, with the brilliant backdrop of Manhattan’s skyline against the red sunset. Her harsh words hung between them like toxic mist.
“You only hate me because I told the truth about your father.” His voice was low. “But I am not the one you should hate. I never lied