Penniless And Secretly Pregnant - Jennie Lucas Page 0,22

he could.

Except when he’d been Leo.

It was strange, looking back. For the month he’d been Daisy’s lover, it had been exhilarating to let down his guard and not have to live up to the world’s expectations of Leonidas Niarxos, billionaire playboy. In Daisy’s eyes, he’d been an ordinary man, a nobody, really—but somehow she’d still thought him worthy.

And he’d loved it. He’d been free to be truly himself, instead of always being primed for battle, ready to attack or defend. He’d been able to show his silly side, like the time they’d nearly died laughing together while digging through vintage vinyl albums at a Brooklyn record shop, teasing each other about whose taste in music was worse. Or the time they’d brought weird flavors of ice cream home from an artisanal shop, and they’d ended up smearing each other with all the different flavors—chocolate cinnamon, whiskey banana and even one oddly tart sugar dill... He shivered, remembering how it had tasted to suckle that exotic flavor off Daisy’s bare, taut nipple.

In the back of his mind, Leonidas had always known it could not last.

But this would.

He would marry Daisy. They’d raise their child together. Their daughter would have a different childhood than Leonidas had had. She would always feel wanted. Cherished. Encouraged. Whether she was making mud pies or learning calculus or kicking soccer balls, whether she was succeeding or failing, she would always know that her father adored her.

But marriage was the key to that stability. Otherwise, what would stop Daisy from someday becoming another man’s wife? Leonidas wanted to be a full-time father, not a part-time one. He wanted a stable home, and for their daughter to always know exactly who her family was. And if Daisy married someone else, how could he guarantee that any other man could care for Leonidas’s child as she needed—as she deserved?

He had to be there for his child. And Daisy.

He had to convince her that he was right.

But how?

Leonidas looked at Daisy, sitting next to him in the spacious back seat of the limo. Convincing her to join him for dinner was a good start. But as they crossed into Manhattan, she still stared fiercely out the window, stroking her dog as if it were an emotional support animal. Her lower lip wobbled, as if she were fighting back tears.

The smile slid away from Leonidas’s face. A marriage where the husband and wife fought in white-knuckled warfare, or secretly despised each other in a cold war, was the last thing he wanted. He’d seen that in his own parents, though they’d supposedly once been passionately in love.

He wanted a partnership with Daisy. A friendship. That was the best way to create a home for a child. At least so he’d heard.

Leonidas took a deep breath. He had to woo Daisy. Win her. Convince her he was worthy of her trust and esteem, if not her love. Just as he’d done with Liontari—he had to take their bankrupt, desolate relationship, and make it the envy of the world.

But how?

As the Rolls-Royce crossed into the shadowy canyons between Manhattan’s illuminated skyscrapers, the moonlight was pale above them. The limo finally pulled up in front of his five-story mansion in the West Village. Daisy looked up through her car window.

“You call that homey?” she said in a low voice.

He shrugged. “It’s home. And very dog friendly.”

“Since when?”

“Since now.” Getting out of the car, Leonidas shook his head at his driver, and opened her door himself.

But as Daisy got out of the back seat, she wouldn’t meet Leonidas’s eyes, or take his offered hand. Cuddling her dog against her chest, she looked up at Leonidas’s hundred-year-old brownstone, her lovely face anxious.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“It’s just dinner. A totally casual, very homey, dog-friendly dinner.”

Her expression was dubious, but she got out of the car. Daisy and her dog followed him slowly up the steps to the door, where he punched in the code. They went into the foyer, beneath crystal chandeliers high overhead.

“Where’s the butler?” she asked, the corners of her lips curving up slightly as he helped her take off her long black coat.

“He quit a few months ago.”

“Quit?”

“I’ve been living in Paris. He went in search of less boring employment.” He shrugged. “I still have Mrs. Berry and a few other staffers, but they’ve all gone home for the night.”

Daisy drew back, her face troubled in the shadowy foyer. “So we’re alone?”

He took off his coat, adding it to the