JULIAN tidied away the lunch dishes, checked the twins were still sleeping, then read through the rest of Madeleine’s notes. He’d give them to Daisy to read—had her parents had no idea of how she’d look that they’d named her Daisy? Surely they’d have expected her to bear some genetic likeness to one or other of them—expected she might be dark-haired?
Maybe there were dark daisies he didn’t know about—not just the white and golden ones the word conjured up in his mind. But they were bright and functional flowers—happy enough but everyday kind of blooms—whereas Daisy was exotic, more like an orchid.
Not that anyone in his or her right mind would call a child Orchid…
Fortunately, just as he realised how far his mind had wandered, and how absurd his train of thought was, a loud yell from the boys’ bedroom suggested at least one of them was not only awake but intent on waking his brother.
Back into the fray.
Daisy, heading dutifully back up to the penthouse at four twenty-nine, met Julian in the lift, the two boys strapped into their twin stroller, quiet by virtue of the ice creams they were both eating and spreading over their skin and clothes.
‘Madeleine’s notes didn’t mention they changed character during their afternoon sleep,’ Julian growled at her, and for the first time she couldn’t find any hint of a smile on his face. ‘Take my advice, if you happen to be here on your own any afternoon, keep them awake. I’ve always recommended to parents that children need at least a rest in the afternoon, but these two? They wake up like monsters.’
‘I wake up cranky if I sleep in the daytime,’ Daisy told him, taking the twins straight through to the bathroom. ‘They might be the same.’
‘Cranky doesn’t begin to cover it,’ Julian told her, stripping the small, sticky bodies while she filled the tub. ‘I can understand why parents get so upset with my pontificating that they demand to know if I have children of my own. It’s certainly much easier in theory.’
He lifted first one little boy, then the other into the tub and stood up, apparently prepared to let Daisy do the rest.
Daisy removed the boat Ewan was using to create great splashes by slapping it down into the water, then grabbed Shaun’s shoulder as he slid back and forth to create a tidal wave that was in danger of slopping over the end of the bath.
‘Are you going to continue standing there watching me get wet, or do something useful like starting on their dinner?’ She sneaked a quick look at the man in the doorway. ‘You can cook, I presume?’
‘Naturally!’ His tone was all lofty indignation. ‘In fact, I’m considered something of expert.’ He paused for a moment, before adding, ‘And you don’t look so bad all wet.’
Daisy decided to ignore the last bit, and stick with the ‘expert cook’ remark.
‘An expert in children’s meals—a little meat and three veg?’
She turned towards him again and was rewarded with a smile.
‘Basic stuff!’ he scoffed, then hesitated. ‘Sure you don’t want a hand to lift them out and dry and dress them? That seems like a two-man job to me.’
Daisy returned the smile.
‘I’ll give it a go. After all, if I were to have twins, I’d be the only man available.’
He chuckled, and departed, taking with him the tension she hadn’t realised had gathered in her shoulders.
By the time she reappeared with the two sweet-smelling and pyjama-clad boys, he had tea ready for them, set at a small table in the kitchen.
‘We might be able to manage this,’ he said, obviously pleased they’d got through the day.
‘They’re not in bed yet,’ Daisy reminded them. ‘And remember how we felt at lunchtime! We might be able to manage over the weekend, but I think your mother will need any assistance she can get during the week. I start part-time work on Monday but can pop up every afternoon to help her with their baths. Gabi’s only working part time and I know she’ll help out. She’s pregnant and needs the practice. And both Alana and Kirsten will lend a hand when they can—you’ll probably meet them tonight, but if they’re not at Mickey’s I’ll talk to them tomorrow or Sunday. We usually bump into each other at breakfast in a café up the road on Sunday mornings—not by arrangement, just by being there.’
‘Like Mickey’s on a Friday night? Can’t you have too much togetherness? Doesn’t it all get a bit cloying at times?’
Daisy was startled by his questions—which were more the question of a loner than the gregarious man his smile suggested he’d be.
Though a gregarious man wouldn’t be looking for an arranged marriage, would he?
Was the smile a front—a mask he wore to stop people looking past its geniality?
And if so, why?
She smiled to herself, knowing this urge to dig behind people’s façades was a bad habit—probably developed from her psych studies.
‘Apparently not, if that smile is anything to go by.’
His words made her realise she hadn’t answered—too lost in her thoughts.
‘There are a number of us who’ve lived in the Near West apartment building for years. I’m the newest of the group, but I’ve been here a couple of years,’ she explained, ‘so naturally friendships have developed, especially as we’ve all worked at Royal Westside at some time. Will you be doing consultancy work there?’
He shook his head.
‘Though I’ll be seeing newborns—a friend I worked with when I first went to the UK is an obstetrician at Royal Westside, and he’s offered to refer to me. And I’ll be visiting my own patients if that’s where they happen to be admitted, but nothing else has been arranged. I’ve been doing hospital work and lecturing for the last few years, but I’m shifting into private practice—taking over Dr Clement’s paediatric practice. Do you know him?’
He’d turned away to retrieve the spoon Ewan had flung to the floor, so wouldn’t have seen Daisy’s start as shock stiffened her muscles.
‘Dr Clement? You’re taking over from Dr Clement? On Monday?’
He might not have seen her surprise, but he certainly heard it, for he turned to her, a puzzled frown knitting the dark eyebrows closer.
‘Why? Is there something wrong with that? Something wrong with the practice? I saw the books, went into quite a lot of detail—’
‘No!’ Daisy managed to gulp. ‘No, he’s fine and it’s a great practice. It’s just…’
She couldn’t continue, simply stared at the man she’d met only this morning but who was now, incredibly, about to become her boss.
‘It’s just…’
She shook her head, trying to banish disbelief, but before she had to answer, Shaun tipped over his milk and, while Julian cleaned up the mess, she took the little boy through to his bedroom to change his clothes.
‘The milk will go all smelly if I don’t wash it straight out,’ she told Julian, when she brought Shaun back to finish his meal. ‘I’ll put all their soiled clothes into the machine.’
He nodded and she thought she was safe, but when she returned to the alcove off the kitchen, where the washing machine and dryer were tucked into a large cupboard, he didn’t hesitate to remind her of their interrupted conversation.
‘Dr Clement?’
She’d recovered enough to grin at him.
‘Serendipity?’ she suggested. ‘I start work there Monday as well.’
‘You do?’
‘There’s no need to sound so incredulous,’ she grumbled as she checked the labels on the small garments to make sure they could all be machine-washed. ‘I worked with Dr Clement years ago—for quite a while actually—doing counselling work with some of his patients. He sees a lot of children with disabilities and I provided onsite support for the parents.’
Her grouchiness vanished as she remembered.
‘In fact, that was probably the most rewarding work I’ve ever done,’ she told him, flashing him a smile that reflected the satisfaction her work had given her.
‘Then why did you leave?’
Julian saw the change—it was in the darkening of her eyes, from silver to a stormcloud grey, and in the way her soft lips tightened, almost, but not quite, imperceptibly.
Yet all she did was square her shoulders, meet his eyes, and say, ‘Other worlds to conquer, I guess.’
‘And now?’ he persisted, wanting to know more about this woman who’d so fortuitously crossed his path, a woman who wanted a baby—who was already planning to have one. Forget her silly notion of single parenthood, he’d soon talk her out of that. This was obviously meant to be.
He felt a quiver of excitement move across his skin as the physical side of him acknowledged that making babies with Daisy Rutherford, given the practice it would doubtless require, wasn’t all that repulsive an idea.
The cloud-grey eyes beamed suspicion his way.
‘The same answer, really. The challenge of a new adventure. Working for Dr Clement isn’t new, but it’s only a six-month job—filling in for a woman on maternity leave, as it happens. And after that, the baby…’
‘Is that how you see having a child? As an adventure?’
The clouds vanished, blown away by a smile so natural, and heartfelt, and full of joy, he wondered if she’d smiled before her parents had named her Daisy, because it was a sunshiny, golden daisy kind of smile.
‘But isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘New discoveries every single day—new delights.’
‘Wait till you take the twins to the park,’ he warned, ‘before you talk about delights.’
‘Ho!’ she responded with such abundant cheer he couldn’t help but smile back at her. ‘Difficulties are part of any adventure. You don’t get the same joy out of your achievement if you don’t have to do the hard bits.’ She nodded towards the children, who were now splashing yoghurt at each other. ‘And I have taken them to park—or minded them there while Ingrid dashed off on some mysterious errand.’
She flashed a cheeky smile at him. ‘Probably booking her plane ticket to Japan.’
Julian nodded, but he was thinking about the smile—and Daisy’s talk of the ‘adventure’ of bringing up a child.
It was a wonderful attitude, and though he hadn’t considered it that way before she’d brought it up, now that he did, he agreed.
But just as his mind was floating off to a fabulous future, with a child, and a wife who was also a business partner—now, that was a coincidence too incredible to ignore—a loud yell from Ewan rudely reminded him of his responsibilities.
‘I think it’s bedtime,’ Daisy said, crossing the room to lift Shaun from his chair. ‘I’ll clean this one up and get him ready.’
‘You’re really very good to be helping out like this,’ he told her, smiling because the idea of the fabulous future hadn’t entirely disappeared.
Daisy caught the smile—one of his very best. Then regretted seeing it as, to her astonishment, it made bits of her go gooey deep inside—a reaction that had been reserved, in recent times, for when she was holding newborn babies.
Was it all the talk of babies that had caused it?
She hoped so, because he smiled so often that if it kept on happening, it would make working with him very difficult.
Her being gooey inside and all…
Julian followed her into the bedroom, carrying Ewan so effortlessly that some deep primordial instinct left over from early mate-selection processes gave him full marks for his strength and caused a skitter of excitement in her autonomic nervous system.
‘Thank heavens we’ve learnt to think and reason,’ she muttered, more to herself than anyone.
‘Tink and ’eason,’ Shaun repeated obligingly, then his hands cupped Daisy’s chin and he turned her face towards his. ‘Why?’
Julian’s ‘Just what I wanted to ask, young man’ told Daisy he, too, had heard.
‘Because surely other forms of mate selection are dangerous,’ she said, rubbing noses with Shaun so he’d forget he’d asked a question.
‘Were we discussing mate selection?’ Julian asked, and she didn’t have to see his face to know his smile would be lurking.
‘I was—in my head,’ Daisy admitted, then wondered why herself. A number of ‘whys’, in fact. Why she kept answering the questions he asked. Why she didn’t just shut up. Why she seemed determined to commit conversational suicide with this man.
‘And do I rate a mention in this discussion?’
‘Only insofar as it’s all your fault,’ Daisy told him, ignoring her own advice to keep quiet. ‘You got us into all this trouble because of it, if you remember. Even discounting love as an ingredient for marriage, surely you must put some weight on mate selection when it comes to having a child.’
‘Ah, the great adventure,’ he said softly. ‘Perhaps we can discuss it later, but for now let’s get these imps cleaned up and ready for bed.’
She followed him into the bathroom, helped Shaun—who wanted to do it all himself—brush his teeth, then carried him through to the bedroom, feeling his tiredness in the heavy way he slumped against her.
‘No unison stories tonight,’ she said, when the boys were both in bed. ‘I’ll whip downstairs to get changed for dinner. I’ll be back in time to introduce you to Jason.’
And to Alana and Rory, as it turned out.
‘Oh, you’ve already got Daisy looking after you,’ Alana said to Julian. ‘Rory and I came up to ask you to join us for dinner. You still can, of course.’
Alana, newly engaged and radiating happiness, chatted on, explaining they’d also felt they should check him out for Jason’s sake.
‘In case you looked like an axe murderer,’ Rory said, straight-faced but obviously sharing a joke with his fiancée, who dug him in the ribs.
‘As if!’ she said. ‘You know Madeleine hates the sight of blood.’
Daisy noticed Jason watching this teasing byplay with a smile of satisfaction on his face. Rory’s nephew, he was credited with bringing the two of them together, and he seemed mightily pleased with the result.
Julian was talking to him now, checking he had Mickey’s number, telling the teenager to phone if he had the slightest concern.
‘I’ll be right,’ Jason told him, ‘but if you’re worried, I won’t lose it if you come up and check. Madeleine usually does. I think she tells Graham she’s going to the ladies. He must wonder what takes her so long.’
The lad grinned at Julian, then, as if noticing Daisy for the first time, included her in his smile.
‘You’re looking neat,’ he said. ‘I’m not used to seeing you in real clothes.’
The tips of his ears went pink and he hastily amended the statement.
‘Dressed up—going-out clothes—you know what I mean.’
‘Of course I do, Jason, and thanks for the compliment. I’m glad your “neat” is a bit different to the one my mother used to use. Just about her favourite saying was, “For heaven’s sake, girl, you can’t help it if you’re not pretty, but you could at least be neat.” I think it was the hair that got to her. Try getting hair like this anywhere close to my mother’s version of neat.’
Jason gave her a playful punch in the upper arm, and excused himself.
‘The Frosts have cable TV—coming here and getting to watch it is the highlight of his week,’ Rory explained, and Alana chuckled.
‘No,’ she said gently. ‘The real highlight is if Ingrid comes home early from wherever she’s been.’
Apparently she didn’t notice the silence that greeted this remark, for she added, with her usual good cheer, ‘Are we all ready? Daisy, are you joining us?’
Daisy grinned at her.
‘Try and stop me! I mean to use the evening for a recruitment drive. And Jason’s doomed to disappointment as far as Ingrid’s concerned.’ They all called goodnight to Jason and shuffled through the door. ‘For ever,’ she added as they sorted themselves into the lift.
‘What do you mean?’ Alana asked, but the lift had stopped again, the doors opening to reveal Kirsten Collins and her soon-to-be husband, Josh Phillips.
More introductions, so, as Josh and Julian were playing the ‘do you know so-and-so’ game of fellow paediatricians, Daisy didn’t have a chance to answer Alana’s question.
But as they walked across the ground-floor foyer and into Mickey’s, Kirsten turned to her and asked, ‘Did Ingrid leave? Do you know?’
Though she should, by now, be used to Kirsten knowing just about everything that went on in the building, Daisy was still startled.
‘Did you see Gabi? Did she tell you?’ Daisy demanded.
Kirsten shook her head.
‘Ingrid told me—just days before the Frosts left—and I had the most dreadful time trying to decide if I should tell Madeleine, but I was sure if I did she’d put off the trip, and Graham’s been so sick they both needed the break. Then, on top of that, I knew Madeleine’s brother would be here, and who better than a paediatrician to mind the twins?’
‘Would you let Josh do it?’ Daisy asked, and saw Kirsten’s blithe confidence fade.
‘Well, probably not!’ she said doubtfully. ‘I mean, he might know kids as patients, but he doesn’t know that many personally. Except his brothers’ children and they don’t behave like kids. I think they were born perfect little Phillips clones. It positively terrifies me to think I might either produce more of the same, or perhaps be expected to. I’m not sure which option is worse.’
Daisy chuckled, but as the rest of the party had already gone into Mickey’s and Julian was holding the door open for the two laggards, she gave Kirsten a reassuring pat on the shoulder and urged her forward.
Not that she went far. No sooner were they through the door, and Julian had gone ahead to join the others at the bar, than Kirsten stopped again.
‘So what’s going to happen? Is Julian getting someone to come in—an emergency nanny of some kind?’
‘What are you two whispering about?’ Alana turned back to join them. ‘Is it to do with the recruitment drive you mentioned?’
So Daisy explained, carefully omitting the excuse Ingrid had given for her tantrum and detouring around any mention of babies, other than the twins.
‘I can see Julian’s point about keeping it from Madeleine, but his mother will definitely need help,’ Alana said. ‘That pair are a handful.’
‘Yes,’ Daisy agreed, perhaps a little too wholeheartedly, ‘But I’ll only be working part time, so I can pop up most afternoons.’
‘You’re too good to be true, Daisy,’ Kirsten said, shaking her head in mock-disbelief. ‘How did you get into it anyway? Did you know the hunky Julian?’
‘Hunky?’ Daisy echoed. ‘Do you think he’s hunky?’
Kirsten laughed and shook her head.
‘You can’t tell me you didn’t notice the hunkiness,’ she said, then frowned severely at Daisy. ‘Honestly, I’m seriously worried about you. Take a good look at the man and tell me what you see.’
She turned Daisy so she was facing the bar, where the three men were chatting easily.
‘He’s big,’ Daisy said. ‘I noticed that straight away. And, though I can’t see it right now, he’s got a nice smile.’
Kirsten shook her head again.
‘I give up,’ she said to Alana. ‘Here she’s spent the entire day with a man who puts our not-bad-looking blokes in the shade as far as handsome is concerned, and all she’s noticed is that he’s big and has a nice smile.’
‘And lovely eyes,’ Daisy added belatedly, desperate to make up for the lack of admiration her friends found so unbelievable.
‘Come on,’ Alana said, putting an arm around her shoulder and urging her forward. ‘We should know by now that Daisy inhabits a parallel universe. She sees far too much we’d just as soon she didn’t see—about us, I mean—and completely misses stuff we take for granted.’
She planted a kiss on her friend’s cheek.
‘But we love you anyway,’ she assured her, giving her a quick hug before releasing her.
But far from being reassured, Daisy was left seriously worried. It was OK for her to wonder if maybe she’d slipped into a parallel universe, but for her friends to be seeing her that way…
It was a pleasant evening, so much so that Daisy wondered if she’d been missing a normal social life more than she’d realised.
‘How about a nightcap in the penthouse?’ Julian suggested, and though the others all agreed, the men anxious to see Graham’s new wine fridge which had been a major topic of conversation during the evening, Daisy declined.
‘If I’m giving you a hand with the twins tomorrow, I’ll need an early night.’ It was true, but it still sounded like an excuse, and from the way Julian looked at her, he’d read it that way as well.
Which was possibly why, when she answered a knock on her door at eight the next morning, he was standing there.
Looking anxious.
‘You are up!’ he said, shifting as if his weight was too much for his feet to bear. ‘I was in a bind—not wanting to wake you but wanting you to know you could sleep in if you wanted to, which, of course, you couldn’t if I knocked on the door and woke you. The angel Gabi came knocking on my door just after the others had left, to say she and Alex would take the twins today. I got them up and fed them, and she’s just whisked them off, in Madeleine’s car so they’re in their own car-seats, for a day at the beach.’
There was a pause, and he shifted again.
‘Why don’t you come in and sit down?’ said Daisy. ‘I was making pikelets for the twins but I can turn them into pancakes and we can have them as breakfast—or brunch if you breakfasted with the twins.’
Julian stepped cautiously through the door.
Yesterday, in vivid pink, Daisy had looked exotic, but today’s shirt, again loose-fitting and in a fine material, was a deep purple, so again she stood out like an exotic bloom, especially as the comfortably furnished living room was homely and welcoming—but definitely unexotic.
He sat, because she’d suggested it, then felt foolish as she’d returned to the kitchen, presumably to turn pikelets into pancakes. He could see her head and shoulders above the breakfast bar dividing the kitchen off from the living and dining space.
‘You don’t have to sit,’ she called to him, divining his thoughts so correctly he took it as a sign that all the things he’d been thinking weren’t so impossible after all.
Thus armoured with conviction, he stood up and walked towards her, propping himself against the bar and folding his arms.
Daisy was pouring the thinned batter into a shallow pan, swirling the pan so it spread, and the conviction that this woman was perfect for what he had in mind—a sensible, rational, non-emotional marriage—grew.
‘It’s fantastic really—Gabi taking the twins—because it will give us a chance to get to know each other better.’
She turned, flipped the pancake with a quick flick of her wrist, then frowned ferociously at it before turning back to him.
‘Fantastic?’
‘Yes. Don’t you see how everything’s falling into place? First we meet like we did, then I find you’re going to be working with me.’ He paused, then asked, ‘The other psychologist? The one you’re replacing. Is she definitely coming back or just saying she will to get maternity leave?’
He watched as Daisy took a plate out of a warming oven, slid the pancake on to it, returned the plate to where it had been and poured more mixture into the pan, before turning back to him.
‘Is your cynicism showing, Doctor?’
He grinned at her.
‘You must admit, people do that kind of thing.’
Daisy might have agreed but she wasn’t admitting anything. Another pancake was removed from the pan, the process carrying on without the slightest hitch though it was obvious from her smile that her attention wasn’t on the job.
Encouraged by the smile, Julian continued. ‘I wondered because I was thinking how convenient it would be if you stayed on in the job. Convenient for you, me and the baby. We’d be partners in business as well as in marriage.’
He looked hopefully at her, but as she was adding a sixth pancake to the pile, she didn’t answer immediately. Neither could he see her face to gauge a reaction, though when she said ‘Excuse me?’ in a disbelieving voice, he assumed she wasn’t as struck by the idea as he was.
But when she added, ‘There is no “you, me and the baby”, Julian,’ he thought he heard a lack of conviction in her words.
‘Ah, but maybe there could be. That’s what we have to discuss.’
Silence, apart from the splat of a pancake flipping back into the pan.
‘Surely we won’t eat more than that,’ he said, when it became obvious she wasn’t going to answer.
I won’t eat any, the way my stomach feels at the moment, Daisy thought. Having babies, partnerships—all on offer from a man who can make my insides go gooey! This is weird stuff!
But out loud she said, ‘I’m just finishing up the batter. This is the last.’
He waited until she lifted it out, then strode forward, turned off the gas, grabbed her shoulders and moved her away from the stove.
‘You get out whatever you need to spread over them, I’ll find cutlery and plates. I can’t continue a sensible business discussion with a woman who keeps flipping pancakes. It’s the most distracting thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, it must take a certain amount of concentration, so I know you can’t be listening—’
‘I did hear you,’ Daisy told him, putting honey and maple syrup on the bar, adding butter in case Julian liked that as well. ‘But I’ve already explained that I don’t want a husband, let alone a business partner. I don’t need either to—’
‘To have a baby,’ Julian finished for her. ‘But you only think that way because you haven’t thought about alternatives. You haven’t considered other options, probably because there wasn’t a man around who might fit the bill. This is ideal, Daisy, don’t you see? As partners in business as well as marriage, we can make our own rules. You can have whatever maternity leave you want, and if you want to keep working, you could bring the baby to work and we could organise some child-care, and both be there for him—or her—’
‘Partners in business as well as marriage? Julian, let’s get real here. You’ve known me less than twenty-four hours, you can’t possibly want to marry me.’
He looked so startled she wondered if she’d missed a day or two—maybe a month—somewhere, and they actually had a relationship she didn’t know about.
‘Why ever not? I agree, we need to talk a bit more, but you wouldn’t have said “Actually, I might”—see, I even remember the words—when I suggested the baby bit, if there was someone else in your life. Think about it, Daisy. You want a baby, I want a baby, we’re going to be working together. If you decide to keep working part time, that would be a bonus for me, but if you don’t want to work that’s OK, too.’
He forked two pancakes onto her plate and pushed it towards her, but how could she think about eating?
‘I’m rushing you, I know,’ he continued, as if his thoughts couldn’t be contained, ‘but babies take so darned long to get from conception to birth and then even longer to become really useful to a paediatrician father, I feel I need to get started on the project as soon as possible.’
Daisy stared at her pancakes, noticing the nice even brown colour which would normally have filled her with satisfaction that she’d got them just right. But today they could have been scorched black for all she cared. In fact, it was a wonder they weren’t, so distracted had she been, not only by Julian’s presence in her kitchen—any man’s presence in her kitchen—but by the weird conversation.
The latest revelation—his assumption that all this was possible—had simply been the last shock in a number of shocks—and one too many for her to contemplate.
Fortunately, he didn’t seem to be similarly discomposed, for he continued talking as if their conversation were about something as basic as the weather.
‘Tell me why you want a baby and why you’re not going the conventional meeting, courtship, relationship route?’
Immensely cheered to get something she could answer, Daisy poured syrup onto her pancakes, then cut across the top so the sweet liquid would ooze down between them.
‘I’ve always wanted children, and…’
Perhaps it wasn’t such an easy question after all.
‘And?’
The word hung in the air and, without looking at him, she could hear the smile in it.
She half smiled herself.
‘Do you know a song from an old musical about a cock-eyed optimist? I guess that’s what I was. My parents had a terrible relationship. They parted when I was six, and since then my mother’s gone from man to man—I think there’s an old song about that, too—which should have made me very cynical, but did it? No way. I went into every relationship I ever had—which isn’t many as I finally saw the light—thinking this is it, and hearing wedding bells and the chatter of small children.’
‘Really?’
He sounded so astonished she stopped playing with her pancakes and turned towards him. He looked astonished, too. Not even smiling.
‘Is there something wrong with that?’ she demanded. ‘With believing in love?’
He shook his head and took up a forkful of pancake—probably so he didn’t have to answer—chewed, swallowed…then smiled.
‘Nothing at all,’ he assured her, still smiling but in such a way she knew he meant it. ‘Nothing at all. Especially if you’re young. The thing people label love is a very powerful emotion in youth, though less life-altering as one grows older. Do you know, statistically speaking—?’
He broke off and offered her another smile—this one apologetic. ‘Sorry. I’ve spent a lot of time in university confines where theory reigns supreme.’
By this time, Daisy had no idea what they’d been talking about when she’d taken up the cudgels in defence of love.
Fortunately, Julian seemed to have remained on track, for he asked, ‘So, what’s happened to you—a believer in love—that you’re giving love a miss and going for a baby along a less conventional path?’
‘I found out it didn’t work for me. I still believe in it,’ she added sturdily, ‘but I’ve finally figured out—it might be genetic, given my mother’s behaviour—that the love route isn’t for me. It’s my own fault. I think I love too hard and turn the loved one off, though I tend to have abominable taste in men as well. Three out of three, all following exactly the same pattern of meeting, attraction, lust—you can’t discount that in relationships, in fact it’s probably where a lot of them go wrong—then, bingo, just when I think I can get the invitations printed, the guy departs from my life, usually in some spectacular fashion.’
She paused for a moment then said thoughtfully, ‘Actually, I could probably go on one of those programmes you sometimes see on daytime television. American programmes where the behind-the-scenes teams gather a group of people who all have weird love lives for the front person to interview. You know. Today’s guests “have all married their girlfriend’s mother’s husband’s baby” or “had sex with their uncle’s publican”—you know the kind of thing.’
Julian laughed, then pointed his finger at her.
‘I refuse to believe it can be that bad.’
‘Believe!’ she said, and nodded seriously. ‘Even in between the main three, there were losers. One guy I was asked to run a psych test on for a court case—a simple break-and-enter case but he was pleading diminished responsibility for some reason. He was good-looking and fun, and he asked me out. Of course, I went, stupid romantic fancies of curing him of his wicked ways floating freely in my head, and what happens but he somehow made a copy of my flat key—he’d never even been to my flat, I’m not totally stupid—let himself in and stole all my electrical equipment.’
‘You know it was him?’ Julian said in the kind of awed voice usually reserved for ‘stranger than fiction’ stories.
Daisy grinned at him.
‘He hadn’t done all that well on his IQ score, you know,’ she admitted, ‘so, of course, he left fingerprints all over the place. Apparently one of the reasons he was in court was for ripping off his girlfriends, but because he’d often been living in their flats, his fingerprints weren’t considered evidence. He kind of forgot he hadn’t been in mine.’
Julian shook his head.
‘After that story, I hardly like to ask about the ones you call the “main” ones.’
‘Actually, the first, Peter, wasn’t too bad. He just got uppity and left. He hadn’t minded me doing better than him in exams when we were both in high school, blaming that on girls maturing faster than boys, but when I started getting higher marks than him in university subjects—which we’d studied for together—he did a big dummy spit and that was that.’
‘So the first potential father proved a flop. What happened next?’
Daisy stared at him, unable to answer because his phrasing had startled her.
‘Do you think that’s what I’ve been doing? Thinking so far ahead—to the babies—I’ve only considered the men as father material? Because I didn’t have a father, perhaps? Well, not one I knew very well.’
She frowned at Julian, and he smiled and shook his head. ‘Lady, you’re the psychologist, but don’t over-analyse this. You are, no doubt, perfectly normal, and went into your relationship with the weakling who couldn’t hack you being brighter than him for all the usual reasons—attraction, liking, lust—you mentioned. Tell me about number two.’
‘I took a while to get to number two. I went out with a few men a few times and nothing happened—no magic, no desire to take things further. Then Adrian came along and the “this is it” syndrome kicked in again. Except eventually it turned out he was gay and I was an experiment,’ Daisy said, cheerful again because she knew she hadn’t lost Adrian because of who or what she was. ‘He thought a relationship with a woman would “cure” him, but I didn’t have a clue about that, of course, and he was so gorgeous—’
‘Perfect father material?’ Julian murmured, and Daisy rounded on him.
‘I wasn’t looking for a father for my children. I wanted a relationship—I fell in love. Children were a long way down the track, particularly as Adrian was a struggling artist.’
She hesitated then added, ‘Though recently I have considered him a possible sperm donor. When I decided to have a child.’
‘And number three—you did say three.’
Daisy felt the customary jolt of pain that wasn’t so much loss of love as betrayal.
‘Glen!’ The name slipped out before it could stop it, but she pulled herself together to add, ‘I don’t talk about number three.’ She hoped she sounded ultra-calm, though her fingers were shaking so much she put down her knife and fork in case Julian noticed.
‘But he’s definitely not a candidate?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Not likely to make a come-back, like some aging sports or rock star?’
‘No!’
He was pushing her and she snapped the word at him, but, rather than take offence, he seemed pleased, for he smiled as he used the last remaining pancake to mop what was left of the syrup from his plate.
‘So that leaves the field free for me,’ he said, and she wasn’t sure if the satisfaction she heard in his voice was from the breakfast or the conversation. ‘That’s if we discount Adrian, which I think we should, don’t you? There are all kinds of complications that could arise from having a donor, you know.’
‘But I’d know you,’ Daisy said, aware she was back in the other world again but quite enjoying the bizarreness of the conversations in it.
‘But I won’t be a donor who does the deed then disappears. I’d be in it for the long haul. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not saying I’ll be a perfect father, but I’d be a hands-on one. I know I talk about having a baby for professional reasons, but I love kids and really do want one or two of my own, for the same reasons you want one. I’d be there for you as well, partners, whatever the world might throw at us.’
And suddenly, whatever universe she might currently be inhabiting, the idea of having a partner seemed very appealing. To have someone there for her. She peered suspiciously at Julian. Had he phrased it that way because he guessed just how badly she’d always wanted that kind of security? How unloved—unlovable—she’d always felt, that she thrown herself into relationships with such gusto?
But how could he have guessed? None of her friends saw that neediness in her. In fact, they tended to think her happily self-contained and envied her complacence.
She stared at Julian, and saw what Alana and Kirsten had seen immediately.
A very good-looking man.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked. ‘Let’s forget me and talk about you for a change. Why is a man who has a good career, and the potential to earn a decent income, and looks and charm, planning a marriage of convenience—because that’s what it is to you, isn’t it?’
‘Because I want a child,’ he repeated, but she knew there was more. Partly because his smile had disappeared and that rarely happened, and partly because his eyes had darkened to a deep, fathomless green.
She didn’t react, didn’t speak—just waited. It was an old psychologist’s trick and she knew he probably knew it, but she also knew that most people eventually had to break a silence.
‘I went into medicine from a science background, Daisy, so I’m sceptical when it comes to romantic love. I mean, it’s not a concept that can be measured or proven, is it?’ he said, when she’d all but decided he was the exception.
‘When we’re young we have urges and enthusiasms we label love. It even happened to me a few times—typical young male stereotype. A young girl who looks spectacular comes into one’s orbit, testosterone kicks in, youth flings himself at her feet, spouting all the stuff you hear in pop songs and read in magazines. But it gets messy, Daisy. As far as I can make out, the depth of feelings between the two always differs—you said yourself you suspected you loved too hard. It’s like a seesaw, and without balance it can tip suddenly and one or other of the couple either slide off or is flung up into the air.’
Daisy heard the words, devoid of emotion, and understood he’d given it serious thought, though she suspected some woman in the past had let him down for him to have analysed love so thoroughly and discarded it as an option in his life. The knowledge caused a heaviness in her chest and a niggling sense of disappointment, but whether for Julian or herself she wasn’t certain.
He took her chin and, as Shaun had the previous evening, turned her face so he could look into her eyes.
‘Things happen when we’re young, our libidos on the rampage. At that time of one’s life all the emotions are exaggerated, but, fortunately, as we get older, that kind of heat dies. You and I are mature, intelligent adults, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t make a go of things—if you’re willing to give it a try. You called it a marriage of convenience, as if there was something wrong with that idea, but it’s a system which worked for our forebears for generations—and it still happens in a lot of countries and cultures. Statistically, arranged marriages work better than so-called love matches. If you consider the divorce rate today, perhaps it might be a more sensible approach to marriage.’
Daisy met his gaze, the hazel eyes gleaming with what looked like excitement. But she was still in a state of shock. If raising children was a great adventure, how did going into marriage with a stranger rate?
‘We mightn’t like each other—I mean, when we actually get to know each other better. And we mightn’t be sexually compatible.’
He leant forward and brushed his lips across hers.
‘To answer the last objection first, I think sexual compatibility is something you learn, not something that happens through any imagined emotional joining. As for the liking—we don’t have to get married tomorrow, but I doubt that would be a problem. It’s not as if we’d be going into it with any illusions or expectations beyond a mutually satisfactory relationship.’
She frowned at him, disturbed by her reaction to the touch of his fingers on her chin, the brush of his lips against hers.
‘There are conception problems, too,’ she reminded him, determined to be as practical as he was. ‘It would be silly to get married unless I was pregnant, wouldn’t it?’
Julian moved his fingers against the soft skin on Daisy’s chin, wondering why he was still holding it but not wanting to break the physical contact.
‘I guess so,’ he agreed, wondering now if he’d ever considered the softness of a woman’s skin—really considered it.
‘Of course so,’ Daisy said, standing up so his hand fell away. ‘The whole point of the exercise is that we both end up with a child. I may be infertile, or your sperm might be incompatible with my ova. A heap of things can happen, and we’d be stuck with each other, or have to pay perfectly good money for a divorce so we could each start again.’
She was right, of course, but he didn’t like the idea of starting again. The experience with Ingrid—and a couple of minor skirmishes in the past—had shown him how difficult arranged marriages were to arrange. Pure luck had thrown Daisy in his path, but it was unlikely he’d get this lucky twice.
Or get anyone as perfect as Daisy appeared, on first acquaintance, to be for a partner.
He followed her into the kitchen, stopping behind her where she was working at the sink. Reaching over her shoulder, he took the dishcloth from her hands.
‘I’ll do this,’ he said, hoping she was as aware of his body as he was of hers. ‘You relax. We’ve the day to ourselves so we should make the most of it—get to know each other a little better. There’s a great spa in the penthouse if you feel like total relaxation a little later.’
Daisy turned, trapped between the sink and his body.
‘This is mad,’ she said. ‘We’ve just met and we’re—’
‘We’re…’ he queried, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
‘Moving rapidly towards going to bed together, aren’t we?’ she murmured, the grey-green eyes huge in her pale face.
‘Not until you’re ready,’ he promised, but he bent his head and kissed her while his body accommodated itself to her shape and size, not pressing against her but fitting itself to hers as if only by this means could it know her.
‘You are Madeleine’s brother?’ she said doubtfully, when he stopped kissing her.
‘Does that help?’ he teased, knowing she was talking herself into the next stage of their arrangement.
‘Not really,’ she admitted. ‘I’m very fond of Madeleine, but I’ve always found her a bit…’
‘Scatty?’ Julian offered. ‘She is, but she’s got a heart of gold. Anyway, I take after my father who’s a straightforward and sensible businessman.’
‘Oh, I can see the sensible part,’ Daisy said, and he felt her body relax slightly as her lips softened into a smile. ‘Offering to make babies with two women in one day. Not at all scatty. Very sensible.’
‘Wretch!’ he said, and, because she’d made him smile, he kissed her again.
But this time she squirmed away.
‘I should check my emails. I have an interactive web site and answer queries on it.’
She ducked under his imprisoning arm and dashed away, leaving him to wipe the dishes then move cautiously through the small flat in search of her.
The computer was set up in a corner of the bedroom, the fit so snug she had to sit on the bed to use it. The bedroom door was open so she noticed his arrival and motioned him to come in.
‘You’ll have to sit on the bed to see the screen, but you might as well have a look. There are a couple of queries that are fairly representative of what I get asked.’
There was no trace of coyness or embarrassment in her voice as she invited him in and he congratulated himself on finding such a practical woman—then remembered it had been pure luck, not any brilliance on his part. Hardly cause for congratulation!
‘See.’
She pointed to the screen, indicating the box where the questions came through.
‘“How do I know my child’s got ADHD?”’ he read aloud. ‘Well, at least she knows about the hyperactivity component that’s usually included in diagnoses these days. How do you answer?’
Daisy turned and smiled at him.
‘Not with a list of the inattention behaviours or a detailed account of hyperactivity/impulsivity. If you tell parents their child needs to show six of each type of sign for a diagnosis, they immediately see those behaviours in the child and, no doubt, dutifully report them to their doctor or paediatrician.’
Julian smiled his approval, but she wasn’t finished.
‘Though anyone can find the lists if he or she wants to badly enough. In books, on the internet. Information’s readily available these days.’
‘It’s the same with everything. You’ve no idea the number of patients I see who have already been diagnosed, usually correctly, by their parents.’
‘I guess it’s good,’ Daisy said, tapping away at the keys so he knew only part of her attention was on their conversation. ‘But at least if they come to see you, they know they need help. They’re not trying to cure the child as well.’
Julian nodded his agreement—not that she’d have seen the nod—and read the words she was typing. ‘“It’s impossible to diagnose ADD or ADHD without a proper examination and study of the child, so I suggest you take him or her to a good paediatrician…”’
‘You could have given me a recommendation there,’ he interrupted his reading to say, but, apart from a look shot at him across her shoulder, she ignored him and kept typing.
‘“—and have the child tested properly. It’s possible there’s some other cause for the inattention, and the paediatrician will test hearing, eyesight, comprehension skills and a host of other things which could be causing the problem.”’
‘Well said,’ Julian agreed, then watched as, fingers moving swiftly, Daisy cut and pasted some information on how to improve a child’s attention span, and another article on physical activities which would help develop the mental side of a child’s brain.
‘You wrote those yourself?’ he asked, as she pressed more keys and sent the lot spinning into cyber-space.
‘Of course! Plagiarism’s unacceptable even on the net, though I don’t doubt a lot of it goes on.’
‘And the second question you had in the box? The one from the grandmother who thinks her grandson is being abused by his mother’s boyfriend?’
Daisy sighed and turned to face him.
‘How do you answer things like that?’ she said. ‘What I want to do is grab the child and take him right away, to love and nurture him and keep him safe, but his mother probably loves him, too. And the grandmother might be wrong.’
She sighed again.
‘I usually suggest she spends more time with the child—perhaps offer to mind him more often so the boyfriend is under less pressure.’
‘And isn’t left alone with the child?’
‘That, too,’ Daisy said. ‘And I give the number of the Children’s Services Department, but that’s very risky because if the grandmother makes a fuss, it could anger the daughter to such an extent she cuts all ties with her mother and so loses support when she most needs it.’
Julian heard the pain in her voice and asked quietly, ‘Do you get many emails like that?’
‘Not so many emails, but on talk-back radio it sometimes seemed as if every night someone was worried about a child at risk.’
‘Yet you want a child of your own?’ Julian said, and saw her face lighten as she smiled.
‘So I can give it all the love these other mites miss out on. Sounds stupid, but sometimes it seems as if it’s the only way I can make the world right again.’
Julian closed his eyes briefly and thanked the fates that had set this woman in his path. They’d led him down some false tracks occasionally, but now it seemed as if they were eager to put things right.
He reached out and took both of Daisy’s hands in his, marvelling at how small they felt in his far larger ones.
‘I would be honoured to be the father of that child,’ he said, ‘and though I said I wouldn’t press you for an answer or rush you into this, we’re neither of us getting any younger.’
She laughed, a sound of such sheer delight it sparked a chord deep within him, and a warmth started where for so long there’d been coldness. Companionship—he knew that’s all it was, but how wonderful to feel it again.