Page 8 of Bound By Her Shocking Secret

Alone again, Mia sucked in a breath and steeled herself to deal with Daniel—only to find him staring at Lexi with such an arrested expression on his face that she immediately felt concern.

‘What is it?’

She looked down at Lexi to check her, but she seemed fine. Her colour had gone back to normal. She had her thumb in her mouth and she was just looking at Daniel.

Mia looked at him again and could see that he was pale. Did he see the marked resemblance?

A little nervously she asked, ‘Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Daniel didn’t even hear what Mia was saying. All he could see was his sister’s face. Right in front of him. The same black curly hair. Huge eyes. Rosebud mouth. Plump cheeks. She’d used to reach out her pudgy arms and call him to lift her up.‘Danny... Danny.’Even when she could say Daniel, she’d used to keep calling him Danny.

He could still hear the panicked shriek of his name as if it was yesterday, and then the splash of water...

‘Daniel...Daniel?’

The past receded and he saw Mia was looking at him. He felt exposed.

She stepped back. ‘Please, come in.’

Mia went into the small apartment and he followed her. High ceilings gave it a sense of space. It was uncluttered. Simple. Comfortable furniture demonstrated Mia’s good eye for classic pieces. He remembered that from her old apartment. How he’d found it soothing.

Lexi’s face appeared over Mia’s shoulder as she twisted to look at Daniel. She took her thumb out of her mouth and declared, ‘Man!’

Mia turned around to face Daniel. The sight of his ex-lover in a full-length evening gown holding a child—his child—was almost incomprehensible.

‘What happened just then?’ Mia asked.

Reluctantly Daniel said, ‘She reminded me of someone.’

‘Who?’

Even more reluctantly, Daniel said, ‘My sister.’

Mia frowned. ‘You never mentioned you had a sister.’

A solid weight lodged in Daniel’s chest. ‘She’s dead.’

‘Oh... I’m sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘But Lexi reminds you of her?’

Daniel couldn’t help nodding, looking at the child again. It was too huge to think of her ashis. As his daughter. ‘They could have been twins.’

Mia made a small sound and Daniel’s gaze moved to her. She’d gone pale again.

Before he could wonder about her reaction she shifted the baby in her arms and said, ‘I need to change her, give her a bottle and put her down—then we can talk. Help yourself to a drink, or there’s a coffee machine in the kitchen.’ She turned, but then stopped, looked back. ‘That is if you still drink coffee like you used to...’

Another memory blasted Daniel. Mia shaking her head and saying,‘Honestly, you drink too much of that stuff—it’s no wonder you can’t sleep.’

She’d taken the coffee cup out of his hand to come and straddle his lap, pushing aside his laptop on which he’d been looking at a document. He’d looked up at her, at the wild tumble of her tawny hair over her shoulders. She’d been wearing only his shirt, haphazardly buttoned, the luscious curve of her breasts clearly visible.

He’d put his hands on her waist. No underwear. His hands had explored the smooth roundness of her buttocks, finding the centre of her exposed body, making her squirm against him as his mouth had fastened on one taut nipple and—

‘...back in a few minutes...’

Daniel blinked. Mia was disappearing into another room, presumably a bedroom. The door closed behind her. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, still reeling from the vividness of the memory and the fact that there was no doubt in his mind that the child she’d held in her arms just now was his. His daughter.

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