She gazed around her. ‘It’s…not what I expected…’

Alex looked at her with undisguised irritation and then transferred his gaze to the baby, who was still howling. ‘Can you do something about the noise? Does it need changing or something?’

She dragged her eyes away from the enormous speakers set in each corner of the spacious living room and glared at him disapprovingly. ‘The baby is not an “it”, Dr Westerling,’ she said stiffly, bouncing the baby on her hip in an attempt to soothe her. ‘She’s a little girl and her name is Daisy. She’s your daughter.’

‘So you keep telling me.’ Alex gritted his teeth as he loosened his tie. He wasn’t going to argue with her while there was so much noise in the background. ‘For crying out loud, give her to me.’ Without waiting for her reply, he reached out and took the child, lifting her onto his shoulder with calm confidence and placing a large hand on the centre of her back. Without looking at the girl, he walked over towards the huge glass windows that stretched across his enormous living room and looked out over the sea. Normally the view soothed him but with the baby howling in his ear his head was starting to pound.

‘She might be hungry…’ the girl offered tentatively, and he shot her an impatient look.

‘So feed her. Presumably you’ve brought some food on your little trip?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll need to go back to the car and get my bags.’

Get her bags?

What bags?

He watched her vanish back up the path towards the little red car that he only now spotted at the top of his drive. How could he have missed seeing it when he’d driven home? He closed his eyes briefly and felt an overwhelming urge to sleep. It was hardly surprising he hadn’t seen her car. He was so tired he would have driven past a herd of elephants without giving them a second glance.

It suddenly occurred to him that the terrible noise had stopped and the baby was now staring fixedly at his face.

He stared back, looking for something familiar, some part of himself that might suggest that this was indeed his child.

She had blue eyes, that was true enough, but, then, so did plenty of children so that didn’t mean anything and she didn’t seem to have much in the way of hair at all so he couldn’t use that as a pointer.

Without warning her mouth spread into a gorgeous smile and he found himself smiling back.

‘So you think you can charm me, do you, blue eyes?’ he murmured softly, lifting a finger and rubbing her cheek gently. ‘I probably ought to warn you that I grew out of being taken in by a female smile a long time ago. I’m immune.’

She cooed happily and he carried on talking quietly to her until he heard footsteps and turned to find the girl standing in his doorway carrying several large bags.