‘We’re going to start by hiding that whisky bottle and making him eat breakfast. How do you fancy having your supper on the beach? We can watch him swim.’

She was absolutely determined that Alex wasn’t going to avoid them.

Daisy was his child and the sooner he started accepting her as part of his life, the better.

She carried Daisy to the kitchen, prepared her bottle and then walked out onto the sand, carefully locking the doors behind her.

There were a few other people on the beach and she narrowed her eyes and squinted into the distance, trying to identify Alex.

She made out a lone swimmer moving smoothly through the waves and decided that it must be him.

Finding a towel and some shoes abandoned at a safe distance from the water’s edge, she decided that they must belong to Alex.

‘We’ll just settle ourselves here and wait for him,’ she said to Daisy, dropping the rug that she’d found in one of the cupboards and settling herself comfortably. She just wished that she could relax herself but the tension was really starting to get to her. Her heart was thumping and she felt incredibly nervous.

You didn’t need to be a genius to know that he was going to be annoyed to see her there.

But what else was she supposed to do?

If he was going to continue to ignore Daisy, then it was up to her to try and bring the two of them together.

‘You deserve to know your father, angel,’ she muttered, settling Daisy on her lap and offering her the bottle.

The baby sucked greedily and while she fed Jenny stared out to sea at the swimmer, watching the steady lift and fall of his arms as he cut through the water. Whoever it was, he was a powerful swimmer and she just knew it had to be Alex.

She sat on the blanket and fed the baby, totally unable to relax, knowing that the moment he saw her there’d be trouble.

When he finally emerged from the sea she tensed, preparing herself for the inevitable confrontation.

But as he moved closer all thoughts of confrontation vanished from her mind.

He was wearing the briefest pair of trunks she’d ever seen. They seemed to accentuate the muscular perfection of his powerful body and suddenly Jenny found she couldn’t breathe.

She averted her eyes quickly, looking at the sea, the beach, anywhere as long as it wasn’t at him.

But it was too late.

Just one glimpse had been enough. With the accuracy of a camera, her eyes had recorded the vision of Alex and stored it with appalling clarity in her befuddled brain.

‘Are you stalking me?’ He reached down and picked up his towel, his dark lashes clumped together, drips of water glistening on his hard cheekbones.

‘No.’ She sat stiffly, desperately trying not to look at him. ‘But I won’t let you avoid Daisy. She’s part of your life, whether you like it or not.’