Alex frowned. ‘But she cut you out.’

‘I know, but grief isn’t rational,’ Jenny muttered, taking a sip of her water. ‘I felt I should have been there anyway, and as for coming to find you…’ She broke off and he lifted an eyebrow.

‘What?’

‘I was angry with you,’ she said simply. ‘I thought you’d seduced her and abandoned her. Every paper I opened seemed to have a picture of you with a different girl in it.’

‘Lots of those pictures are perfectly innocent,’ Alex pointed out mildly, ‘but the general public seem to be inordinately interested in my love life so the press print anything they can lay their hands on. It sells papers.’

Jenny nodded slowly. Now that the anger had died slightly she was beginning to see just how badly the man was hounded by the press. ‘How come they don’t come to your house?’

He gave a wicked grin. ‘Because I actually have a different address that I use from time to time just to distract them.’

‘Oh. That’s clever.’ She smiled. ‘Well, anyway, I struggled by myself for a while but our quality of life was nonexistent because the rent was so high in London.’

Alex pulled a face. ‘And you were just on a nurse’s salary?’

Jenny smiled. ‘It wasn’t that bad, but I decided that I was short-changing Daisy. She only had me and she deserved more than that. So I decided to find you.’

Alex looked at her in silence and then shifted in his chair. ‘I’m almost sure she isn’t mine,’ he said gruffly, ‘but either way I’ll help you.’

Jenny looked at him warily. ‘Why would you do that if she isn’t yours?’

‘Because I’m a sucker for a woman in trouble,’ he said lightly, draining his wineglass and placing it carefully back on the table. ‘And you, Jenny Phillips, are most definitely a woman in trouble.’

Her eyes meshed with his and something in the way he looked at her made her stomach turn over. She tried to look away but she found herself trapped by the look in his blue eyes.

She might have gazed at him for ever if Daisy’s cry hadn’t broken the connection.

Startled out of a forbidden daydream that shocked her, she was on her feet in an instant, knocking over the chair in her haste to get away from him. ‘I’d better check if she’s OK,’ she mumbled unsteadily, and he gave a soft laugh.

‘Saved by the baby,’ he drawled, and although she was careful not to look at him, she knew that he was still looking at her. She felt it. ‘Better run, Little Red Riding Hood, before the wolf gets you.’

She knew he was teasing her and her eyes flew to his, expecting to see laughter there, but for once his expression was deadly serious and she swallowed hard before she backed out of the room.

Oh, help.

What exactly had happened back there?

What had she been thinking?