Office Scandals: The Petrelli Heir / Gilded Secrets / An Inconvenient Affair. Maureen Child
a bit late to develop a moral conscience.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Were you?’
‘I’ve never been married, but I had a close shave.’
She was relieved. At least that was one thing she didn’t have to feel guilty about, though more from luck than good judgement.
‘You got cold feet?’ She didn’t blame him. The idea of committing to one person for the rest of your life was a scary thought.
He gave a sardonic smile. ‘No, I got dumped.’
She waited for the punchline. When it didn’t come her eyes widened. ‘You’re not serious!’
‘How good you are for my ego,’ he drawled. ‘However, not everyone finds me as irresistible as you do.’
His ego was titanium coated, she was sure.
Responding to the tug on her skirt, Izzy bent down and picked up Lily.
‘She is a pretty baby.’ He softened his voice and said, ‘Hello, Lily.’
Responding to her name, Lily reached out, her chubby fingers closing around his pale grey silk tie. Chuckling, she pulled and Roman didn’t resist. His face came in close, so close that Izzy could see the fine-pored texture of his skin, the gold tips to his long sooty lashes … smell the cologne that elicited a rush of memories.
‘I’m sorry,’ Izzy muttered, her face flaming as she tried to unpeel her daughter’s fingers from the fabric. She was unable to stop her eyes sliding sideways to his taut aquiline profile and her quiet desperation grew.
Roman could see the stress in the skin stretched tight across the fine bone structure of her face, but felt little sympathy. ‘That’s something, I suppose.’
Izzy pretended not to hear the muttered comment as her breast brushed his arm. This was not the time or place for any sort of confrontation and she had enough on her plate coping with being this close to him. The scent of his lean, hard body continued to trigger all sorts of memories that she had imagined she had deleted. Heat travelled in a wave over the surface of her skin, causing the silk of her bodice to cling to her damp skin.
‘She looks like me.’
Breathing far too hard, actually panting, Izzy gave a grunt of relief as Lily loosened her grip and she took a step backwards. ‘At least she missed out on the freckles,’ she said, directing her gaze at his crumpled tie.
His hooded gaze moved upwards in a long assessing sweep from her feet and stilled on her face. He felt the kick of desire in his belly and for a moment the strength of the raw physical attraction swamped the anger and resentment he was containing. Barely.
‘She’s beautiful.’
Normally when anyone commented on her baby’s remarkable beauty Izzy glowed with pride. On this occasion she stiffened. ‘I know.’
In the periphery of her vision she was aware of a group of laughing guests entering the room, their chatter drowning out that of the pianist playing in the corner. She felt a stab of relief, as Roman surely wouldn’t continue this conversation in the middle of a crowd … would he?
She didn’t have a clue.
He might be the father of her child, but she didn’t know him at all and she had no idea what he was capable of, at least outside the bedroom. The mental addition caused a memory to surface and desire to pound through her blood, pooling hot and achy in her pelvis.
‘She looks like you.’
‘I have been called many things, but not beautiful.’
If that was true then she was amazed, because he was the epitome of male beauty.
‘Is she a happy baby?’
Izzy glimpsed a yearning in his face as he stared at Lily that made her look away quickly, feeling like an intruder.
So far she hadn’t spent much time wondering how he was feeling. Anger and suspicion would both be natural responses for a man who realised he had fathered a baby, but was he resenting being landed with a responsibility that he hadn’t planned or asked for?
‘Look, I know we need to talk, but not here … please.’
For a moment she thought he was going to refuse her request, then he nodded and she felt a rush of relief. ‘I’m not staying here. I’m in the Fox—do you know it?’
Izzy nodded. The new manager who had been recruited by the boutique hotel had been asking her out on a weekly basis since she’d dined there weeks before. Izzy had not accepted his offer, though she hadn’t ruled out the possibility she would in the future. She liked him and, as Emma said, being a mum was not the same as being a nun.
‘I know it.’
‘I’m in the garden suite. Meet me there at …’ his eyes narrowed as he did some mental calculation ‘… eight tonight.’
Her reaction to the order wrapped up as an invitation was immediate. ‘I’m not coming to your room.’ She intercepted his look and, lifting her chin, added, ‘I’d prefer somewhere more public.’
‘I’m not trying to get you into bed.’ When was a fling not a fling? He now knew the answer: when it was with the mother of your child.
Izzy matched his sarcasm. ‘Imagine my disappointment.’
‘Bring the baby if that makes you feel any better,’ he suggested, sounding bored.
‘I can’t. She’ll be in bed.’
Roman clenched his jaw. She might be being deliberately obstructive or she might be stating the truth. With his zero knowledge of child care he was in no position to judge. ‘All right. Tomorrow morning.’
He watched as she licked her lips and ran the tip of her tongue across the soft plump contours before catching the full lower lip between her white teeth and chewing. She nodded and his heavy eyelids drooped partially, concealing the gleam that had lit them.
‘Nine-thirty?’ he said, still staring at her mouth. Tomorrow when he’d had time to calm down and get things straight in his head might be better, he told himself. Who are you fooling …? It would take a hell of a lot longer to get anything straight. Finding himself face to face with a child who was unmistakeably his had been the most shocking experience of his life, which in itself was quite shocking considering this was a man who had sat in a doctor’s office and been given a fifty-fifty chance of surviving to his next birthday.
‘The park that the hotel backs onto, I walk there with—’ Izzy broke off, bending her head as she winced and began to free the strands from the tenacious little fingers that had grabbed her hair. ‘No, Lily, that hurts.’
The baby ignored the plea, seemingly fascinated by the glossy mesh of her mother’s hair as she sank her chubby fingers deeper. Roman could identify with the fascination. He could remember burying his face in the soft, sweet-smelling chestnut waves, feeling them whisper across his chest and belly as she’d slid down his body. He inhaled and pushed the thought away, but not before his body had hardened helplessly in response to the image. ‘Let me …’ he husked.
‘No!’ She jerked her head back, causing her eyes to fill with tears of pain as her daughter’s little hand came free with several strands of her hair.
Roman’s hand fell away in a gesture of exaggerated surrender. ‘Anyone would think you’re afraid of me.’ The idea bothered him more than a little.
Her chin tilted an extra defiant inch. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’ More afraid, quite irrationally, of herself. Crazy! It wasn’t as if his touch were going to turn her into some wild, wanton creature with a moral compass wildly out of whack.
He’d kissed her and she had walked away. Round of applause, Izzy.
‘Just one thing I need to know.’ He hadn’t intended