Office Scandals: The Petrelli Heir / Gilded Secrets / An Inconvenient Affair

‘Michelle said that Lily was fourteen months old, but she must be nearly fifteen months …?’

‘Fourteen, she was premature.’ The long labour had ended in an emergency Caesarean when the baby had become distressed.

The silence stretched between them, broken finally by Roman’s hoarse voice. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ He could feel the vibration of a dull roar in his ears as his stunned gaze narrowed and swung her way. She’d had ample opportunity to come clean and she hadn’t.

Izzy registered the accusation in his glare and let out a grunt of sheer disbelief. How dared he act like some innocent victim? Presumably he had conveniently absolved himself of all responsibility!

‘Telling you was never an option—I didn’t know your name.’ Hard not to say it out loud without feeling shame.

‘You were the one who insisted on anonymity,’ he reminded her grimly. She was not the one who had encouraged him to have unprotected sex, though, reminded the voice in his head. In his defence, in a brief moment of sanity he had made an attempt to ask her if she was protected, but it had been an attempt he’d abandoned when she had touched a finger to his lips, encouraging him to be silent. ‘And I meant today, or didn’t you recognise the father of your child?’

Oh, yeah, because there was more than one man out there that looked like him.

‘Oh, so now it’s my child …’ She smiled and had the satisfaction of seeing his jaw clench. ‘Make your mind up, Roman.’ His flush suggested she had made her point.

‘And when was I meant to tell you about her? In the middle of the marriage service perhaps? Or during our delightful walk back here?’ she snapped. ‘It was kind of hard to get a word in edgewise while you were so charmingly propositioning me. Tell me, does the I need you line normally work for you? I want you, really?’

‘It worked with you. No, I take that back, you were the one that said that, weren’t you?’

The seamless comeback sent a flush of shame to Izzy’s pale face. ‘Look, I know this was a shock for you and I’m trying to make allowances—’

‘That’s really good of you,’ he said in a voice like dry ice.

‘Well, one of us has to act like an adult!’ she snapped back.

‘I’m struggling here, but what exactly is adult about hiding from me?’ he drawled sarcastically.

She cast a quick furtive glance over her shoulder. They were alone but for the pianist and the dozing guest, but that situation could not last. ‘Yes, I was avoiding you, because I didn’t want this sort of public scene. I just knew you’d react like this …’ She stopped, the anger fading from her face as she finished. ‘Actually I didn’t have a clue how you’d react. For all I knew you’d prefer to ignore Lily’s existence.’

‘And that would have suited you?’ He watched the way her expression changed as she glanced towards the happily playing tot, the slow smile that transformed her face.

Izzy hesitated. This was a subject where her opinions were still lurching dramatically from one side of the argument to the other. She voiced the one thing she was sure of, though he might not agree. ‘It would have been your loss.’

Roman could not argue with this assessment and quite suddenly he felt his anger towards her dissipate. He was blaming her for something that was not a curse, but a blessing.

‘I’m a father … Madre di Dio…!’ It shouldn’t be possible but it was. Roman felt a fresh explosion of wonder but it still didn’t fully sink in. ‘Did you try and find me?’

‘How could I? Where would I have started?’ He took a step closer, a tall and overpoweringly male presence that made her feel trapped. She lifted a hand to her throat to cover the pulse she could feel beating there.

‘Do I make you nervous, Isabel?’ He stepped closer again, his nostrils flaring as the scent of her perfume brought back memories his body responded to hungrily, making him uncomfortably aware of the heaviness in his groin. ‘Isabel. I like that name, it suits you …’

His husky voice sent a secret shiver down her spine. Her pale skin was dusted with a layer of perspiration from the effort of concealing her emotional turmoil. ‘Not Isabel, Izzy. People call me Izzy.’

‘I’m not people.’ I’m the father of your child.

His facial muscles froze as he fought an internal battle to regain control of his feelings. He focused on the positive: his child would not grow up not knowing he existed.

The sheer breathtaking arrogance of this pronouncement made Izzy blink, and yet it was hardly surprising if he had such a high opinion of himself.

Her eyes drifted over the carved contours of his chiselled cheek to his sensually sculpted mouth and the mole just visible in the carved contours of his cheek. She expelled a long shaky sigh. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. His charismatic sex appeal was off the scale and his amazing looks must have always made him the focus of attention in any room he occupied.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_e56ef173-7981-5f4e-8850-920188aa158c)

‘FOR the record, I’m really not the nervous type.’ But Izzy was the type to find Roman’s sexual aura of masculinity totally overwhelming. Though that could hardly make her unique; his sexual charisma meant that every woman in the room stared at him.

He had been the one asking the questions but there was one that was troubling Izzy.

‘Were you … are you married?’

‘It’s 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.’