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

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 to ask, but it was out there now and a man had a right to know if he’d been used.

‘Did you do it on purpose?’

She looked at him, her blue eyes narrowed, her smooth brow creased in furrows of incomprehension. ‘Do what?’

‘Get pregnant,’ he said bluntly.

The possibility had not occurred to him until the wedding breakfast, when he had been seated at a table with his old friend Gianni Fitzgerald and his lovely wife. Roman had struggled to tune out the slightly tipsy woman sitting opposite him without being outright rude and her anecdotes had become more scurrilous as the interminable meal had gone on.

He had managed tolerably well until he’d heard the name of Michael Fitzgerald’s older daughter mentioned and after that he had unashamedly egged the woman on.

‘Of course, Michael was young and this woman was a real man hater. She never told him she wanted a baby … planned it all in cold blood.’ The woman, speaking behind her hand, had paused for dramatic effect or possibly to catch her breath before continuing. ‘But it’s Michelle I feel sorry for. Of course, she puts on a brave face, but to have the girl living in the village! And now there’s the baby and no father, it makes you think, maybe it’s a family tradition …?’

Her laugh had been cut off when Gianni had at this point picked up on the conversation and intervened, closing down his garrulous relative smoothly, but not before the seed of suspicion had been planted in Roman’s brain.

The blood drained from Izzy’s face as his meaning sank in. She gave a shrug, choking back the anger and glancing over her shoulder to make sure their conversation wasn’t being overheard.

‘For the record, no, I did not plan to get pregnant. And if I had been looking for a perfect genetic specimen to father my child I would not,’ she gritted through clenched teeth, ‘have chosen one who thinks he’s God’s gift … an arrogant, humourless, bossy idiot who—’

‘You have forgotten the limp,’ he drawled, cutting off her diatribe.

Izzy threw up her hands in angry exasperation. ‘I don’t give a damn about your limp.’ And neither did any woman she had seen today, she thought, recalling the lustful female stares that seemed to follow his progress. ‘But I wouldn’t deliberately lumber my kid with a dad as stupid as you are. I always thought that when I had a child it would be with someone who—’

She took a deep breath and, aware of the curious glances their impassioned exchange was receiving, she lowered her voice to a husky murmur and added, ‘I didn’t plan anything. I was …’ Her eyes fell. ‘I don’t normally …’

‘Jump into bed with a total stranger?’

The interjection brought a flush of shamed anger to her cheeks. ‘I really don’t think you’re in any position to occupy the moral high ground … or is it different for men?’ she snipped back sarcastically.

His face darkened with annoyance. ‘This is not about blame.’

She elevated a delicate brow. ‘Just as well, because from where I’m standing you don’t come off very white-knight-on-a-charger in all this.’

Roman watched her walk away, the child in her arms, her narrow back straight and proud. She was right: he was in no position to throw stones; his behaviour had been totally indefensible. So he had genuinely believed that there was no chance of him getting her pregnant, but, unwanted pregnancies aside, unprotected sex with a stranger made him criminally stupid.

It made him the man he had always despised. Someone so selfish he was unable to think about anything beyond his own pleasure.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_cd6c981f-afce-52fd-b666-2c06432b22c7)

FOR the sake of her sanity, when Izzy left the reception she blocked everything out and tried to think of nothing beyond a quiet night at home with Lily. She had to try and regroup and get her head back together. Tomorrow would be time enough to worry about what she was going to say to Roman Petrelli.

That was the plan, but as with most best laid plans it went sadly awry.