Office Scandals

Now he was here the breath left her lungs in a silent hiss of shock.

‘Hello.’

The voice awoke dormant memories and sent a flash of heat through her body. Incapable of speech, she nodded and thought, He really does have the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. And there was no discernible recognition in the pitch-dark eyes those lashes framed.

This wasn’t happening.

But it was! It was him—the man she had spent that night with.

Two years later and Izzy had rationalised the reckless impulse that had made her act so totally out of character. There was probably some psychological term for what she’d done when she’d been half out of her head with grief, exhaustion and shock, but Izzy had not continued to analyse it, she had simply drawn a line under it.

You could only beat yourself up so much and, as she had felt no desire since that night to rip off any man’s clothes and ravish him, there had been no lasting consequences to her actions—except one, which she could never regret.

How could she regret something that had given her not just her much-loved daughter but a new and wonderfully supportive family? There was a strong possibility that, if she hadn’t found herself alone, pregnant and very aware how fragile life was, the letter sent by the father she had never met might have stayed where she had initially thrown it—in the bin.

Tapping into reserves of self-control she didn’t even know she possessed, the silly smile still pasted on her face, Izzy broke free of the pitch-black mesmerising stare and turned away. Outwardly calm, at least to the casual observer, her body was gripped by a succession of deep internal tremors as she hugged her daughter.

Her shoulder blades ached with tension as she buried her face in Lily’s soft dusky curls. People often remarked on her vibrant colouring, marvelling at the peachy glow of her skin and her liquid dark eyes. The less tactful asked outright if she looked like her father.

Izzy never reacted to the question and her silence had given rise to a great deal of speculation. There were currently several theories in circulation about Lily’s father, which ranged from him being a dead war hero to him being a married politician. But whatever people thought, the generally held opinion was that Izzy was the innocent party, the girl who had been abandoned, because apparently she came across as a nice girl.

The irony was not lost on her and Izzy detested the undeserved victim status that had been thrust on her, but, short of publicly announcing that she was actually a shameless trollop, what choice did she have?

It was actually a relief when someone chose to take her to task about her single-parent status. Just the previous evening Michael’s great-aunt Maeve had exclaimed, ‘A child needs two parents, young lady.’

‘In a perfect world, yes, but the world isn’t perfect and neither am I.’

Izzy’s quietly dignified response had taken the wind out of the old lady’s sails, but she had made a quick recovery. ‘In my day a girl like you wouldn’t be wandering around as bold as brass like she has nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘She doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of, Aunt Maeve.’ It was her father who came to Izzy’s rescue, putting an arm around her and drawing her in close.

‘Don’t you go looking at me like that, Michael. One of the few good things about being old is being as rude as I like—would you deprive me of one of my last pleasures?’ She held out her empty glass and glanced at the whisky bottle on the dresser. ‘So, girl, who is the father?’

Izzy had not satisfied the old lady’s curiosity. She hadn’t told anyone the identity of the father—how could she?

Izzy’s blue eyes were shadowed with shamed anguish as she responded to Lily’s cry of protest and loosened her grip just as the organist pulled out all the stops. Izzy knew better than most what it was like to grow up without a father and it was something she had always vowed not to do to a child of hers should she ever have one.

With the rest of the congregation Izzy rose to her feet. Were his eyes trained on the exposed nape of her neck or was it her guilty conscience that made her skin prickle and tingle? Tingle the way his long fingers had once made her—she pushed the thought away and took a deep breath. With Lily on one hip, she stared blankly at the service sheet clutched in her free hand, knowing she was a whisper away from tipping over into outright gibbering panic.

She had to stay calm.

She had to think.

The father of her baby was sitting behind her. What was she meant to do now?

Take a leaf out of her mother’s book and write him a letter?

Casually drop into the conversation, Oh, by the way, this is your daughter? Now that would be a real ice breaker, but could it be listed under small talk?

She choked on a bubble of hysterical laughter, the sound drowned out by the hymn being sung.

Realistically Izzy knew, always had known, that should this unlikely event occur she had to accept the real possibility that he might not even remember that night two years ago. So maybe doing nothing was a possibility? Just wait and if he said nothing leave it …?

She reluctantly discarded the tempting idea. This was Lily’s father. What had Rory called him … Roman? At least she had a name now and knew that he was Italian, although she’d already had an idea about his nationality. During their night together he had whispered wonderful things to her in throes of passion; she might not have understood the things he had said, but she had recognised the language.

She remembered everything.

She tried to push away the hot, erotic images crowding in—she had to focus.

On what, Izzy—your impending public humiliation?

Her chin lifted. She would take what was coming, but not Lily. She would protect Lily.

Lily, who looked so like her father, which was good news for her because she’d grow up to be the female version of him—stunning—but bad news because surely everyone seeing them together would know.

And he’d seen Lily.

He had to know!

Was he sitting there in shock?

No point speculating; she just had to stay calm and play this by ear. A wedding was hardly the place to introduce a man to his daughter.

Was there a good place?

He might be here with his girlfriend or wife even …! Feeling sick now, Izzy closed her eyes and tried to remember who had been sitting next to him, but couldn’t.

Could things get any worse? She’d slept with a stranger and got pregnant—please let him not have been married!

A question that might have been better asked before you ripped off his shirt.

Ignoring the sly insert of her conscience or what was left of it, Izzy touched a protective hand to her nape.

Nothing in his expression had suggested he even recognised her. Was it really possible he didn’t remember their night together? Or maybe he might have developed a convenient amnesia to avoid embarrassment. If so should she play along with it? Everything in Izzy rebelled against the idea.

Why was she torturing herself? He might feel even worse and as embarrassed about that night as she was, sitting there now wondering if she was a potential bunny boiler about to mess up his life.

If so he’d feel relieved when he realised she didn’t want anything from him. Rich men could be pretty protective of their wealth and she could recall now the word billionaire coming into the conversation when the family had discussed Rory’s good fortune at securing a placement within the Petrelli company.

Great, she couldn’t have had a one-night stand with a teacher or a plumber. No, she had to pick out a billionaire Italian!

At the end of the ceremony Izzy got to her feet when everyone else did, clutching her daughter to her chest. She slung a furtive look over her shoulders but chickened out at the last minute and tucked herself in between Rory and Emma in the slow-moving file of guests leaving the church, doing her best to be invisible. When she finally worked up the courage to look again Roman Petrelli was gone, the occupants of the pew behind having already vacated their seats.

She touched Rory’s sleeve. Her half-brother turned his head. ‘Your friend … is he?’

‘Friend …? I do have more than one …?’

‘Duh!’ Emma, who was eavesdropping, inserted with a roll of her eyes. ‘Who do you think she’s talking about? The utterly gorgeous hunk, Roman, of course! Such a sexy name, but not as sexy as the man himself. Did you get a look at his eyes?’ She pressed a hand to her heart and sighed dramatically. ‘You know, I could really do with a walk on the wild side.’

‘Izzy isn’t as shallow as you,’ her brother retorted, adding, ‘Could you do with a hand there, Izzy?’

‘Thanks.’ Izzy slanted a grateful smile at her half-brother as she relinquished a squirming Lily to him. ‘She wants to get down and she’s really strong.’

‘Me, shallow—I like that,’ Emma interrupted, adding with a warm look at Lily, who was pulling her uncle’s nose, ‘All the Fitzgerald women are strong.’ She sent a conspiratorial grin to Izzy. ‘The only place Rory is Roman Petrelli’s friend,’ Emma confided, directing a sisterly smile of sweet malice at her brother, ‘is in his dreams. Rory only asked for him to be invited because he wants to suck up. Do you really think he’s going to give a geek like you a job, Rory?’

‘I’m a geek with a mind like a steel trap and great charm—why wouldn’t the man give me a job?’

‘As if!’

‘Let’s put it this way, little sister, I’m more likely to get a job off him than you are a night of passion.’

‘Wanna bet?’ Emma drawled, her eyes sparkling challenge.

‘Like taking money off a baby.’

Izzy shook her head to clear the images flying around like a swarm of wasps in her brain. Images that involved her lovely innocent half-sister and a predatory Roman Petrelli. The sick feeling they left in the pit of her stomach had nothing to do with jealousy, she told herself in response to the nip of guilt. She was simply looking out for her sister.

Emma was only eighteen and was not nearly as sophisticated as she liked to pretend, and Roman Petrelli was … an image of him lying on the bed, the toned musculature of his bronzed torso delineated by a sheen of sweat, flashed into her head and the word that came to her was … perfect.

‘Please,’ she reproached. Her laughter sounded forced to her own ears but the squabbling siblings didn’t seem to notice. They just grinned and continued the argument until they got outside into the fresh air and the stakes in their bet had reached the extreme scale of silly.

‘Let me have Lily,’ Emma begged as they stepped aside to join the other guests in the sun.

‘No, better not, Emma—she’ll ruin your hair, and that dress …’ Izzy pointed out, holding out her arms to take her daughter.

‘Good point!’ agreed Emma. ‘I must look beautiful for Roman … How old do you think he is?’

‘Too old for you,’ retorted her brother austerely. ‘And actually, Em, we’re both out of luck. He’s not coming to the reception so neither of us will be able to use our lethal charm.’

The reprieve might be temporary but the relief was so intense Izzy laughed out loud, drawing a questioning look from her siblings.

‘Don’t look now—Aunt Maeve is heading this way.’ Not a lie as such, more an inspired distraction, and it worked perfectly. At the mention of their elderly relative the sister and brother act adopted the attitude of sprinters under starter’s orders.

‘Just us again,’ Izzy said, rubbing her nose against Lily’s button nose and breathing in the sweet baby fragrance of her shampoo.

A wave of love so intense that she could hardly breathe closed Izzy’s throat as she whispered softly, ‘I’ll never let anything hurt you. I love you, Lily baba.’

Izzy had known she had been loved, even though her mother had never said the words and not encouraged Izzy to be sentimental. A mother herself now, Izzy found it sad, but was relieved that her own fears that she might struggle to express her feelings had been unfounded. Since the first moment she had held her baby in her arms they were words she couldn’t stop saying.

CHAPTER TWO

ROMAN’s intention when he’d walked into the church had been to skip the wedding reception—the deal for the new stallion had been done with Michael Fitzgerald and there was no longer a need to hang around. But his plans had now changed.

The adrenaline that had been dumped in his bloodstream when he’d recognised the slim woman walking up the aisle was still making him buzz, and, conscious of the fine tremor in his fingers, he pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his well-cut trousers.

She had been sitting right in front of him and all he’d had to do was reach out and he could have touched her. He knew who she was now, she had a name, and this time she wouldn’t be able to vanish. Anticipation made him feel more alive than he had in …?

With a frown he blocked the thought. He’d been given a second chance on life and admitting he was bored seemed terminally ungrateful.

And in truth he wasn’t bored. The mystery woman who was no longer a mystery represented a challenge—unfinished business.

Challenge, he decided, was the operative word. It wasn’t as if she had occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of everything else since their night together, but her unexpected reappearance had resurrected the frustration her vanishing act had inflicted two years earlier. But he’d had more to worry about at the time than a one-night stand slipping away. Maybe his overreaction had been in part bruised ego or maybe she had become the focus for all his frustration at the time?

But then what man wouldn’t feel frustrated when, having discovered the girl who ticked just about every erotic fantasy box he had, and some he didn’t know he had, vanished off the face of the earth leaving nothing but the elusive fragrance of her warm skin on the bed sheets?

Roman had felt robbed and cheated. It had not even crossed his mind that he would not be able to persuade her to spend the rest of the day in bed with him. The idea that she wouldn’t be there when he returned with coffee and croissants had not occurred to him.

Conscious of the heavy heat in his groin, he waited for her to appear again, his impatience growing until he began to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

There had been a couple of occasions when he had thought he had caught sight of her in the distance only to get closer and discover that the rich chestnut hair and slim petite curves belonged to someone else, someone who didn’t have a mouth that invited sin.

This time, though, it was different; she was no figment of his imagination and she had recognised him. Admittedly her reaction had not quite been the one he normally got from women—none, as far as he could recall, had ever looked as if they wanted to crawl under a pew.

She had blushed … actually blushed! His expressive lips quirked into a sardonic grin as he remembered her total lack of inhibition, her throaty little gasps and greedy clever hands. His mystery woman was the last person he would have imagined capable of blushing!

But the blush was in keeping with the entire freshly scrubbed, wholesome, sexy thing she had going on. Roman shrugged, closing off this line of speculation. He didn’t care if she led a double life; he just wanted her, wanted to see her soft creamy body in his bed, feel her hands on him and feel her under him. He half resented wanting her, recognising that not having her could transform her from a missed opportunity to a mild obsession.

But something about her reaction still nagged at him. Why had bumping into an ex-lover thrown her into such a state of obvious confusion?

Unless she had a jealous partner around—even sitting next to her?

Who had been sitting next to her?

Roman, who was famed for his powers of observation, scrunched his brow in concentration as he tried to recall, but came up empty. He could remember the nape of her neck pretty well and the fall of the wisps of her hair around her face. The truth was he hadn’t been thinking straight in the church and he’d needed the fresh air and distance to get his brain back in gear and his hormones on a leash.

Was she concerned he would not be discreet?

If so she needn’t have worried. The only thing that Roman was interested in was having her in his bed again, not advertising the fact. Would the reality live up to his dreams or would he be disappointed? The anticipation of having his sexual curiosity satisfied on this point sent his level of arousal up another painful notch.

Roman continued his vigil of the guests from under the canopy of a leafy oak tree a safe distance away from his fellow guests clustered now in laughing groups around the newly married couple. His new vantage point gave him a clear view of the stragglers emerging from the church.

His tension and frustration grew with each passing moment, until Roman began to think somehow she had escaped him again. But then he saw her emerge.

Lust slammed through his body with the force of a sledgehammer. Watching her with the intensity of a hawk observing its prey, Roman felt his anger surge along with his appetite for her as he recalled the morning after their night together …

He had been so eager to get back into bed with her after his quick trip to the coffee shop that he had left his discarded clothes in a trail from the front door to the bedroom, only to find the bed empty and the sheets still warm—he had just missed her!

No woman had ever rejected him and now twice within the space of twenty-four hours a woman had walked out on him. Literally speaking he’d done the walking on the first occasion, and bizarrely it had been this second act of rejection that had got to him more. It had propelled him out into a city of millions of people to find her, which was either a measure of the sexual spell this woman had cast over him or a measure of his emotional stability at the time.

But he hadn’t been insane when he’d walked into the crowded bar that night and the last thing he had been looking for was sex. His hand slid to his leg as he again thought back to the events of that night. He’d been licking his wounds and feeling pathetically sorry for himself.

Oh, God, yes, he had been pretty mad at the world, life and women as he’d sat at that table with a drink in front of him. He’d lost count of how many drinks had gone before it, when she had walked in.

He had sworn off women, but he’d noticed her, as had half the men in the room. He had drunk too much, but hadn’t been drunk enough not to appreciate the shapely length of her slim toned thighs and the lush curves of her pert bottom in the dark pencil skirt she had worn. As he’d watched her move across the room he’d tugged the tie around his neck loose and thought, One door closes and another opens. Love had no longer been an integral part of his plan for the future, but he’d realised there was still sex.

It had been a cheering thought, one that might make a man get out of bed in the morning. For the months of his illness and subsequent chemo his libido had lain dormant, he hadn’t even thought about sex, but things had woken up dramatically—he had wanted her from the moment he saw her.

She had great legs and a great body—slim and supple; that much he could tell even though she’d had more clothes on than ninety per cent of the women in the room. The skirt she had worn reached her knee and her elegant cream silk blouse had been more office wear than nightclub, yet she had exuded some innate sensuality—he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.

Their night together had been incredible and the fact that he had experienced more pleasure making love to a woman he felt nothing for than any before or since had proved to him that emotional involvement did not enhance sex. His recent disastrous engagement only illustrated that it was actually an encumbrance.

Roman had never managed to recreate anything approaching the hot, sizzling sex he had enjoyed with his mystery woman. And he hadn’t had sex for … not since … His brows lifted in surprise—he hadn’t realised it had been that long!

He’d just been too busy with work lately to notice. The six months he had taken off on medical advice as he’d gone through his treatment had always seemed excessive and had necessitated him delegating areas of responsibility.

He had adopted a less hands-on approach that should have given him more time to enjoy his life—a healthier work-leisure balance. In reality he’d found himself unable to let go. Spare time was for people who didn’t enjoy work or people with families and that was never going to be him.

On an intellectual level he knew that not being able to father a child did not make him any less a man, but it was not something a man felt on an intellectual level. When Roman had been given the news he had felt it in an icy fist in his gut, and even worse had been the prospect of telling his fiancée at that time, Lauren.

His lips twisted into a sardonic grimace as he played the scene over again in his head. Her understanding and support at the time had made him feel he might have misjudged her, but later he had discovered that not having children did not fill her with nearly the same sort of horror as the thought of how much weight she might put on during pregnancy.

Roman clenched his jaw and pushed away the thoughts—they belonged in another lifetime. His hungry gaze riveted on Izzy Fitzgerald again. She belonged in another lifetime too, but the memory of their night together had not faded, instead it had become something of a standard that he had measured every sexual encounter against since, and none had come near … Would the memory have exerted the same sort of fascination if he had known her name back then? He didn’t have a clue, but he knew that he wanted her. He didn’t waste time trying to figure out why. Time-wasting was anathema to Roman, who knew better than most what a precious commodity it was.

He could see the dark hair of the baby in her arms. Was it hers?

Roman did not do single mothers. Call him a cynic, but he could never quite believe that they were not out to bag a father for their child. Besides, he would be expected to pretend an interest in their kid and that just wasn’t his thing. The fact was there were a lot of women who didn’t come with the added complication of a child—so why complicate life?

But if Izzy Fitzgerald had a kid, would that be a deal breaker?

He smiled to himself as he watched her move, the wind plastering the blue dress she wore against the slender line of her legs. His temperature climbed several degrees as he remembered those legs wrapped around him, her nails digging into his shoulders, the expression of fierce concentration on her face as she fought her way towards climax.

He expelled a deep sigh. Dio, there were definitely exceptions to every rule. Did she have a husband? His brows twitched into a heavy frown; some rules he would not break.

But, God, it was going to kill him to walk away from this.

She had been the best sex he had ever had.

Izzy was about to get into one of the waiting cars that were lined up to whisk them to the reception when she realised that she didn’t have her handbag; her keys and phone were in it.

‘Damn, I think I left it in the church.’

Emma, who was standing with a shoe in one hand while she rubbed the toes of her shoeless foot with the other, looked up. ‘Have you lost something, Izzy?’

‘My bag—I think I left it in the church.’

Michelle, who was already in the car, leaned out with her arms outstretched. ‘Give me Lily while you go and get it. You only have yourself to blame, Emma. I told you those heels were too high.’

‘Thanks,’ Izzy said, handing her daughter over to the willing hands. ‘Don’t wait for me.’ Izzy blew a kiss to her daughter and mouthed, ‘I’ll catch up,’ through the closed window.