Maureen Child - Office Scandals

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.

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?