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CHAPTER NINE
‘MY PARENTS were in love.’ Roman would not personally call their obsessive, symbiotic relationship love or even healthy, but his was not the generally held opinion. ‘Their love did not stretch to a child. So, yes, I was that child.’
Izzy didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry.’
She could tell from his body language that he was regretting giving even this meagre amount of personal information.
‘I am going to be part of Lily’s life and you can deal with it like an adult or …’
‘Or?’
‘I’m not the bad guy, Isabel. Don’t make me one,’ he said quietly. ‘Look, maybe I shouldn’t have tricked you into coming here, but you wouldn’t talk to me, and the marriage thing—I scared you. I get that, but sometimes I say things without thinking them through.’
‘You were rushing me, pushing. You wouldn’t give me time to think.’
He dragged a hand through his hair and levered himself away from the counter. ‘I’m not good at waiting.’
‘You mean you’re impatient?’
An expression she struggled to read flickered in his deep-set eyes before he shrugged his shoulders.
‘I like to live in the here and now, not waiting for some tomorrow that might …’ He stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished.
She understood the significance of that look now.
‘But there is for you?’ she said, suddenly needing reassurance on this point. Well, he was Lily’s father. ‘A tomorrow, you mean … a lot of tomorrows?’ He looked the picture of lusty health but who knew?
At the time he had not discussed his illness with her because from his experience the moment anyone heard the word cancer they saw it and not him. It remained a subject that he avoided.
‘Who knows? But I have every intention of being around to see Lily grow up.’
The knot of anxiety in her stomach relaxed as she released a tiny sigh of relief.
He stepped away from the door he’d opened and Izzy saw the interior of a pantry that was filled with baby equipment. ‘I asked Gennaro to pick up a few things,’ he said, pulling out a wooden high chair and setting it beside the large wooden table that was set in the centre of the room. ‘Is this any good?’
‘A few things!’ she exclaimed, staring at the stacked shelves and noticing that the piles of nappies were in every size available. ‘It looks like he bought the shop. Yes, that’s great,’ she admitted, depositing Lily in the chair.
She fastened the bib around Lily’s neck and took the spoon from the bowl of baby food, handing it to Roman.
‘You got to start somewhere.’ Please do not make me regret this. ‘It’s just a spoon, so don’t start with the smug smile,’ she warned.
Roman saw the blue plastic spoon for what it was: an olive branch and the first thawing in her attitude. Careful to keep his expression clear of the smugness she accused him of, he took it.
Fifteen minutes later the tension in the atmosphere had diminished considerably and the food in the bowl seemed to be evenly distributed between the baby, Roman and the floor.
‘That is not as easy as it looks. Did she actually swallow any?’
‘Enough,’ Izzy murmured, taking the empty bowl and spoon and dropping them in the deep old-fashioned stone sink. She looked at him surreptitiously through her lashes as he rolled down his sleeves. Would any of his boardroom colleagues have recognised their elegant designer-suit-wearing boss?
She hardly recognised him herself.
Could she talk to this man without feeling overpowered?
Perhaps she should try?
‘You do know that I was always perfectly willing to give you access to Lily … It never even entered my head not to, but when a man you don’t know proposes …’
‘I did not propose. Dio, if I had gone down on one knee and said you made me complete I could understand your reaction.’
The mockery in his tone stung. ‘Maybe I want the one-knee approach …’ She saw his expression and added hastily, ‘But not from you, obviously.’
His ebony brows hit his hairline. ‘Now that I didn’t see coming … You’re a romantic.’
He made it sound as if she had some embarrassing disease. ‘I don’t have a romantic bone in my body.’
‘Good, then let’s discuss this like two rational people.’
Presumably rational and romantic were two things that did not coexist in his eyes.
‘I’m listening.’
‘You said to me that this is not about me or how I feel, but about Lily, and you are right, but are you not willing to concede that Lily would be better off with two parents?’
‘She has two parents. They don’t have to have the same address. I am willing to discuss a plan so long as you don’t stray into la-la land again. We have Lily in common and nothing else …’
If she did ever consider marriage he was everything the man she married wouldn’t be. She knew that there were women who found controlling behaviour a turn-on, but she had never wanted to be dominated by a man and Roman Petrelli was the ultimate in male chauvinism.
‘We have lust … a chemical reaction in common.’
She was unprepared for the comment and the breath left Izzy’s lungs in one sibilant gasp, but before she could contest the statement, before she could stop the hot, lurid images playing in her head, he added drily, ‘And there is a lot of historic precedent for basing marriage on just that, though the days when the only way a nice girl could get any was with a ring on her finger are long gone.’
‘Lust?’ The scorn she tried to inject into her voice just didn’t come off.
He lifted a sardonic brow and laughed. ‘Come off it, cara. You’re not suggesting that you don’t want to rip my clothes off …’ His heavy-lidded gaze slid down her body before he added, ‘I can feel the heat coming off you from here.’
His husky rasp stroked her nerve endings into painful tingling life. ‘You carry on thinking that if it makes you happy,’ she recommended. ‘But it doesn’t matter what situation you manufacture where we can play happy families, I’m not playing along.’
‘Tell me who had the best upbringing—your siblings or you?’
The comparison was unfair and he had to know it. ‘I wasn’t a deprived child. Ruth was a good friend. Look, marriage isn’t for me but I accept that for some people who are in love … I suppose you don’t believe in love?’ she charged, annoyed by the sneer curving his lips as he listened.
‘Oh, but I do. My own parents were as deeply in love from the moment they met until the day they died.’
‘You make that sound like a bad thing,’ she accused. ‘I know you didn’t have a happy childhood,’ she said, recalling his earlier comments.
‘I think that love, the all-consuming variety, can be selfish and destructive, but more relevantly does not make the people in love good people or, for that matter, good parents.’
Izzy fought off a stab of sympathy. ‘Didn’t you get on with your parents?’ Her mother might not have been the warm, fluffy, hands-on type of parent, but Izzy had always known she was loved and valued.
‘I barely knew them.’
It was his offhand tone as much as the statement that made Izzy blink in confusion before comprehension struck. For a moment empathy dampened her antagonism.
‘Oh, I thought …’ She half lifted her hand to clasp his arm, the physical gesture instinctive, but thought better of it, instead threading her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know they died when you were young.’
‘My parents died six years ago when I was twenty-five, but I was always on the periphery of their lives.’ It had seemed appropriate that they had died together when the cruise ship they were on struck a smaller vessel. The damage to the ship had been minor but in the subsequent confusion and hysteria several people had gone overboard, including his parents.
‘The reason couples like your father and Michelle have a successful marriage is because they are both intelligent people who work at it. They create a stable environment in which to bring up their children.’
‘They’re in love.’
‘In love?’ His scorn was overt. ‘What does that mean exactly? People fall in and out of love every day of the week. How many times have you seen some celebrity being interviewed waxing lyrical about their soul mate?’
‘Is the sneer for celebrities or love?’
Nostrils flared in distaste, he spoke over her sarcastic interruption. ‘The next week their acrimonious breakup is being reported everywhere.’
‘We’re not celebrities.’ Although, she mused, her glance drifting from the strong symmetry of his bronzed features to his body, there were a lot of Hollywood stars who worked hard to get what Roman had and never reached that elevated level of jaw-dropping, sexy perfection. It was hard to believe that she had …
‘But we are parents.’
Izzy started, her guilty eyes flying back to his face. ‘I know that,’ she gritted out. ‘What I don’t know is why you have this weird fixation with getting married. It’s not rational.’
‘And the idea that you fall in love with someone at twenty and still love them thirty years later is? Being in love does not make a good marriage or good parents.’
‘So what are you saying exactly?’
‘I’m saying that we can be married and be good parents, and not be in love. No!’ he said, lifting a hand to still the protest that trembled on her tongue. ‘I know your instinct is to shoot down my arguments in flames, but think for one moment. We have a child—’
‘You keep saying that like it might have slipped my mind!’
‘Do we not owe it to her to explore all possibilities? I am not suggesting we rush up the aisle—living in close proximity might reveal that we are totally incompatible—but I am suggesting living here for a period of time, long enough for me to get to know my daughter and for us to see how such an arrangement would work.’
‘You’re suggesting a trial … what …?’ She couldn’t bring herself to ask if he was expecting her to sleep with him.
He gave a smile as though he could read her mind. ‘There are many rooms in this house. We can be as close or as far apart as we wish.’
‘It’s a mad idea.’
‘And you can flex your creative muscles, tackle a room at a time, make it as you would wish it if you lived here. Money no object.’
‘Is that the carrot?’
‘For some women the chance to spend some quality time with me would be the carrot, which brings us back to lust. That night we spent together still feels very much unfinished business to me.’
‘No, it’s totally finished for me … completely!’ She illustrated how completely with a sharp sweeping motion of her hand.
He greeted her hot denial with a look of polite disbelief, which set Izzy’s teeth on edge.
‘As you wish. If you agree to give this a go, I will agree not to propose to you again until we have established we can live together without wanting to kill one another. For the record there is a dower house on the estate that, if the worst comes to the worst, I can sleep in. Such an arrangement, though not ideal, would be acceptable to me in the future. I know someone who has bought the house next door to his ex-wife so that he can see his children every day.’
‘You would live in the dower house here?’ She was startled by the offer.
‘We can live wherever you choose.’
She was impressed; how could she not be? He was prepared to totally turn his life upside down, relocate—anything, it seemed, for his daughter. Considering this, what he was suggesting no longer seemed such a big ask.
‘All right, I’ll give it a go.’
Roman greeted her choice with a nod of his head, but inside he was punching the air in triumph.
CHAPTER TEN
IZZY spent a couple of hours exploring the warren of rooms. She had felt fewer qualms about leaving Lily with Roman than she had imagined she would. It was hard to walk around the historic building and not be excited by the, what had he called it … potential?
She smiled to herself. The place had that, all right.
The room that had been made up for her was pretty and south-facing. There was a brand-new cot and stacks of fresh linen in the adjoining dressing room and beyond that a bathroom. Opening another door, she found herself in a room that was a twin to her own. The folded clothes on the bed said that she was standing in Roman’s room.
Cosy, she thought. Umpteen rooms and he’s next door? Was she appalled by this obvious manoeuvring? No, she was excited. The discovery shook her a lot more than seeing his boxer shorts neatly stacked!
She had anticipated sharing some sort of romantic dinner with him so she was a bit thrown when even before she had put Lily to bed he explained that there were urgent things he needed to attend to in the library, which it seemed was to be his temporary office.
Having decided to repulse any advances he made, she was miffed not to be afforded the opportunity! If this was part of a ‘treat ’em mean keep ’em keen’ strategy, it was working, because as she sat enjoying a lonely microwave supper she thought of little but him.
She fell to sleep listening for the creak of floorboards and woke some time later, her maternal sensors picking up Lily’s cry.
‘Darling, it’s all right, Mummy’s here.’
She stopped on the threshold. She wasn’t the only one who was here. Roman was standing over the cot, winding up the mobile suspended over it. He turned and mimed a hushing gesture. Lily’s heavy eyelids were already closing; her lashes lay blue black against her rosy cheeks.
Izzy nodded, aware rather belatedly that she was wearing only her nightdress. She smiled and tiptoed her way back into her own room, her heart beating faster because she knew he was following her.
She turned just as he was closing the adjoining door carefully behind him.
He struggled to keep his eyes on her face. ‘I’m glad I saw you.’ The semi-sheer ankle-length nightdress she wore was rendered virtually transparent by the lamplight, revealing the curvaceous outline of her body and the strategic dark areas … ‘I meant to catch you before you went up. I’m sorry I had to leave you on your first night, but there were some contracts I had to sort. I don’t mean to bore you. Did you find everything all right?’
‘Yes, thank you … fine.’ He looked like the living incarnation of everything that was male and raw and powerful. He was the very opposite of her and things inside her shifted and tightened as she stared at him.
He tipped his head, feeling the flare of attraction between them so strongly that it made his blood burn. This was only ever going to work if he let her dictate the pace, one false move on his part and … ‘Right, then, I’ll … Sleep well.’
‘No.’
He turned back, a question in his eyes.
She stood there wanting him so much it hurt; every cell ached with the wanting. She wanted to feel his body hard and male, smell his skin and enjoy the tactile sensations of flesh on flesh. She wanted to tangle her fingers in his hair, taste … oh, taste …!
How long could she carry on resisting and why should she?
The escalating desires were consuming her, sapping her ability to think beyond these basic primal needs. She felt as if she were drawn towards him by some invisible cord that was reeling her in. She’d been fighting so hard, fighting not to admit how much she wanted him, and why not …? The time to be cautious had been two years ago; this was no leap in the dark.
Why not?
Uneasily aware that her defiance masked a desperate need that she didn’t want to think about, she faltered. ‘I … I don’t want you to go …’
The broken plea had barely left her lips and he was at her side, framing her face in his big hands, kissing her.
He felt his control slipping away as her hand slid up his back and she whispered in his ear, ‘I want to feel your skin.’
He pulled back only far enough to rip off his shirt and place her hands on his bare chest.
Eyes slumberous and passion-glazed, Izzy ran her hands over the planes and ridges of muscle on his torso and up over his broad shoulders. Need ached through her, sweet like honey, sharp like a knife. ‘Your skin feels like silk.’
She ran her tongue across her lips and the action caused his eyes to darken. He pulled her into him, causing their bodies to collide. His open mouth covered hers, hot and moist, his firm lips moving with the same erotic, sensuous motion that his hips were against her lower body.
‘Yes … oh, God,’ she murmured against his mouth. She was spinning out of control and she loved it!
Still kissing her, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the room. When they reached the bed he placed her on her feet.
The febrile glow in his eyes made her dizzy as he caught hold of the bottom of her nightdress. She lifted her arms to help him and a moment later her nightdress hit the opposite wall.
He lifted her bodily onto the bed, kneeling over her prone form, and allowed his burning gaze to roam freely over her naked body.
Izzy experienced a moment’s doubt; the last time he had seen her she had not had a child—her body had changed since then. Her hips were wider, her breasts fuller and softer; she had a woman’s body now.
Would he like what he was seeing?
‘You are so beautiful … more beautiful.’ He had never wanted a woman like this in his life; it was the same as that night, only more so.
Izzy released the breath she had been holding and reached up and dragged him down, her hands deep in his dark hair as she pulled his mouth to her aching breasts. He took first one hardened nipple in his mouth and then the other, drawing a series of moans and gasps from Izzy as she writhed beneath him in a frenzy of desire.
She bit into his shoulder, sliding her arms around his back and arching as she tangled her fingers deeper into his hair, bringing his mouth to hers. She sank her tongue between his lips, wanting to taste him, wanting him to taste her.
She was gasping for breath and almost delirious with pleasure when he began to kiss a path down her throat. Her body was limp and pliant as he pulled her onto her side, looping one of her thighs across his hip as he kneaded her buttock, his fingers sinking into the soft springy flesh. He eased a finger along the damp cleft between her legs, drawing a low moan from her parted lips as he stroked her slowly and rhythmically.
He rolled her onto her back and she lay there looking at him with big passion-glazed eyes as he tore off his remaining clothes and returned to her.
‘Don’t close your eyes,’ he insisted. ‘I want you to watch.’
She did watch as his hands were on her body, touching her everywhere, lighting fires and massive conflagrations until she burned all over and deep inside, releasing all the loneliness and fear that had been hiding there.
Izzy was dimly aware of a voice that sounded as if it was coming from a long way off, a voice begging and pleading, realising with a sense of shock that it was hers when he whispered in her ear.
‘I can’t wait either, cara.’
She arched her body, lifting off the bed as he slid into her in one hard thrust. She clung to him, her face pressed into his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his sweat-slicked muscled back as he filled her again and again until she almost fainted with the sheer bliss of it.
She climbed so high it felt as if she were flying. Then as the vibrations that began deep inside her grew, she fell, losing a sense of self as her entire body shook in a series of shattering sensory explosions.
Later, when their sweat-slick bodies had cooled, he pulled her face from his shoulder and ran a finger down the thin pink line low on her abdomen.
‘Tell me about that.’
‘I had a long labour and things went wrong … I had a Caesarean.’
She saw his expression and touched his face with her hand. ‘It was nothing major … I just wish I could have seen her when she was born.’
She had given birth alone and in pain and she was the one offering comfort.
‘Now we both have our scars,’ she teased, reaching down to touch those on his leg. ‘They’re from your illness …?’ She had thought when she first saw them that they were from an accident.
‘I had bone cancer. I was lucky it was picked up early when they X-rayed me after a climbing fall. Not pretty.’
‘They’re part of you,’ she said, looking surprised.
‘Lauren didn’t think so. I don’t blame her—any woman would have felt the same.’
Izzy raised herself up on one elbow, wondering if he defended the indefensible because he still loved her. ‘You have a very low opinion of women.’
Roman looked at her fondly. ‘Not everyone has your strong stomach.’
Not everyone had a man like Roman in their bed, including the shallow and stupid-sounding Lauren.
As Gennaro pulled into the outside lane of the motorway Roman closed his laptop.
‘Are things all right?’ Last night had been the first time he had spent a night away from Izzy and Lily. He had spent most of the time wondering what they were doing. He wouldn’t have gone at all if Izzy hadn’t insisted.
Parenting was a steep learning curve. The time he spent working he felt guilty he was neglecting his family and the time he spent with his family he felt guilty he was neglecting work.
When he had discussed it with Izzy she had laughed and said, ‘Welcome to my world, big boy. Women have been feeling that way for ever and a day!’
Izzy … The situation was working out better than he could have hoped. There was just one development that he had not expected. People said things in the throes of passion they did not necessarily mean, but three times now she had moaned, ‘I love you!’ Roman was certain that she was just babbling nonsense; she had to be. The whole point of their relationship was to be together without falling in love …
‘What’s that?’ Izzy asked, looking at the gift-wrapped box.
‘Open it and see.’
She flashed him a smile and unpicked the prettily tied bows, resisting the impulse to tear them. She carefully unfolded the beautiful layers of tissue paper to reveal the item that lay beneath.
‘It’s beautiful!’
‘How do you know? It’s still in the box! It’s a dress.’ He had given women gifts on many occasions, many more expensive than this one, but he had never watched his gifts being opened before. Now he found himself feeling almost nervous, experiencing a desire for them to be pleased.
Taking hold of the fabric, she took it out, gasping as the beaded silk unfolded to reveal the most glamorous dress she had ever seen.
‘It’s beautiful.’ Her wide eyes took in details of the low-waisted, heavily beaded, twenties-inspired dress. It was made of silver-grey silk; the tiny beads arranged in geometric patterns were silver and they winked and caught the light. ‘Real golden age Hollywood,’ she enthused.
‘It is only a dress.’
It was nothing.
Conscious that through his sophisticated eyes her reaction might seem a little over the top, Izzy damped down the enthusiasm levels of her response as she pointed out sensibly, ‘But I’ll never wear it.’ Holding the dress against her, she studied her reflection in the antique mirror she had recently installed on the opposite wall.
‘Why not?’ he asked. She reminded him of a child opening her presents on Christmas morning.
She arched a delicate brow. ‘When did you last see me in anything that didn’t involve jeans?’
She looked very good in jeans, he thought as his eyes slid to her tightly rounded derrière. Especially the pair she was wearing now, which clung in all the right places.
‘You will have an opportunity tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘You have spent the last three weeks in some sort of self-imposed exile.’ As exiles went the one they had shared had not been a trial, but enough was enough. ‘We are going out.’
‘Is this you asking?’
‘No, this is me being masterful, or, if you prefer, autocratic?’ He grinned and she thought just how charming he was.
‘It is all arranged. I have asked Chloe to babysit. You have no problem with that?’
Chloe was an art student who had been helping Izzy out with the sample boards.
‘It seems to me that she is level-headed and responsible.’
‘Yes, she is.’ And Lily loved her.
‘So tonight we will dress up and dine together.’
‘But why? Do you want to check out my table manners or something?’ she teased. ‘Check out I’m not a social liability before you sign on the dotted line,’ she added, only half joking now.
Wishing she had not introduced a reference to the subject that was always the elephant in the room, Izzy veiled her eyes, but not before her cheeks had grown self-consciously pink.
‘I have had no opportunity to show you off and it is your birthday, isn’t it?’
Her blue eyes widened as they flew to his face. ‘How did you know?’
He thought of the report he had downloaded on his laptop. He did not imagine that its existence would endear him to her, so instead he turned the question back on her. ‘I think the question should be why didn’t you tell me?’
Izzy was conscious of a fizz of excitement. The idea of dressing up and eating a meal with an incredibly handsome man was not totally awful. If you had fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with said man it did not detract from the idea of making yourself beautiful for him and seeing his eyes light up with, if not love, she’d settle for lust.
She was a realist and this relationship could work if only she could keep her damned tongue under control. Luckily the few times her feelings had got the better of her and she’d blurted out her true feelings for him he hadn’t noticed, but she couldn’t rely on her luck holding out. She had to keep her mouth shut.
‘Where did you have in mind?’ She held the dress out at arm’s length, admiring the way the hand-sewn beadwork caught the light. It was beautiful, but awfully dressy for the local places she knew of.
‘Edinburgh … actually just outside.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘Edinburgh!’
‘The Dornie.’
‘Dornie!’ Izzy was neither star-struck or a foodie, but everybody knew about the restaurant that had been opened the previous year. You needed to know someone just to get on the waiting list! It was apparently the place to be seen and she was assuming the food wasn’t bad either.
‘I have a jet on standby; we will be home before the witching hour if you wish. Do not look at me like this is everyday stuff for fairy godmothers.’
And billionaire playboys, except she had been forced to rethink many of her assumptions about him over the past few weeks, including the playboy reputation she had believed him to have. Izzy gave a wistful glance at the dress. ‘Really?’ The prospect of wearing something feminine was incredibly tempting.
‘Would I lie to you?’
Izzy’s smile faded. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t think you would.’
When had that happened?
She trusted him, which was no reason to cry, she thought, blinking back the hot tears she felt swimming in her eyes. She looked down and sniffed and when she lifted her head her blue eyes were guarded. It was just as well he hadn’t been there when she had realised she had fallen in love with him.
That had been the day she had discovered her old sketchbook and had seen his face drawn on every page. It had hit her almost immediately that each likeness of him she had sketched had been drawn with love. Her sketchbook was a love story—an unrequited-love story. She had cried over the pages until they were soggy. She’d experienced love at first sight and she hadn’t even known it!
‘What time do we leave?’
There was a slight pause and when he replied she had the impression he had been on the brink of saying something else.
‘Six-thirty …?’
Her mouth opened in a silent O of protest. ‘I’ll never manage that. Lily needs—’
‘I will see to Lily. You go get ready.’
Tipping her head in acknowledgement of this suggestion she turned to leave, then, with her hand on the door handle, turned back. ‘It’s a lovely birthday present, thank you, Roman.’
‘It is not your birthday present.’ He watched her eyes flicker wider, saw the question in them and smiled. ‘I hope the dress fits.’
It did fit.
It couldn’t have fitted better and, nibbling her full lower lip, Izzy viewed her reflection through narrowed eyes from several angles.
It was perfect. The only thing she would have changed were the freckles on the swell of her bust where the square-cut neckline of the bodice was not as modest as it had appeared. But the rest, she gave a little nod of approval. Below knee length the beaded panels of the drop-waisted skirt swirled outwards when she moved, falling against her legs with a sexy swish.
The question was would Roman be as impressed?
The jury was still out on that one. She walked into the room a little while later complete with a jewelled, flapper-style headband placed in her glossy chestnut hair, her figure elongated by a pair of elegant spiky heels. Roman simply stared at her for what felt like a century, then tilted his head and said, ‘You look good.’
It was hard not to feel deflated by such an underwhelming reaction, but then she had a tendency to expect too much when it came to their relationship.
Izzy felt impatient with herself. Maybe, she reflected grimly, I ought to write ‘He doesn’t love you’ a hundred times, then it might sink in. Then she might stop laying herself open to this sort of disappointment.
When she had walked into the room Roman’s vision had blurred. It had taken all his control not to grab her and take her right there. Ironic it had taken him some time to persuade her to wear the thing and now all he wanted to do was rip it off!
He had stood there like a statue struggling to control his rampant arousal, knowing that he couldn’t even move without revealing his condition. His libido-whacked brain hadn’t even been able to come up with something to cover up his lapse—he must have looked like a total idiot.
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