The Petrelli Heir

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘So until you do have the time I’m the only man you’ve ever slept with.’

  And Roman had never forgotten the night.

  He ran a hand across his face and shook his head, unable to believe his total lack of control. He had never surrendered himself so totally to passion before or since that night; the searing fire of lust had totally devoured him. He had literally torn off his clothes like a fumbling boy who couldn’t wait.

  Izzy looked past him, trying not to see the image of his sculpted bronzed body in her head as she banded her arm around her midriff in an unconsciously protective gesture. It did not protect her from the memory of the warm silken feel of his skin against hers at the first shocking intimacy of his touch.

  ‘There’s no need to make such a big thing of it. We had sex,’ she said, struggling to sound amused. ‘That doesn’t give us some magical bond.’

  ‘Maybe not magic, but we have a bond—we have Lily.’

  As if in response to her name the sleeping baby stirred, raising her voice in a fretful whimper. Izzy was up in a bound and beside the carrier.

  ‘Per l’amor di Dio!’ he rasped under his breath as he watched her bend forward, providing him with a perfect view of her pert round bottom.

  Izzy, who was unfastening Lily, who was wriggling like an eel to escape, lifted her head at the sound of his soft curse and, misinterpreting its cause, cautioned, ‘Babies don’t time their demands to suit you, Roman.’

  The man needed a reality check. Maybe he would be less eager to be involved with Lily when he realised the demands that went with a small baby. ‘For the first three months I was rarely dressed before midday.’

  From where he was standing that did not seem a bad thing to Roman.

  She shook her head to toss back a strand of hair that was tickling her nose as she lifted up Lily. ‘I can’t remember the last time I visited the hairdresser’s.’ When she got back home, Izzy decided, she would take up Michelle’s suggestion they let Grandad babysit while they went for a spa day treat.

  ‘You have beautiful hair.’ He remembered it soft and lustrous spread out on the pillow as she had reached up for him and pulled him down.

  Her eyes flew to his face where the raw hunger stamped on his bronzed features made her heart thud. It was Lily’s small foot landing a lucky and painful kick in her stomach that broke the sexual thrall that had rapidly sucked her into its sensual vortex.

  Her laughter was tinged with a good dollop of breathless relief as she kissed the sole of the bare foot that had pulled her away from the brink of making a total fool of herself.

  ‘Now, what have you done with that sock … eaten it?’

  ‘It’s there.’ Roman bent to pick up the lost item.

  ‘Thank you.’ She held her hand palm up rather than risk touching his long brown fingers. He probably knew but by this point Izzy was past caring. ‘She’s always losing socks,’ she said, tucking it in the pocket of her cardigan. As if picking up on the tension in the air, Lily began to squall irritably.

  Roman regarded her red face with a concerned frown. ‘Is she ill?’

  ‘No, she’s hungry.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s generally a matter of elimination. Is there somewhere I could heat up her food? Where did I put the bag?’ She looked around for the holdall.

  ‘I’ve got it.’ Roman’s brows shot up as he picked up the bag with the pink handle and cheerful teddy-bear characters. ‘Dio, what have you got in here?’

  Izzy gave a rundown. ‘Food, drink, nappies, a change of clothes and some toys.’ She reeled off the items that she rarely travelled anywhere without. ‘Somewhere I can heat up …?’

  ‘Yes, of course, I’ll show you.’ He held open the door for her to pass through in front of him. ‘The kitchen is this way, I think.’ He led the way through a door into a stone-flagged inner hall. ‘And there are rooms prepared upstairs if you want to change her.’

  Before Izzy could protest he added, ‘It’s too late now to make the journey back to Cumbria. I can’t promise luxury but the place is perfectly habitable, just a little tired décor wise. I’m not sure if you’ll want to do any structural remodelling but—’

  Trotting a little to keep up with his long stride, Izzy stared up at him. ‘Why do you persist in acting as though it’s a done deal? Don’t you understand the meaning of no?’

  He pushed open a heavy door and nodded for her to go through before him. ‘Depends on the context. So what do you think? Could you do something with it?’

  She might hate cooking.

  She might be a domestic goddess.

  It seemed impossible that they could know so little about one another and yet they had made a child.

  He stood back and watched her look around the room.

  ‘A bit small?’ he suggested. ‘The original kitchen is on the lower ground floor used for storage now. It could be reinstated. I’d thought possibly knocking through, incorporating the smaller rooms and knocking out the wall replacing it with glass and putting in a south-facing terrace …?’

  The ambitious suggestion drew a laugh from Izzy.

  ‘This house has got to be listed?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Listed means you can’t just knock down walls. Besides, this is a lovely room. Not that it’s any of my business,’ she tacked on quickly. ‘Will you stop looking so smug? I’m not staying. And if you want to make yourself useful, watch Lily while I organise her food.’ She placed the baby on the floor and held out her hand for the bag.

  Roman took a wooden tractor from the top of the bag, then handed it to her. ‘Are you always so bossy?’

  ‘Does that mean the wedding’s off?’

  The tentative rapport immediately vanished in a big black hole of heavy tension.

  ‘This isn’t about scoring points.’ His expression remained stern as he bent down and pushed the wooden toy across the ground to the baby, who immediately grabbed it and pushed it in her mouth.

  ‘Is that safe?’

  Izzy, still stinging from his reproach, glanced over. ‘Fine. She’s teething—everything goes in her mouth.’

  Roman straightened up, leaned back against a counter and stood watching while Izzy moved around the room until, in the act of pulling a lid off a jar, she was unable to bear his silent scrutiny another second. She stopped and expelled a sigh through clenched teeth.

  Straightening her slender shoulders, she put down the jar and turned to face him. ‘So, all right, it’s not a joke or about scoring points. What is it about?’

  Her eyes were incredible, the deepest, purest blue he had ever seen.

  She arched a delicate brow. ‘Well?’

  ‘This is about damage limitation.’ And controlling his desire to touch her. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s about you admitting you can’t do it all yourself. It’s about me being allowed to take my share of the responsibilities. You don’t like this house? Fine. I … we can find something you do like.’

  ‘I like where I live.’ He just kept missing the point.

  ‘That cottage, there’s not enough room to swing a cat there.’

  ‘My cottage!’ she exclaimed. ‘You have never seen my cottage. You don’t even know where I live!’

  ‘I may not have had an invite but be real, Isabel. Of course I know where you live, and I’m assuming your house is not dissimilar in size to your neighbour’s, who kindly did ask me in after I admired her dahlias.’

  ‘You … you … how dare you? You wouldn’t know a dahlia from a daisy.’

  ‘Now there you go again, making snap judgements based on what?’

  ‘I don’t care if you have green fingers.’ Actually his fingers were brown and long and sensitive. Hand pressed to her fluttering stomach, Izzy dragged her gaze upwards and finished angrily, ‘I won’t tolerate being spied on and manipulated.’

  His languid air vanished. ‘And I will not tolerate my child living in a house paid for by Michael Fitzgerald.’ Michael Fitzgerald was t
he least of Roman’s concerns. There was no man in Isabel’s life right now, but how long would that situation continue? How long before some man wanted to move in and bring up his daughter?

  Izzy was taken aback by the underlying venom in his tone. ‘What have you got against Michael?’

  ‘Nothing. I barely know the man,’ Roman cut back, looking impatient. ‘Other than the fact he has an excellent reputation as a horse breeder.’

  ‘For the record, I rent the cottage, not Michael. He offered to help financially, but I refused.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I can pay my own way.’ She bent and scooped up the baby.

  ‘Did Michael ask who the father was?’ If the roles had been reversed he would have tracked down the man responsible and … But he was the reckless bastard responsible and it was his job to protect his own daughter.

  Izzy shook her head. ‘No.’ She suspected that Michelle had a lot to do with this restraint.

  ‘But he knows now.’

  ‘Obviously Michelle told him.’

  Izzy brought her lashes down in a protective sweep. Michael’s response, she realised in retrospect, had initiated their first father and daughter dispute. She had found herself placed in the strange position of defending Roman.

  He had eventually cooled down and had even apologised after Michelle had supplied a large dose of common sense, but the subject was still a sensitive one.

  ‘But don’t worry, it doesn’t have to go any farther. They won’t tell anyone else.’ She gave a sudden laugh, her glance moving from Lily to Roman. ‘They won’t have to if anyone sees you together.’

  ‘People are going to know, Isabel.’

  She swallowed. ‘I suppose so.’

  He studied her face and felt his anger grow without knowing why. ‘You look delighted by the prospect.’

  ‘Are you telling me you are? That you don’t care about people talking and speculating?’ She curled up inside at the idea of being the butt of gossip again.

  ‘I do not care about what people say about me.’

  Exasperated, she rolled her eyes. ‘I get the message, but could you lower it a bit? The testosterone levels are giving me a headache … and before you come over all huffy,’ she said wagging her finger at him, ‘remember you don’t care what people think about you.’

  His taut expression faded to one of reluctant amused admiration. ‘Huffy? Is that even a word?’

  ‘And here was me thinking your English was better than mine.’

  ‘And I said think not say, smart little witch.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure people only say what you want to hear,’ she observed, thinking that it would take a brave person to cross swords verbally or otherwise with this man.

  ‘Not all people. Tell me, if our paths had not crossed what did you plan to tell Lily when she asked about her father?’

  Izzy’s narrow shoulders lifted. ‘Truthfully I don’t know.’ Her eyes drifted to his mouth.

  ‘You’re blushing!’ he accused suddenly.

  Izzy wasn’t about to tell him that her own thoughts were making her blush—thoughts about his mouth.

  ‘It’s warm in here.’

  ‘You think?’ he drawled, wondering why she was lying.

  Izzy ignored the scepticism in his smile. ‘I don’t want to lie to her.’

  He arched a brow. ‘But you would.’

  ‘Truth?’ She gave a helpless shrug and paused, seemingly lost in her own thoughts until he prompted.

  ‘Truth?’

  Her blue eyes connected with his. ‘I don’t know. I mean, at what age do you say to your child, I don’t actually know your father’s name—he was a one-night stand who picked me up in a bar?’

  ‘Actually, if we’re being totally accurate, you picked me up.’

  She flashed him an insincere smile. ‘Well, thanks for that.’

  He tipped his head. ‘Any time.’

  ‘But a child wants to feel they were conceived with …’ She stopped and lowered her gaze, unable to say love and invite his cynical retort. ‘Well, that they at least knew each other’s name and it wasn’t some quickie …’

  The coarse description brought a flash of anger to his eyes. ‘The point is that parents do not discuss their conception with the children, unless your mother was the exception. Did she feel the need to share the gory details?’

  ‘She told me my dad was a test tube.’

  This casual revelation caused his winged ebony brows to hit his hairline. ‘What?’

  Izzy, who was wiping a stray blob of banana from her daughter’s curls, turned to face him. She held the box of wet wipes in one hand, the used wipe in the other hand as she tried to sweep the stray strands of hair from her face with her forearm. One stubborn culprit remained, tickling her nose.

  ‘Let me.’

  His eyes were dark and intense as he looked down into her upturned features. Izzy stood very still, not even breathing as he took the silky hank of hair in his long brown fingers, brushing her cheek and jaw as he tucked it carefully behind her ear.

  He took for ever and every second was torture. Her insides were quivering, her outsides were burning and her skin was so sensitive that every light touch of his fingers felt like a burning brand.

  Torture was not an exaggeration for the effort it took for her not to react to either the impulse to slap his hand away or the contrasting and equally strong impulse to grab it and rub her cheek into his palm.

  She started breathing again as he retook his place propping up the counter. Tall, elegant and not even slightly affected, but why would he be? Only crazed women got turned on by someone tidying them up. If he’d wiped the banana out of my hair I’d probably moan and scream, ‘Take me!’ she thought with a grimace of self-disgust.

  Dropping the soiled wipe in a waste bin, Izzy grunted a thanks and picked up the threads of her narrative.

  ‘She told me my dad … well, that I didn’t have one. I always believed that I was the product of artificial insemination.’

  ‘Madre di Dios!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It seemed normal to me.’ Until she had mentioned it to her friends in school.

  ‘So when did she tell you the truth?’

  ‘She didn’t. She left a letter for me to read after she died. She left one for Michael too.’

  ‘And you had read that letter on the day we …’ He inhaled and closed his eyes, breathing through clenched teeth. ‘Of course you did.’ He bit out a savage-sounding curse that drew Izzy’s attention to his face.

  His mouth was taut and his narrowed eyes were almost black. ‘Are you mad with me?’ she asked, her voice rising to an indignant squeak. ‘Because I don’t see why.’

  ‘No, I am not mad with you.’ He framed the words from between clenched teeth. ‘I am mad with me.’ He took a deep breath, making a visible effort to put a lid on his emotions before continuing, his voice a careful monotone as he delivered his opinion.

  ‘I think that how Lily was conceived is irrelevant. It is how she is brought up that is important. Do you agree?’

  She nodded warily. Where was he going with this? ‘Of course.’ What else could she say?

  ‘She deserves to be brought up to know she is wanted, cared for emotionally and physically.’

  When you said it that way it sounded so simple, but it wasn’t and he knew it. Roman sketched a small self-mocking smile. An ultra-confident person, he had never been plagued with self-doubt, he thrived on challenges, but this fatherhood thing scared him.

  ‘I don’t know what kind of father I’ll be,’ he admitted.

  Would he be a good father …? He found the idea of being responsible for another person incredibly daunting.

  ‘But I know I won’t neglect her or leave her alone. I won’t let her get on the wrong train when she is ten and have to find her way from Brighton in the dark to—’ He stopped abruptly, adding in a hard voice, ‘The point is, the things parents do impact on a child … I don’t want my child to pay the price for my mistakes.’

 
‘Roman, were you that little boy?’

  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?’