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

a few good-natured comments that Izzy didn’t even register. As she approached the bar she was still seeing those dark hungry eyes. She focused on them—it wasn’t hard—and seeing them, feeling them, she didn’t have to think about anything else.

      ‘Are you eighteen?’ the barman asked for the third time, studying the young woman’s glazed blue eyes and wondering if she was on something.

      ‘No, yes … I mean, I’m twenty-one … almost.’

      Izzy was not surprised when he asked, ‘You got some identity, miss?’

      Flustered, she reached into her bag and found her driving licence, holding her thick wavy chestnut hair back from her face with her forearm when it flopped in her eyes.

      The barman raised his brows as he scanned it before producing her drink and an apologetic, ‘We have to check.’

      She jumped when a beefy, slightly clammy hand landed on top of her own, pressing it into the surface of the bar. ‘A beautiful woman should never pay for her own drink,’ the owner of the hand slurred.

      Oh, God, and the hits just kept coming, she thought, her nostrils flaring in distaste as she inhaled the beerladen fumes of her admirer.

      ‘Thank you, but I’m meeting someone … excuse me.’

      The man didn’t move. If anything, egged on by his mates, he moved in closer. Izzy hunched in on herself defensively.

      Not a violent or angry person, diplomatic Izzy balled her hand into a fist in her head. She could hear her mother saying, When you have to shout, Izzy, you have lost an argument.

      But her mum wasn’t here.

      ‘Go away, you creep!’

      I just yelled, and it felt good.

      ‘Cara, I’m sorry I’m late but …’ The men crowding around her suddenly parted to reveal the unbelievably attractive lone wolf from the table. Lean and broad-shouldered, all hard muscle and sinew, he was a head taller than the drunk pestering her and he had the entire mean, brooding hungry look going on, boosted by the combustible gleam in his narrowed eyes.

      Izzy couldn’t tear her gaze away from his face and she wanted to touch him so much it hurt, which was crazy. She was gazing with helpless admiration at the long curling ebony lashes that framed those spectacular eyes when with zero warning he fitted his mouth to hers as though he’d done it a hundred times before and kissed her hard, full on the mouth.

      It was only when he lifted his mouth that he even appeared to notice the other men.

      ‘Is there a problem?’ No longer languid and warm, his deep voice was layered with icy hauteur.

      Problem? she thought, swallowing a bubble of hysteria. Did standing there staring or not being able to breathe count? His kiss had tasted of whisky, she thought as she ran her tongue across the outline of her own trembling mouth. The younger men almost fell over themselves to assure the stranger that there was no problem at all as they vanished like mist.

      ‘You looked like you were about to deck him. You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t you?’

      Izzy unclenched her fist. ‘That was very resourceful of you, but I didn’t need saving.’ I’m feisty!

      This close, the raw maleness that had given her a hormone rush from across the room was a million times more intense.

      ‘No …?’ His shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug as he stared at her, dragging his hand back and forth across the dark stubble shadowing his square jaw. His eyes slid to the glass in her hand. ‘You were planning to drown your sorrows?’ His mouth curled into a self-derisive sneer as he added softly, ‘Stare into the bottom of a glass and feel sorry for yourself?’

      Izzy looked at the glass in her hand … Was she?

      ‘I wish you more luck than me.’

      Was he saying he was drunk? He didn’t look drunk. He didn’t sound drunk. In fact his rich, gravelly, slightly accented voice was delicious—he was delicious.

      Her heart raced; the sexual tension between them was like a wall cutting them off from the rest of the room. The reckless exhilaration fizzing through her bloodstream made her feel dizzy.

      ‘I don’t want a drink any more,’ Izzy said breathlessly, at the same time wondering what she was doing.

      Whatever it was it felt good.

      His dark eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment. ‘You don’t? What do you want?’ His brow furrowed. ‘How remiss of me. I’m—’

      ‘No!’ Izzy reached up and pressed a warning finger to his lips. Once there she found herself tracing the firm outline, fascinated by the texture and warmth of his skin. ‘I don’t need to know your name. I need—’

      He caught her hand and held it by his face and slurred throatily, ‘What do you need, cara?’ His thumb stroked a line down her cheek as he bent in close and whispered, ‘Tell me …’

      His gravelly accented drawl made her insides dissolve.

      ‘I’ve had a very bad day and I don’t want to think about it. I need …’ She paused. Life-changing revelations or not, twenty years of sensible caution did not give up without a fight. The man could be a homicidal maniac … he could … he could … he could …

      Izzy closed her eyes and opened them again. She needed not to think, she needed to feel … his skin. Desire washed over her like a flash fire, dragging the breath from her lungs and making her skin prickle.

      ‘I think I need you.’ Is this really me saying that?

      ‘Think?’

      ‘I need you.’

      It was definitely her leaving a bar with an enigmatic, beautiful stranger.

       CHAPTER ONE

      IZZY hurried up the aisle, her heels clicking on the marble floor as she went. She pretended to be unaware of the scattering of nudges and not so discreet whispered comments that followed her progress. She pretended extremely well—she’d had practice.

      It would have been nice to think people were riveted by her stunning fashion sense, but the reality was that, while the misty blue silk chiffon dress did bring out the blue in her blue-grey eyes and made her rich chestnut hair look more auburn than brown, it was a little too snug across her post-baby bust. And besides, the church was filled with a lot of women who were better dressed and, in her opinion, better looking—short and skinny with freckles was an acquired taste.

      But the attention she garnered had nothing to do with the way she looked and everything to do with her being there at all, because everyone there knew that Izzy was not a real Fitzgerald!

      Two years ago when Izzy had first arrived in the small Cumbrian market town, her appearance had attracted much more attention, but happily she was yesterday’s news. The pregnant illegitimate daughter that Michael Fitzgerald had not known he had was a scandal still, but no longer one that was likely to steal the show. And things were improving.

      Izzy’s expression softened as her thoughts caused her glance to drift to where her father sat talking to his brother, the father of the bride. The two men with their leonine heads of grey-streaked strawberry-blond hair were alike enough to have passed for twins, though Jake Fitzgerald was older by three years.

      As if feeling her gaze Michael turned his head and winked at her and Izzy grinned back. Her father was a remarkable man. How many men receiving a letter telling them that they had a daughter from an affair twenty years ago would have reacted the way he had?

      Not many, she suspected. But Michael hadn’t even wanted the DNA test! In fact the entire family had been great and instead of treating her like