Office Scandals. Maureen Child

you got a problem with strong women, Roman? Is that it?’

      ‘You think your mother is a person to be admired?’ Roman was bewildered by how protective Isabel was of the memory of someone who had lied to her all her life, deprived her of a father and, as far as he could see, been a friend, not a mother. ‘You put your career on hold to spend time with your daughter. Did your mother ever put your needs above her own?’

      ‘That wasn’t a sacrifice,’ she said quietly. ‘I wanted to spend time with Lily. I didn’t want to miss out on these early months. You have no idea how—’

      ‘Precious they are? I think I have.’

      Her eyes fell from his steady stare. ‘She would probably have been equally happy and contented with a nanny.’

      ‘I doubt that. You’re a good mother.’

      Izzy, conscious of a warm glow that shouldn’t have been there—his approval meant nothing to her—took refuge in antagonism. ‘And the point is I could do that, spend this time with Lily because the book you despised gave me financial independence. I appreciate you feel responsible,’ she said stiffly. ‘But I don’t need your money and Lily and I are fine …’

      ‘So what do you expect me to do? Walk away and say ring me? What happens when Lily gets ill or hates school? Do you really want to face those things alone?’

      ‘If I need it the Fitzgeralds give me all the support I could want.’

      ‘The Fitzgeralds? Do you think of yourself as one of them? Don’t you feel an outsider?’

      Alarmed by his perception, she lowered her gaze, allowing her dark lashes to screen her eyes from him.

      ‘My independence means a lot to me and they respect that.’ Which was more than he did. His constant prodding and prying were making her feel under siege and what was it about? All she’d been was a cheap one-night stand; the fact she’d had his child did not alter that.

      ‘You must have been terrified when you found yourself pregnant and alone.’ Roman struggled under the weight of unaccustomed guilt he felt when he thought of what she must have gone through. He saw her sitting there alone and afraid … His jaw clenched.

      ‘I wasn’t alone. Michael contacted me the same week I discovered I was pregnant.’

      And what a week! In the space of two days she’d discovered that her wild night of passion with the handsome stranger had left her pregnant and received the letter from the man who was her father, inviting her to meet her new family.

      ‘If I hadn’t been pregnant …’ She stopped as a sudden stab of emotion made her eyes fill. She blinked hard before adding with a hint of defiance, ‘And, yes, feeling alone, I might not have agreed to meet him, but I did so my story had a happy ending.’ She took out a tissue and blew her nose. The prosaic action touched Roman more than any tears would have.

      ‘This story is not ended, Isabel. Our story is not ended.’

      She shook her head, knowing he was right but still fighting it. Life had been simpler without him but here he was and he showed no signs of going away. For Lily’s sake she knew she should make an effort, but they had nothing in common. He didn’t even live in the same world as she did, but she could try at least not to be enemies.

      ‘We don’t have a story. It was just sex.’ Staring at her clasped hands, she didn’t see anger that flashed in his eyes. ‘If I hadn’t walked into that bar …’ A shadow of confusion moved across her face like a cloud. ‘I still don’t know why I did that—I just saw the bar and …’

      ‘Maybe it was fate?’

      Her feathery brows lifted in surprise. He was the last person that she had expected to hear talk about fate. ‘I don’t believe in fate. I slept with an incredibly sexy man. That wasn’t fate—it was hormones!’ And given the opportunity she suspected nine out of ten unattached females would have done the same. She would have thought that she was the one who wouldn’t have been attracted to him, but apparently she was no different. But he was, she thought as her glance drifted across the carved, perfectly symmetrical lines of his bronzed face, a dreaminess drifting into her expression. He made her think of some warrior with a poet’s soul—his mouth was definitely poetry. The dreaminess was swallowed up by a stab of hungry longing as she studied the sensual outline.

      ‘Incredibly sexy …?’

      She jumped guiltily and dodged the wicked gleam in his eyes and found herself staring again at his mouth. Once she had started it was hard to stop. She cleared her throat and forced the words past the achy occlusion that made speaking difficult. It felt like wading through syrup.

      ‘Like I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.’

      He grinned but didn’t deny it, she noticed. The wicked grin made him look years younger and even more wildly attractive.

      ‘She must have been very young, your mother, when she died. It was unexpected?’

      She nodded. Her mother had been a very young sixty-four.

      ‘She was in her forties when she had me. She’d been ill for a while.’ The onset of the illness that had struck her mother down had been insidious, although not immediately life-threatening. But she had been living with the effects of the degenerative disease that would eventually kill her. ‘I was angry.’

      ‘Yes.’ He knew about anger.

      During his stays on the oncology ward Roman had seen that reaction to death, seen enough people suffering the effects of shock and grief that it seemed to him that it was sometimes worse for the healthy ones who had to stand by helpless as their loved ones suffered and sometimes lost their battles for life.

      The point was he should have seen the signs. He could recognise now with the wisdom of hindsight that she had been displaying all of them that night in the bar.

      Roman closed his eyes and groaned.

      Izzy looked at him uncertainly and he looked very pale when he looked at her again. A moment later he swore in his native tongue.

      ‘You were in shock.’ And he’d been too busy wallowing in self-pity to notice. He suddenly froze, his dark eyes swivelling her way. ‘You just said you’d never done it before.’

      Izzy expelled a choky sigh. Hell, just when she thought she was safe.

      ‘Well, I don’t make a habit of picking up strange men in bars. One-night stands are not really my style.’

      He studied her down-bent head with a frown before moving his head slowly from side to side in a firm negative motion. ‘No, that wasn’t what you meant.’

      Shifting uneasily under his severe gaze, she walked across to the sofa and sat down. ‘I wish you wouldn’t tell me what I mean. I am quite capable of saying what I mean.’

      Roman refused to be distracted. ‘And capable of lying, it would seem.’

      ‘So you think one-night stands are my style …’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Thanks a lot.’

      ‘It was your first time.’ Even as he said it he rejected the statement; he had not actively avoided taking a virgin to bed, but then neither did he avoid meteorites. They both existed but the chances of encountering one were pretty remote.

      She was not laughing or at the very least looking amused by such a preposterous notion. Instead she refused to meet his gaze and gave a defensive shrug.