Read Online The Petrelli Heir by Kim Lawrence - Free Book Online Page B

his skin, the gold tips to his long sooty lashes … smell the cologne that elicited a rush of memories.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Izzy muttered, her face flaming as she tried to unpeel her daughter’s fingers from the fabric. She was unable to stop her eyes sliding sideways to his taut aquiline profile and her quiet desperation grew.
    Roman could see the stress in the skin stretched tight across the fine bone structure of her face, but felt little sympathy. ‘That’s something, I suppose.’
    Izzy pretended not to hear the muttered comment as her breast brushed his arm. This was not the time or place for any sort of confrontation and she had enough on her plate coping with being this close to him. The scent of his lean, hard body continued to trigger all sorts of memories that she had imagined she had deleted. Heat travelled in a wave over the surface of her skin, causing the silk of her bodice to cling to her damp skin.
    ‘She looks like me.’
    Breathing far too hard, actually panting, Izzy gave a grunt of relief as Lily loosened her grip and she took a step backwards. ‘At least she missed out on the freckles,’ she said, directing her gaze at his crumpled tie.
    His hooded gaze moved upwards in a long assessing sweep from her feet and stilled on her face. He felt thekick of desire in his belly and for a moment the strength of the raw physical attraction swamped the anger and resentment he was containing. Barely.
    ‘She’s beautiful.’
    Normally when anyone commented on her baby’s remarkable beauty Izzy glowed with pride. On this occasion she stiffened. ‘I know.’
    In the periphery of her vision she was aware of a group of laughing guests entering the room, their chatter drowning out that of the pianist playing in the corner. She felt a stab of relief, as Roman surely wouldn’t continue this conversation in the middle of a crowd … would he?
    She didn’t have a clue.
    He might be the father of her child, but she didn’t know him at all and she had no idea what he was capable of, at least outside the bedroom. The mental addition caused a memory to surface and desire to pound through her blood, pooling hot and achy in her pelvis.
    ‘She looks like you.’
    ‘I have been called many things, but not beautiful.’
    If that was true then she was amazed, because he was the epitome of male beauty.
    ‘Is she a happy baby?’
    Izzy glimpsed a yearning in his face as he stared at Lily that made her look away quickly, feeling like an intruder.
    So far she hadn’t spent much time wondering how he was feeling. Anger and suspicion would both be natural responses for a man who realised he had fathered a baby, but was he resenting being landed with a responsibility that he hadn’t planned or asked for?
    ‘Look, I know we need to talk, but not here …
please
.’
    For a moment she thought he was going to refuse her request, then he nodded and she felt a rush of relief. ‘I’m not staying here. I’m in the Fox—do you know it?’
    Izzy nodded. The new manager who had been recruited by the boutique hotel had been asking her out on a weekly basis since she’d dined there weeks before. Izzy had not accepted his offer, though she hadn’t ruled out the possibility she would in the future. She liked him and, as Emma said, being a mum was not the same as being a nun.
    ‘I know it.’
    ‘I’m in the garden suite. Meet me there at …’ his eyes narrowed as he did some mental calculation ‘… eight tonight.’
    Her reaction to the order wrapped up as an invitation was immediate. ‘I’m not coming to your room.’ She intercepted his look and, lifting her chin, added, ‘I’d prefer somewhere more public.’
    ‘I’m not trying to get you into bed.’ When was a fling not a fling? He now knew the answer: when it was with the mother of your child.
    Izzy matched his sarcasm. ‘Imagine my disappointment.’
    ‘Bring the baby if that makes you feel any better,’ he suggested, sounding bored.
    ‘I can’t. She’ll be