placement for me with Roman’s Paris office last summer? Roman, this is my sister Izzy.’
Last summer she had been knee deep in nappies and night feeds and pretty much everything else had passed her by, but she did find it easy to place the handsome half-Italian Gianni among the plethora of Fitzgerald cousins. And there were a lot of cousins—her father was one of nine siblings.
‘Hello.’ A distracted smile curving her lips, she turned her head, following the direction of Rory’s introductory nod, and her eyes connected, her smile wobbled and vanished.
She had walked right past him. How did that happen?
He was not the sort of man that under normal circumstances would be overlooked—Izzy hadn’t the first time she had seen him.
Now he was here the breath left her lungs in a silent hiss of shock.
‘Hello.’
The voice awoke dormant memories and sent a flash of heat through her body. Incapable of speech, she nodded and thought, He really does have the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. And there was no discernible recognition in the pitch-dark eyes those lashes framed.
This wasn’t happening.
But it was! It was him—the man she had spent that night with.
Two years later and Izzy had rationalised the reckless impulse that had made her act so totally out of character. There was probably some psychological term for what she’d done when she’d been half out of her head with grief, exhaustion and shock, but Izzy had not continued to analyse it, she had simply drawn a line under it.
You could only beat yourself up so much and, as she had felt no desire since that night to rip off any man’s clothes and ravish him, there had been no lasting consequences to her actions—except one, which she could never regret.
How could she regret something that had given her not just her much-loved daughter but a new and wonderfully supportive family? There was a strong possibility that, if she hadn’t found herself alone, pregnant and very aware how fragile life was, the letter sent by the father she had never met might have stayed where she had initially thrown it—in the bin.
Tapping into reserves of self-control she didn’t even know she possessed, the silly smile still pasted on her face, Izzy broke free of the pitch-black mesmerising stare and turned away. Outwardly calm, at least to the casual observer, her body was gripped by a succession of deep internal tremors as she hugged her daughter.
Her shoulder blades ached with tension as she buried her face in Lily’s soft dusky curls. People often remarked on her vibrant colouring, marvelling at the peachy glow of her skin and her liquid dark eyes. The less tactful asked outright if she looked like her father.
Izzy never reacted to the question and her silence had given rise to a great deal of speculation. There were currently several theories in circulation about Lily’s father, which ranged from him being a dead war hero to him being a married politician. But whatever people thought, the generally held opinion was that Izzy was the innocent party, the girl who had been abandoned, because apparently she came across as a nice girl.
The irony was not lost on her and Izzy detested the undeserved victim status that had been thrust on her, but, short of publicly announcing that she was actually a shameless trollop, what choice did she have?
It was actually a relief when someone chose to take her to task about her single-parent status. Just the previous evening Michael’s great-aunt Maeve had exclaimed, ‘A child needs two parents, young lady.’
‘In a perfect world, yes, but the world isn’t perfect and neither am I.’
Izzy’s quietly dignified response had taken the wind out of the old lady’s sails, but she had made a quick recovery. ‘In my day a girl like you wouldn’t be wandering around as bold as brass like she has nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘She doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of, Aunt Maeve.’ It was her father who came to Izzy’s rescue, putting an arm around her and drawing her in close.
‘Don’t you go looking at me like that, Michael. One of the few good things about being old is being as rude as I like—would you deprive me of one of my last pleasures?’ She held out her empty glass and glanced at the whisky bottle on the dresser. ‘So, girl, who is the father?’
Izzy had not satisfied the old lady’s curiosity. She hadn’t told anyone the identity of the father—how could she?
Izzy’s blue eyes were shadowed with shamed anguish as she responded to Lily’s cry of protest and loosened her grip just as the organist pulled out all the stops. Izzy knew better than most what it was like to grow up without a father and it was something she had always vowed not to do to a child of hers should she ever have one.
With the rest of the congregation Izzy rose to her feet. Were his eyes trained on the exposed nape of her neck or was it her guilty conscience that made her skin prickle and tingle? Tingle the way his long fingers had once made her—she pushed the thought away and took a deep breath. With Lily on one hip, she stared blankly at the service sheet clutched in her free hand, knowing she was a whisper away from tipping over into outright gibbering panic.
She had to stay calm.
She had to think.
The father of her baby was sitting behind her. What was she meant to do now?
Take a leaf out of her mother’s book and write him a letter?
Casually drop into the conversation, Oh, by the way, this is your daughter? Now that would be a real ice breaker, but could it be listed under small talk?
She choked on a bubble of hysterical laughter, the sound drowned out by the hymn being sung.
Realistically Izzy knew, always had known, that should this unlikely event occur she had to accept the real possibility that he might not even remember that night two years ago. So maybe doing nothing was a possibility? Just wait and if he said nothing leave it …?
She reluctantly discarded the tempting idea. This was Lily’s father. What had Rory called him … Roman? At least she had a name now and knew that he was Italian, although she’d already had an idea about his nationality. During their night together he had whispered wonderful things to her in throes of passion; she might not have understood the things he had said, but she had recognised the language.
She remembered everything.
She tried to push away the hot, erotic images crowding in—she had to focus.
On what, Izzy—your impending public humiliation?
Her chin lifted. She would take what was coming, but not Lily. She would protect Lily.
Lily, who looked so like her father, which was good news for her because she’d grow up to be the female version of him—stunning—but bad news because surely everyone seeing them together would know.
And he’d seen Lily.
He had to know!
Was he sitting there in shock?
No point speculating; she just had to stay calm and play this by ear. A wedding was hardly
