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She wasn’t used to being so attracted to the men she exploited, he surmised. Poor thing. This must be very disconcerting for her. With that reserved personality, he bet she usually did quite well at stringing a man along. Was she afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold out with him until she had squeezed all she could from him?
“I’m thinking you’re here to watch the fireworks. What did you think I was thinking?”
She spun back to the view, setting her chin.
He smiled. “Listen.” He very lightly stroked the back of his bent finger down her bare arm, entranced when goose pimples chased the same path.
She shot him a look that was startled and uncertain, quickly rubbing the bumps away.
“I don’t have to work this hard to get a woman to sleep with me. This is how I live.” He waved his champagne glass at the opulence around them. “Enjoy it without feeling obligated.”
“You won’t expect anything after?” she scoffed.
“By anything, do you mean that?” He thumbed to where Vera was on tiptoe inside the suite, painting herself against Ramon, lips firmly locked over his.
Cinnia made a pained noise and looked out across the river again. As strategies went, her friend was overplaying her hand.
“I shall remain hopeful,” Henri drawled.
“Yes, you will remain that way,” Cinnia assured him.
He hid a silent laugh behind the glass he lifted to his lips, deciding he wanted her quite badly and was willing to pay whatever it cost. He respected people who knew what they were worth.
But he only said, “Don’t make promises unless you can keep them, chérie.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u9b687bcc-5bdc-564c-8729-b4bf26847bd3)
VERA, THE TRAITOR, left with Ramon before the fireworks started.
“That’s what you two were talking about in Spanish?” Cinnia hissed as she had three seconds alone on the balcony to react.
“I told you a language degree opened doors,” Vera joked, then rolled her eyes at the face Cinnia was making. “Come on. Look at them! Surely you’re tempted? It’s long past time you worked Avery out of your system, you know.”
She knew. And, of course, she was tempted. She wasn’t in Vera’s league when it came to sexual gymnastics, but she’d had a couple of long-term relationships that had been nice until they’d gone bad. The first had been an immature thing that should have ended before they went off to separate universities, but she’d clung to what they’d had and he’d wound up cheating. Her heart had been battered at the time, but looking back she knew they’d been far too young for the level of commitment she had expected.
Avery, however, had broken her heart in two, professing love for her while they’d both been struggling through a heavy course load and then trying to make ends meet when they moved to London together. Then he had come into some money and cut her off cold, stating bluntly that her family was too much of a handful and he didn’t need the dead weight. Thankfully Vera had been there for her when he’d kicked her out.
Since then, Cinnia had stayed out of the relationship arena, thinking it wiser to concentrate on getting her career off the ground.
Not that Henri would offer a relationship. She knew that without asking. But she couldn’t deny she was intrigued by him. Every time he glanced at her with male appreciation oozing out of his pores, her hormones swayed in an erotic dance of come-hither. Like the extravagance of the night itself, she kept trying to rationalize indulging in whatever he was offering.
She didn’t do one-time hookups, though. And even if she did sleep with him purely for the fun of it, he would believe she’d done it in exchange for being wined and dined here in this heavenly suite. She hated the idea of him thinking she could be bought. It went right to the core of the insecurities Avery had instilled in her.
“It’s quite a signature for the autograph book,” Vera murmured with a self-satisfied grin. “You know your mother would approve. There’s a first-class trip to Australia in that bag, you know. And a smartwatch and a year’s lease on a sports car. Get what you can out of it!”
Henri came back from taking a call, probably overhearing Vera’s vulgar suggestion—like he needed any more ammunition to believe they were a pair of opportunists.
Seconds later, Ramon came out and said, “The car is waiting. Lovely to meet you, Cinnia.”
He and Vera disappeared like a snuffed flame leaving a wisp of burned friendship hanging in the air.
Henri sat down across from Cinnia at the high-top table, mouth relaxed, but she had the sense he was laughing at her ill-disguised panic. He signaled to the butler to freshen their drinks.
“Where do you think he’s taking her?” she asked as the butler left.
“The nearest hotel with a vacant room, I imagine.”
She shouldn’t have asked.
“Why does it bother you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“You’re judging,” he accused. “Why?”
She wanted to deny it. She considered herself open-minded and forward thinking. She didn’t slut-shame. Women had needs and Vera was no one’s victim.
“Vera can do whatever she wants. I don’t like the idea that you’re judging me by her choices, though.” She hated it. Avery’s awful accusations came back to her and she felt raw all over again. Worse even, as she thought of this man who lived like this thinking she wanted a shortcut to the same lifestyle. “I don’t sleep with men for a swag bag. I have a job. I buy what I need and if I can’t afford something, I live without it.”
“What do you do?” He looked like he was asking out of politeness, not like he really believed her speech on self-sufficiency.
She almost blurted “funeral arrangements” just to put him off.
“I have a business degree and I’m a qualified financial advisor, but my focus is estate planning and trust management.”
His stall of surprise was painful in how loudly it spoke of his having underestimated her.
“I’m a very boring person,” she said, wishing she could be more smug at defying his assumptions about her, but she only felt the difference in their stations more keenly. He had obviously written her off as trifling. And yes, she was trying to climb higher than where she’d wound up, but through honest hard work. Still, she would never reach his level and that put him well beyond her reach.
Not that she wanted him.
Did she?
With an uncomfortable sting in her blood, she picked up her champagne then remembered she had decided to stop drinking now that Vera was gone. She took a sip of water instead.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he admitted.
“You thought I was a secretary? Airline hostess? Model? Even if I was, those are all honest careers in their own right.”
“They are. And you could model. You’re very beautiful.”
“So could you. You have a face so nice, God made it twice.”
He snorted. “Point to you,” he conceded with a grimace. “I absolutely hate to be reduced to ‘one of the Sauveterre twins.’ We are all more than we appear on the surface, aren’t we?”
Oh, the bastard, now she couldn’t hate him unequivocally.
“Is it bad?” she asked, feeling compelled to do so. “I mean, I see things online all the time that I know have to be pure rubbish. The same nonsense that shows up about all celebrities, saying you’re having an alien’s baby or whatever. Does it bother you, though? Do you resent being famous because of an accident of birth?”
He took a moment to answer.
“I don’t resent being who I am. I don’t talk about my family—” his gaze shot to hers in warning to stay well back “—but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. The attention is a pain in the ass and not something we invite. It annoys me, but I’ve learned to pick my battles.” He said it flatly, but the nail beds of his fingers were white where he gripped his glass.
“Well, I—” She stopped herself, holding out a hand. “Message received about your family,” she assured him. “You’ve earned the right to privacy. But I hope she’s well. Your sister, I mean.”
She was tempted to say more, weirdly yearning to explain that his family’s pain had rippled out to her in the strangest way. She’d been as taken as anyone with the Sauveterre twins. The girls were a little younger than her, but they had seemed like an ideal worth emulating, living much larger than Cinnia even though her family had been doing quite well in those days.
Then Trella had been kidnapped and she’d been terrified for the girl. Of course, she had been compelled to follow the rest of the family’s exploits forevermore. She was as curious as anyone about why his youngest sister had dropped out of the public eye in her teens. Had she gone into rehab? A madhouse? A nunnery? Theories abounded, but Cinnia kept her lips sealed against asking for the truth.
Against asking him if he was still dealing with the fallout.
The butler brought another plate of hors d’oeuvres, this one with tiny deviled quail eggs, caviar and stuffed olives and a whipped salmon mousse with narrow fingers of toasted bread. It was exquisite and she kept her gaze on it to hide how thinking of his past had altered her perception of him. She wanted to dismiss him as a womanizer who should be avoided, but he was human. He’d been hurt. Scarred.
“Why estate planning?”
She dragged her gaze off the plate, heart taking a skip as she met his gaze.
“Many reasons. I started looking into it after my father died. There was a lot to untangle and as I learned what he could have done, I kept wondering why he hadn’t set it up this way or that. My mother would have had it easier if he’d shown some foresight. Looking at it as a career, I saw it was flexible, something you could do without a lot of overhead. You can even work from home if you have to. Everyone needs a will, whether they know it or not. And it’s one of those things that if you’re good and fast, you can make a decent living. I didn’t see a downside beyond its lack of sex appeal.”
“Which you more than make up for in being yourself.”
He said it with gentle mockery. She knew he meant it as over-the-top flattery, but her cheeks still warmed. She tried to hide how affected she was with a dry “I try.”
The fireworks started and they turned to watch.
She was more aware of him than the performance. He was very charismatic with his air of aloof charm and hint of a French accent. He was also subtly demonstrative, lightly caressing her wrist as he drew her attention to the flotilla of boats coming in to watch.
Everything he did made her very aware of herself. Her breaths felt deliberate, her skin sensitized, her movements a dance of grace. She was being seduced and he wasn’t even making an effort to do it. Her mind drifted to thoughts of kissing him. Feeling his weight against her.
Her skin warmed, her nipples tingled and she pressed her knees together to ease the ache in the fork of her thighs.
She was sorry when the fireworks ended and her excuse for being here was over.
“Oh, no,” she said quickly, declining the butler’s offer to bring strawberries and cream with a fresh bottle of champagne as he removed their plate of finger foods.
“Do not worry about your figure,” Henri said, nodding to the butler.
“I’m worried about my survival. I’m allergic. I have a pen for emergencies and everything.” She nodded at her clutch.
“It’s that bad?” He held up a hand to halt the butler.
“I nearly died at a sleepover once, because my friend didn’t want to fess up that she’d stolen a bottle of her dad’s best wine for homemade sangria.” She rolled her eyes, making light of what a frightening near miss she’d had.
He refused the strawberries and told the butler he would press the call button when they were ready for more champagne.
“Have them if you want them,” Cinnia protested. “It’s not so bad I can’t watch someone else eat them.”
He tucked his chin, leaning forward as the butler closed the door behind himself. “But I can’t kiss you if I’ve eaten them. Can I?”
His words made her ears ring. She stole a long, subtle inhale, holding his gaze while she tried not to let him see how easily he sent her blood pressure into the stratosphere.
“Remaining hopeful?” Her gaze dropped to his mouth.
“Very much so.”
She forced herself to slide off her tall chair, excusing herself to the attached powder room. Time to go, she told her reflection. The woman in the mirror was entirely too heavy lidded, her defenses against Henri thinning by the second.
When she returned, Henri was inside the suite. The lighting fell in subdued angles off the wall sconces and from the patio lanterns below the balcony, setting an intimate tone while the music inside the club pulsed in muted rhythm through the walls.
Henri had raided his swag bag for a box of chocolate truffles with a Belgian label and was opening one wrapped in gold foil. A ball of discarded foil was already on the table next to the box.
“I have a sweet tooth,” he admitted ruefully, offering the truffle.
“No, thanks. I’ll, um, go. This was nice. Thank you.” She stuck out her hand, feeling like an idiot the moment she did it.
He set aside the chocolate and brought out his phone. “I’ll order the car and take you.”
“I can manage.”
He gave her a pithy look. “I meant it about not feeling obligated. I can drive you home without attacking you. I’ve made my appearance here. I don’t plan to stay.”
It wasn’t him she was worried about. She was half-tempted to ask him to find the nearest vacant hotel room. Vera’s voice was playing in her head, extolling the virtues of being a modern woman who owned her sexuality. You eat if you’re hungry, don’t you?
Cinnia was sexually hungry. She put it down to the excitement of dressing up for an extravagant evening, the soft breeze caressing her skin and champagne relaxing her. Henri was very attractive and she would bet any money he easily satisfied the most exotic of appetites.
“I think it’s best if we end it here.” She felt like a coward and couldn’t help looking at his mouth again. She wanted him to kiss her. She really did. Her blood thickened in her arteries, throbbing with anticipation.
He quirked his lips. “If you tell me you have an allergy to chocolate, I’m going to be disappointed.”
“I’ll survive,” she murmured, recognizing that she was consenting to a kiss. “My affairs are in order if I don’t. And what a story to tell my grandchildren if I do.” She said it to be cheeky, to keep this light and disguise that she was intrigued by him.
His breath rushed out in an incredulous ha, but he wasn’t deterred. He crowded close, hands opening on her waist and drawing her forward into him.
“I’d best make it memorable then.”
She wore low kitten heels and he was very tall, well over six feet and overwhelming as he bent his head to brush his mouth against hers.
She clutched his shoulders for balance, shivering lightly, head instantly swimming. Was that it? She swallowed and wet her lips then parted them, inviting a more thorough goodbye than that.
He started to smile and she knew his move had been a deliberate tease to make her want more. He moved in like a damned marauder then covered her mouth fully, angling to plunder. Claiming.
She curled her fingers against his shoulders, feeling them tense as he drew her closer. She moaned as she kissed him back, quickly over her head and suddenly drowning. He buffeted her senses, filling her brain with the faint scent of aftershave and masculinity, enfolding her as she melted under a flood of arousal. His tongue came into her mouth and she tasted dark chocolate and darker intention.
He wanted her. She could feel how hard he was against her stomach. Her own body grew hot and achy in seconds. Longing struck her loins and she looped her arms fully around his neck to mash her breasts against his chest.
Too much, she thought as she did it, knowing it was a signal of receptiveness, but it was pure instinct. Wanton need.
She drew back, gasped once for air, then found herself kissing him again. Just once more. Okay twice. The third time she might have found her willpower, but the solidness of a wall arrived at her back. He ran his lips down her throat and slid his hand to cradle her breast.
