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Yet here he was. With Cinnia.

Leaning on his elbows, he rested his tight lips against his linked fingers, examining the assumption he had made before he’d even confirmed her pregnancy. Of course they would marry. For all his reluctance to become a family man, he was the product of one. He and Cinnia were compatible in many ways. It was a natural conclusion.

But she didn’t want to rekindle their physical relationship. If the reason was medical, she would have said, “I can’t,” but her words had been “I won’t.”

Because she wanted more than sex?

Do you love me?

He jerked to his feet as though he could escape his own ruminations by physically running from them. Now, more than ever, he couldn’t afford such distractions. Look at him, dwelling on things that couldn’t be changed when he should be putting wheels into motion for all that had changed.

He shook off his introspection, decided to tell his mother when Cinnia was with him, and video-called Ramon.

When he and his brother had been children, his mother had always spoken Spanish while their father had used his native French. They had wanted their boys to be fluent in both. Before he and Ramon went to school and learned otherwise, they had thought that if someone spoke to them in Spanish, they had to reply in French. It had amused Ramon to no end when the girls had come along and done the same thing. They were all still guilty of reverting to the habit in private conversations with each other.

“Cinnia is pregnant,” Henri announced in French.

Ramon visibly flinched. “Es lamentable. Who is the father?”

“Me. I am the father,” Henri said through his teeth, offended his brother would think otherwise. “The babies are mine.” He was still assimilating that outlandish fact. Saying it aloud made it real and all the more heart-stopping.

“‘Babies?’ Twins?” Ramon choked out with disbelief. He swore. Let out a laugh, then swore and laughed again. “Es verdad?”

“So real.” Henri wiped his hand down his face, trying to keep it from melting off. “You and I need to talk. She has four months to go, but they’ll probably come early. I’ll have to curtail most of my travel this year. We’ll station in Paris, but you and I must discuss how we’ll restructure. The press will be a nightmare.” His knee-jerk response when thinking about their name in the press was to worry about how it affected Trella, which reminded him… “Trella knew. Did she say anything to you?”

“Knew that Cinnia was pregnant? No dijo nada.”

“She’s still in Paris?”

“España. But go easy.” Ramon held up his hand in caution. “She’s doing so well. Don’t give her a setback.”

Henri took that with a grain of salt. His sisters often accused him of smothering, but he still tried to head off potential problems before they triggered one of Trella’s attacks. Given how agonizing the episodes were for her, he would never forgive himself if he caused one.

He didn’t bother defending himself to his brother, though. The warning was pure hypocrisy, coming from Ramon. Ramon and Trella had the most volatile relationship among the four of them. Where Angelique was so sensitive she had always cried if her sister said one cross word in her direction, and Henri was so pragmatic and coolheaded he refused to engage when Trella was in a snit, Ramon had always been more than eager to give her a fight if she wanted one.

But Ramon and only Ramon was allowed to get into a yelling match with their baby sister. Somehow it never caused an attack and sometimes, they all suspected, it had been the only way for Trella to release her pent-up frustrations in a way that didn’t leave her fetal and shattered.

Nevertheless, Ramon would not stand between Henri and Trella on this.

“There is no good explanation for leaving me in ignorance.” If something had happened before he’d been able to set precautions in place… He refused to even consider it. “It was cavalier and reckless.”

“I’ll speak to her about it,” Ramon said.

Henri made a mental note to be in another country when that happened, saying only, “Meet me in Paris. I’m taking Cinnia there as soon as she packs.”

He ended the call and tried Trella. After a few rings, she came on the screen shoulder-to-shoulder with Angelique, both of them wearing a look of apprehension.

“I forgot you were home, too, Gili,” he said as he recognized the lounge at Sus Brazos. “Is Mama there?”

“Siesta,” they said in unison.

He nodded. Seeing them side-by-side like that, he was struck by Trella’s very slight weight gain. It allowed him to get a firmer grasp on the temper he was already holding on a tight leash. After the kidnapping, she’d gone through a heavy period. Comfort eating, her therapist had called it. Insulating. The press had labeled her The Fat One and that had been only the tip of the iceberg with the ugly things printed and said about her.

By the time their father had died, her eating habits had gone the other way and she’d been starving herself. They’d worried about how underweight she was and then the panic attacks had arrived, carrying on for years. After a lengthy bout of trying different medications, which had amounted to drug dependency more than once, she had removed herself from the public eye. Eventually her moods had stabilized, then her weight and overall health had, too.

Things had been going so well that, when Sadiq had announced he was marrying last year, Trella had insisted on coming out of isolation to attend his wedding a few weeks ago. The event had forced her back into the public eye and he and his siblings had been walking on eggshells since, holding their breaths in fear she’d backslide.

Henri wanted her to live as normal a life as their family was capable of, but that fullness in her cheeks and the trepidation in her eyes made him worry that she was not coping as well as they all hoped. He was angry, but forced himself to tread gently.

“I’m at Cinnia’s mother’s,” he began.

“I know. Cin texted me.”

That was a surprise. He hadn’t seen Cinnia fetch her phone. “Am I to understand you knew about this, too, Gili?”

“Not about Cinnia, no. Trella just explained that bit after she got the text that you were there. Congratulations.” Her smile grew to such bright warmth and sincere joy he wanted to groan. Leave it to Gili to undermine his bad mood with her soft heart and warm enthusiasm. “Twins?” She patted her hands together in a little clap of excitement. “We each get one! Merci, Henri!”

He and Ramon had thought the same thing when their mother had produced a pair of girls when they were six, one for each of them. He might have rolled his eyes, but something in what she’d said niggled.

“What do you mean, you didn’t know about Cinnia? What did you know that I don’t?”

Angelique looked at their sister.

“Um.” Trella’s mouth twisted as she bit the corner of her lip. She held Gili’s gaze with a pleading one of her own.

Gili put her arm around her, bolstering her. “Ça va, Bella. Just tell him.”

“Cinnia didn’t tell you where we bumped into each other?” Trella asked, catching his gaze in the screen, then flicking hers away.

“Here in London, I presume. You’ve been coming to see a client the last few weeks, haven’t you?”

“Sort of. Cinnia is a client, right? She couldn’t buy maternity wear from anyone else without risking a tip-off to the press.”

“Bella,” he said in his most carefully modulated tone. “I’m trying very hard not to be angry with you, but I have every right to be. Don’t make it worse. Whatever you need to tell me, spit it out.”

Her eyelashes lifted and she finally looked at him, speaking swiftly and sharply. “We saw each other at the clinic. The prenatal one. I’m pregnant.”

He sat back, absorbing that along with the three dependents he’d just picked up—six, actually, because Cinnia’s family would be under his protection, as well. Now, his vulnerable, fragile baby sister was…

He closed his eyes, unable to take it in.

“How…?”

“I was blessed by God, obviously. Same as Cinnia,” Trella said with a bite in her tone. Then she picked at a nail and mumbled, “It wasn’t anything bad. I had a chance to be with someone—”

“The prince. The one you were photographed with a few months ago?” His sisters were even more difficult to tell apart than he and Ramon, especially in photos, but he’d known at the first glance that Trella had been the one caught kissing the Prince of Elazar. Since he’d helped her impersonate Gili himself as part of her process of moving in public again, he hadn’t been too hard on her for going rogue.

Now, however…

“You didn’t even know him.”

“I won’t confirm or deny until I’ve figured out what I’m going to do,” Trella mumbled.

“Speaking as a man who just missed several weeks of impending fatherhood, don’t do that, Trella. It’s bad form.”

“I’m the one who told her to hire guards and I offered to pay if she couldn’t. And speaking as a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy, this isn’t about you. I will handle this, Henri. But I have enough on my plate worrying about myself and my baby without bringing the father into the mix. So does Cinnia, by the way, except she has two babies to worry about. Plus, you were the idiot who didn’t ask her to stay when you had the chance. That’s why you missed those weeks, so don’t throw that on me. Ugh. I have to go to the bathroom.” She pushed to her feet.

As Trella stormed off, Gili gave him a sympathetic look. “Pregnant women are moody.” She skipped her gaze in the direction Trella had gone. “Don’t tell her I said that. But, you know, keep it in mind with Cinnia.”

“How is she, really?” he asked.

Gili’s brow pulled with worry, but there was a wistful, pained quality to it. “She’s trying so hard not to lean on anyone, especially me. Obviously it’s a lot to deal with, but I think that’s why she’s refusing to, you know, tell the father. She doesn’t want to feel like a burden again. Give her some time, okay?”

“Oh, I have quite enough to keep me busy here. But you’ll tell me if she needs me.”

“I will,” she promised.

“And how are you?” Had it really only been yesterday that she’d sent him that beaming photo of her with Kasim? She had captioned it “this time we’re serious.”

He expected a joyful response to his question, but she pulled a sad face.

“Kasim had to go back to Zhamair. I won’t see him again until the end of the month. But we want to have a little engagement party.” Now came the smile and she was incandescent. “That will take a few weeks to organize, given all our schedules, but I’d like to do it here. Now I’m wondering about Cinnia traveling?”

“We’ll have to check with her doctor.”

“Please do. If we have to go to London, we will, but I’d rather stay here.”

“Agreed.” They all relaxed at their childhood home in a way they never could anywhere else.

Besides, he anticipated making his home there with Cinnia, at least at first. His mother still lived there, but she would be thrilled to have them while they worked out exactly where they wanted to live and built their own heavily guarded accommodation. She had despaired for years at having no grandchildren and had been fond of Cinnia. She would express only delight when she heard they were reunited and expecting.

He ended his call with Gili and took the tray to the kitchen, checking in with Milly.

“Thanks, love,” Cinnia’s mother murmured. She was leafing through an old-fashioned telephone book, flipping through the C section, he noted as he set the tray on the island across from where she stood.

“If you’re looking up churches, don’t bother. She said she’ll live with me, but refuses to marry me.” He skipped the part where she’d refused to “take up” with him—it still stung.

“Mmm. Claims to be the sensible one.” Flip. “Perverse is what she is. My husband was the same. It’s his fault she’s like that, too. The mess he left when he died. Same reason, too. Figured he knew better and the government could go hang with their taxes and formalities and such.” Flip.

“She seems to be doing well for herself, helping people navigate those regulations and avoid that kind of debt.” He had to defend Cinnia. She worked hard. Surely her mother saw that.

“Oh, she does. I only mean she has that same streak of independence my husband had. And his stubborn… She calls it a failure to plan, but no, it was a kind of anarchy, his refusal to fall in with what was clearly the accepted approach. He was being a bit of an ass, trying to prove he knew better. She’s the same, completely determined to show her dead father the choices he should have made. And show me that a woman should never rely on a man,” she added pithily. “The exact same obstinacy channeled in a different direction. But you’re quite right. I’d have been in the poor house long ago if not for Cinnia knuckling down with her career and sorting things out for all of us.”

Flip.

Henri thought again about how hard life had been after his father had passed. Their situations were very different, but Cinnia’s devotion to her family, her desire to look out for them, was every bit as strong as his. She must have been overwhelmed.

“How old was Cinnia when you lost your husband?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen,” he repeated, wondering why he didn’t know that already. For all the times she’d admonished him as being reticent, she wasn’t terribly forthcoming about herself. “That must have been a lot on you at the time.”

“On Cinnia,” she amended with dismay. “Little Dorry was barely walking. I was a wreck. Well, you know. It’s devastating for the whole family when the cornerstone is gone, but I was completely unprepared. I didn’t know how to even pay a bill. Genuinely didn’t know how to write a check or how to call a plumber if the sink backed up. All I knew was that I needed to keep my girls in this house. It’s the only home they knew. That’s all you think, isn’t it?” She set her hand on the open book and looked at him, old grief heavy in her expression. “Hang on to what’s left so you can stay on your feet after such a terrible blow.”

Henri nodded. She was stating it exactly right. His mother had been shattered, his sisters distraught, he and Ramon overwhelmed.

“Cinnia doubled up with Dorry so we could let her old room along with the rest. It wasn’t worth asking the other two to share. You’ve met them. You know what I mean,” she said with an exasperated shake of her head. “The blood wouldn’t have come out of the carpets, but at least they express themselves. Not Cinnia. No, she and Dorry bottle everything up and use it like fuel to get where they’re going. Heaven help you if you try to give either a leg up. Dorry is allowed to answer the phone because Cinnia pays her to do it. Quid pro quo, but if I so much as pick it up so it stops ringing? Well!”

Henri folded his arms, thinking of the way Cinnia had refused to let him glance over her business plan until after she’d secured financing elsewhere. Then there had been her reluctance to tell him what she was looking for in a flat, let alone the location she preferred or the price range she could afford. As it turned out, living above her office space had been her plan all along, and a sensible one, but he’d been in the dark on the entire thing until she’d closed the deal. It wasn’t just that she hadn’t wanted his help, he was seeing, but she needed every last shred of credit to be hers. She was independent to a fault.

“That self-sufficiency isn’t just because of your husband’s situation, though, is it? Tell me about that boyfriend she lived with in London.”

“Avery? That is a perfect example of how obdurate she can be. She let that, well, it’s not fair to call him a ne’er-do-well, but you could tell at first glance he wouldn’t amount to much. I made the mistake of saying I thought she could do better and that was it.” Her hand went up in surrender. “She let that boy attach to her like a lamprey. I say ‘boy’ deliberately. Her first suitor wasn’t ready to act like a man, but you could see straight away he had some stones. You remind me of him, if you want the truth.”

Henri wasn’t sure how to take that, especially when Milly was taking his measure with such a shrewd eye. He didn’t like talking about Cinnia’s past, either. Not when it included men her mother knew so well.

Aside from Cinnia, his mother had rarely met any woman he’d slept with. Cinnia was the only woman he’d ever trusted enough. First he’d taken her to watch Ramon race a few times, then he’d included her in a dinner with Gili in Paris after she began staying with him there. They’d been seeing each other a full year before he’d taken her to Spain for his birthday, where she’d finally met Trella and his mother.

Those had been big steps for him and she hadn’t pressed him to meet and mingle with her family, either, disappearing for a dozen lunches and overnights to see them before she’d started inviting him to accompany her.

He’d been relieved, but now it irritated him that other men had come and gone from this kitchen. He’d had many lovers before Cinnia. Why did he care that she’d had two?

“James would have been a good match for her, but they met too young. He let her down,” Milly continued with a disheartened sigh. “She went to the opposite end of the spectrum with Avery. Saw him as safe, I suppose. Not so capable of breaking her heart.”

That was why he hated the thought of her previous lovers. No other women had impacted him the way Cinnia had, but those other men had been fixtures in her life. They’d shaped her. They affected how she reacted to him.

“Avery could barely spoon his own oatmeal. It was my fault she got in so deep with him, of course. ‘Mum thinks we should marry for money.’ I never said that.” She held up an admonishing finger, then waved it away. “But that doesn’t matter. She had to prove she’s a feminist who can support a man, like someone would pin her with a Victoria Cross for that. Oh, she wanted so desperately to make me eat my words about him. And how did that turn out? He was a complete waste of her time and stole a thick slice of her savings, didn’t he? Exactly as I called it.”

She lowered her nose to the book and gave another page a loud flip.

Everything she’d said had given him a fresh view of Cinnia. Not so much a new angle, as a deeper understanding of her edges and shadows. Was this why she was holding him off? He came on strong at the best of times and his children’s safety was a red line for him. She had to live with him.

He shouldn’t have lost his temper, though. That must have scared her.

At the same time, she must also know he wouldn’t let her down the way those other men had. He kept his promises.

You said when I was ready to start a family, you would let me go. Are you going to keep your word?

Of course.

The pit of his belly roiled.

“I have my opinions about you, too, Henri,” Milly told him without looking up. “Not all of you falls short so if my daughter decided to marry you, I would support her decision.” Her head came up and her mouth was tight, her brows arched. “Exactly as I will if she refuses.”

He was absorbing that statement as she dropped her attention to the book, adjusted her glasses and set a fingernail onto the page.

“There we are. Classifieds. If she’s leaving, I can let out the rooms again, can’t I?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

CINNIA DIDN’T HAVE much to pack. Her sisters had been through her wardrobe like locusts once she had grown too big to wear most of it. Trella had been incredibly generous, bringing her maternity clothes and refusing to let her pay. Cinnia had given things back as she grew out of them.

She and Trella had been meeting in secret every other week and without her, Cinnia would have fallen apart by now.

Burying herself in work had also helped her cope. She’d busied herself with bringing on her partner who was taking over the payments on her start-up loan. Then there’d been all the arrangements to set up an office here at the house. For hours, sometimes days at a time, she could forget she was sitting on a ticking time bomb.

But she had always known that Henri would have to be told.

And that he would insist on her coming back for safety reasons. She didn’t blame him for that, she didn’t, especially after he had pulled back the curtain on how he really felt about the press.

She was still shaken by the bitterness he had revealed. And defeated. Her firm intentions to make her own way had buckled not from his show of temper, but from his helpless anguish. She couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, make things harder for him. Not in good conscience.

But her life would change irrevocably now. It would have anyway, she supposed. Twins did that to a woman. But things with Henri would be profoundly different this time. She would no longer be his equal.

Not that she’d been his equal in the past, but she had been able to pretend they were traveling in parallel lanes, living their own lives and intersecting when it suited them for the same reason: sex.

Even before she had turned up pregnant, however, she had known she was following more than pacing. She was becoming more emotionally invested than he was, wrapping her life around his. She had hid it from herself as much as him, but the pregnancy had forced her to confront it. She’d had to ask herself, and him, how deeply he was involved.

“Do you love me?” she had asked him that morning in January, making sure to wait until they’d returned to London so she had an escape strategy that didn’t involve getting herself to the ferry.

In typical Henri fashion, he had dodged the question with a faintly bored “If you’re looking for a proposal—”

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to marry me,” she had interrupted sharply, hiding that his attitude stung like a scald. “I asked if you loved me.”

“And the reason you’re asking is because you want to change things between us.” He hadn’t even looked up from whatever he was reading on his tablet, like this was a tiresome conversation. “I told you I’d never marry you.”

She had sat there with her sip of orange juice eating a hole in her stomach.

Her pregnancy had already been weighing on her conscience for two weeks, earning her a few queries from him about why she was so withdrawn and distracted. He’d even set a hand on her forehead at one point, looking concerned when he asked if she was coming down sick again.

She had been heartsick, aware that he would not be happy about the pregnancy, while deep in her soul, she was so happy. There was no man whose baby she would want more.

But not like this. Not so he would feel manipulated and forced into marrying her. Not when she might be a little in love while he clearly didn’t have any deep feelings on his side.

So, yes, she had set him up to disappoint her. Maybe if she had said “I love you” first, he might have found some tender words of his own. Perhaps they could have progressed amicably toward an arrangement from there.

She hadn’t. She had locked her own heart down tight, preparing herself for rejection and yes, even engineering it so she could walk away wounded yet righteous.

“I’ve always wanted children,” she had reminded him, nearly trembling she was holding herself so tightly together as she gave the greatest shake of dice in her life. “You said when I was ready to start a family, you would let me go. Are you going to keep your word?”

“Of course.”

Two words. Bam, bam.

Why couldn’t he have at least said he was fond of her in that moment? Why hadn’t he said he would miss her? Or acted in some small way like he didn’t want her to go? He had spent all the time they’d been together making her think he felt something, even if it was just affection. He was terribly protective of her and often expressed admiration at how hard she worked and what she accomplished. Maybe he didn’t laugh outright at all her jokes, sometimes he even gave her a look that scolded her for crossing a line, but he invariably smirked. He appreciated her snark, whether it was witty or facetious.