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“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 (#ulink_7e9460ca-ef77-57c8-9580-b5c7dd9f4bac)
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.
Why else would she feel so much for him if he didn’t at least appear to care for her, too? She wasn’t a self-destructive idiot.
Was she?
Did he really feel nothing? From the moment he had walked in here, he hadn’t betrayed one iota of pleasure in seeing her again. Just anger and resentment.
You want to change things, he had accused her that day.
She hadn’t, she really hadn’t. Things had changed all by themselves. Cells had split.
Then she and Henri had.
Her eyes welled as she recognized that nothing had changed between then and now. Absence hadn’t made his heart grow fonder. He still felt nothing.
Despair accosted her afresh.
Don’t be stupid, she told herself as the pressure built behind her eyes and in her throat. She only cried late in the night, when she lay awake in the dark, missing him, curled around their babies, freezing to death because his side of the bed was empty.
During the day, she was pragmatic and confident.
Which had been easy when she’d been convinced she would hold her position and stay right here in this room.
How would she protect her heart if she was living with him again, seeing him every day?
The pressure behind her eyes built as she contemplated how hard this was going to be. Her breaths were already coming in shaky jags of panic.
She told herself to quit being so silly, but her hand pulled a tissue from the box, then kept grabbing a string of them as she felt her world crumbling around her. The agony of not having his love rose, too much for one or two measly tissues. It was a freight train bearing down on her, filling her throat with a wail of agony that she held her breath against releasing.
She didn’t want to love him. It was too big, too hard. It hurt too much.
She buried her face in the cloud of tissues, but this swell of emotion wouldn’t be stemmed. Her whole body became wracked by anguish. She had tried to keep everything together and was falling apart. Everything was splitting and rending. She gasped for a breath and it was a ragged sob.
“Cinnia.”
His voice, so gentle, so tender, was the last straw. How did he do that? How did he sound like he cared when he didn’t?
Her heart broke open and she started to buckle forward, knees giving way under a keening moan.
Strong arms caught her, gathering her, muscles flexing as he picked her up, breath rushing out with the effort. She gave his shoulder a knock with her closed fist, hating him for being virile and powerful when she was fat and weak and falling apart.
He laid her on the bed, coming down alongside her, gathering her into his chest and pressing his lips against her brow, murmuring in French.
She tried to stop crying and listen and wound up wailing, “I don’t understand you!” She didn’t mean because he was speaking French, but because he was being so nice.
“I’m telling you not to be afraid, chérie. I shouldn’t have scared you, saying those things about being a target. You’re safe. I promise I will keep you and the babies safe.”
He had it all wrong, but she was so shaken to be held by him, so relieved, she surrendered to emotion and let the pain of these weeks without him release.
He continued to stroke her hair and murmur reassurances. She knew he had probably done this with Trella. Henri had spent fifteen years trying to help his sister recover from something that never should have happened. It was no wonder he drew such a thick line around himself and his family, holding everyone else at a distance.
But even though he begrudged Cinnia for daring to get pregnant, here he was, making promises, letting her burrow into his warmth. It was sweet and right and she cried all the harder.
Bastard. How dare he keep this good, generous heart of his out of her reach?
“Shh. Calm yourself, chérie.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” she said, feeling pitiful as she admitted it.
He misunderstood her again. “It’s not all on you, Cinnia. You can trust me.” He rubbed her back and smoothed his lips against her brow. “I’m here now.”
“But you don’t want to be.” That was the crux of the matter.
He held his mouth against her forehead for a long moment, then sighed a warm breath against her hairline.
“You’re fair to berate me for that.”
She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. Despair rose afresh and she started to roll away.
He tightened his arms, keeping her against his warmth.
“It was painful enough that the kidnapping happened,” he said in a low voice that sounded like it barely scraped through a dry throat. “It was frightening enough to live with the knowledge that we’re not impervious. But then I became the one responsible for standing watch. Of course I will always look after my mother and sisters, but I never wanted to take on a wife and child. A child, Cinnia. If you knew what my parents looked like when Trella was missing.”
She swallowed, shocked out of her desolation. He never talked about the kidnapping.
“I was in agony. My mother… It was inhuman what they did to her by taking her daughter. And what they did to Trella? I have never wanted to bring the potential for more suffering into my life by having children. That sounds cowardly, I know, but I couldn’t volunteer for it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, wilting in helplessness, voice nothing but a rasp as she realized he would never forgive her.
“Non,” he insisted. “You are not sorry. Neither am I. I’m not.” He cupped her face, tilting it up so she could see he was sincere. “I am concerned. I will worry about our children for the rest of my life. But I’m not sorry to be their father.”
She could hardly see him through her swollen eyes as they filled with tears of tentative hope.
He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Our children are not something either of us will regret.” He tucked his chin to send his gaze down to her belly and very carefully set his hand on the firm, round bump. “These babies are wanted. By both of their parents. Oui?”
Being held by him had already warmed her through, but that touch, the reverence in his gentle, splayed hand, sent joyous light through her, so sharp and sweet she had to close her eyes to withstand it. She ducked her head against his collarbone, feeling all the sharp edges of her broken heart shifting, trying to find a way to fit back together.
