I’m sorry, do you find that insulting?” She flicked her head around to send him a haughty look. “At least he and I were completely over. I didn’t take his call while you and I were still—”
She wouldn’t say it. It was too humiliating. Her cheeks hurt with a painful blush.
Giving in to the urge to make love with him on such short acquaintance was a tolerable mistake. Yes, she’d been weak enough to succumb to a player’s best moves, but from a purely physical standpoint—pun intended—it had been great. She hadn’t had any regrets as he’d leaned against her, both of them damp and still breathing hard.
Then the ring of his mobile had galvanized him into withdrawing and straightening himself, as he grabbed the phone and said, “Bella.” He had gone outside, seeking privacy.
He might as well have smacked her. Of course he had other women in his life. Maybe their lovemaking had been profound and unique for her, but it was routine for him. She was no more than the stick of gum he chewed for fifteen minutes to freshen his breath!
Cinnia had tugged on her knickers and got the hell out of there.
“Are you serious?” he muttered now. “The call was from my sister.”
“Not any less offensive,” she declared, turning her disconcerted frown to the window, cautioning herself not to believe him. Fool me twice…
“D’accord. You’re right. It was rude,” he said begrudgingly. “But there are circumstances. I don’t ignore her calls.”
“That’s nice. Tell your driver I’m on the other side of London. He’s going the wrong way.”
“Cinnia,” Henri growled. “Have some compassion. There are reasons.”
The kidnapping? The isolation? She glanced at him, desperately wanting to throw his words back in his face, but he didn’t look manipulative or even like he was trying to cajole. He looked frustrated and, beneath it, troubled.
She recalled him saying he never spoke about his family and sighed. Perhaps she would have to take him at his word, but it was still insulting as hell.
“Fine,” she muttered.
“Do you mean that? Or is it a passive-aggressive fine?”
“Does it matter? I could ask you to tell me what those circumstances are, but you’re not going to, are you?”
“No.” His expression darkened.
She shrugged, hiding that his reticence struck her as lack of trust, which hurt far more deeply than it had a right to.
“So what do you care if I’m fine or not? Even if we’d ended things on a warmer note that night, you were never going to call me after. We both know that, so who cares how we end things now?”
“I care, obviously.”
“No, you don’t!” she cried on a scoffing laugh. “You walked into that party and saw the easiest girl in the room.” If she could take back her capitulation… Would she? Oh, it was lowering to admit it, but probably not. Regardless, she’d be a fool to repeat it.
“You’re looking for a do-over,” she accused. Her voice cracked and she forced out a tight no, thanks.
“Au contraire,” he said, his voice so sharp and hard it stabbed through the thick plate she was trying to hold over her chest. “At least three women in that room were far easier. Trust me. I’ve met them in the past. Not slept with them,” he quickly clarified. “But I’ve been invited to on very short acquaintance. I came tonight because you were on the guest list.”
Her emotions were taking a bumpy ride despite the smoothness of the car’s suspension. He’d come to see her? She didn’t want to believe that. It would make her soften toward him and she was already struggling to keep him at arm’s length.
“I wish you hadn’t. My supervisor already suggested it would be a good career move if I sent you a letter of introduction for the firm.” She turned her face to the window again. “Now he’ll be even more of a pain about it. Thanks.”
“You want me to come into his office and let him give me his spiel? Fine.”
“No, Henri, I don’t!” She swung her head around, barely able to keep a civil tone. “What message does that send? Next he’ll tell me who to sleep with in order to land a client. Men! Are you really that obtuse? Your notoriety is not ‘gold’ for me. It’s a scarlet letter. Don’t do me any favors.”
He sat back, a ring of white appearing around his tight mouth.
“I can’t help who I am, Cinnia. I can’t help that people want to use me, or use anyone who comes close to me to get to me. If I could change it, I would, but I can’t!” His voice rang through the small space like a thunderclap, rife with incensed frustration.
His outburst was so shocking, she sat in silence a moment, absorbing what he’d revealed—reluctantly, judging by the way he shut down immediately after.
Empathy rolled into the spaces he’d blown open in her. She couldn’t help feeling bad for him then, especially as a motor scooter buzzed up alongside the car and the passenger on the back aimed a camera at the darkened window. It flashed, perhaps catching her frown of dismay.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, making a visible effort to maintain his strained control.
“Trella—Trella Bella as we call her, or Bella—has a particular struggle. Partly it’s due to the attention we draw. I make myself available to her when she needs it. We all do. If she had called Ramon, your friend Vera would be the one feeling slighted. Trella’s situation is a fact of my life. That’s all I’m saying on the topic and you can believe it or not or post it to your damned news feed if that will make you feel better.”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” she said crossly. “Why would I deliberately hurt someone I don’t even know?”
Now she would dwell forever on the struggles of that poor girl who had surely been through enough just from being kidnapped. No public statements had ever been made about what had really happened to her during the five days she was missing. Terrible things had been theorized, though. Cinnia dearly hoped none of them were true, but judging by Henri’s grim expression, his sister had a lot to deal with.
She had such an urge to reach out to him in that moment, she had to clench her fingers together in her lap.
“Has the attention been bad?” he asked. “Are you being harassed by cameras outside your home? It’s so rare I meet anyone who feels like I do, I didn’t imagine it would be a burden for you.”
She shrugged. “Mostly just friends and family are asking about it. I didn’t say much and that’s not out of character because I keep a low profile as a rule.”
He glanced inquiringly, so she explained further.
“My kind of work is like banking or the law. Clients expect confidentiality and no one wants to give their portfolio to a woman who’s posting party photos or running with a sketchy crowd, so I live quietly and don’t put much online. But as you say, people put a lot of stock in the Sauveterre name.
