as he gave her a perplexed look. “Vraiment, why does it bother you that we spent a night making love?”
He had stripped her bare, not just physically, but down to her soul. She was never going to be the same. He would always be the man who had done those things and made her feel that way and he would always know it. She would always know it and compare future lovers and feel wistful. Cheated, even.
“I told you,” she muttered, moving to sit across from him, absolutely starving from her expenditure of calories, but feeling defenseless and needy. Tired, she assured herself. She was just tired. And filled with impossible yearning. “I don’t do this.”
“If you think last night was common for me, you’re overestimating my libido.”
“Oh, I have a healthy respect for that animal, believe me.” Coffee. She poured a cup for each of them with shaking hands and quickly doctored hers, sighing with her first sip even though it burned her tongue.
When she glanced at him, he was watching her with an enigmatic look.
“You’re also underestimating your effect on me. We have a unique connection.” He seemed to choose his words very carefully. “We could leave things here and go on with our lives. I would probably call you the next time I was in London. I will optimistically believe you would be available and want to see me.”
That was what was killing her right now. She had been able to put him mostly out of her mind after the first time because she’d been angry and genuinely hadn’t thought she would see him again. For him to show up and pursue her so blatantly, however, set her up for believing he would do it again in the future.
She would counsel any girlfriend or sister to never wait on a man or give him so much power over her personal happiness, but here she sat, looking into her coffee because she didn’t want Henri to see that he already held her on the end of a leash and all he had to do was tug for her to come to heel.
That’s where her shame was coming from. Her eyes stung and she made herself blink to stem the tears of humility at being his sexual pet.
“What do I assume by your lack of response, Cinnia? That you would be agreeable to that arrangement?”
“I’m not going to hold a reservation for you,” she lied, setting her cup into its saucer with a hard clink and a little slosh of coffee over the rim.
“Exactly what I thought you’d say.” He braced his elbows on the table, hands loosely linked above his plate. “Much of your appeal for me is that you expect so little of me. You’re very independent. But I do not care to take my chances with your accessibility. I would like to propose a different arrangement.”
When she glanced up, his gaze was waiting to snare hers. The hazel-green tone was very, very green. Avid in a possessive, masculine way. Mine.
Her stomach swooped and she scented danger, yet it was the lofty danger of swinging out on a rope over a cliff on a bottomless lake. Life threatening, but exhilarating.
“A retainer?” she mocked.
“Of a sort. I’ve never had a mistress, but I begin to see the benefits.”
She was knocked speechless. For a few painful heartbeats, she could only stare, then pointed out, “So. Not a proposal. A proposition.”
Her pulse raced in panic and she looked across the room at the pretty clothes he was already trying to purchase for her.
Get what you can.
“I believe there are websites where women advertise for sponsors. Perhaps start there,” she suggested thinly.
“I don’t want a mistress. I want you. Look.” He waved at the plates they hadn’t yet touched. “I can eat plain scrambled eggs and there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when I’m hungry, but if I have the option to eat one poached to perfection, delicately spiced and accompanied by a tempting banquet of other flavors, one that not only sates the appetite but is a joy with every bite, why the hell wouldn’t I want the quality ones?”
“And since you’re used to buying the best, I’m sure you think you can afford the eggs you see in front of you today. In this case, you can’t.”
“I’m very rich.”
“I’d rather go hungry than sell myself.”
He made a noise that was decidedly French. “Forget the metaphors and eat the damned eggs before they go cold.”
After they’d both taken a couple of bites, he said, “I’m never going to marry. Long-term dating, in the traditional sense, is a false promise I won’t make. Women come to me, come on to me, at a steady enough rate that I’ve never lacked for company.”
“I kind of prefer the not calling over this turn of conversation.” She flashed a humorless smile. “Just saying.”
“But if I expect a woman to make herself exclusive to me, I ought to provide something in return.”
“Your charm isn’t enough?” She blinked in fake shock.
“Have you heard of erotic spanking, Cinnia? Some women find it pleasurable and deliberately test a man’s patience with backchat, looking for a hot bottom.” He showed his teeth. “Just saying.”
Wicked, evil man. For one second, she thought about that. Started to blush, and told herself to smarten up.
“You want it straight, Henri?” she challenged, stomach twisting. “Not shaken nor stirred? Fine.”
She seemed to have no pride where he was concerned anyway. She dropped back in her chair and gave him a hate-filled glare for forcing her to bring up the pathetic mistakes of her past.
“I told you my father left his estate in a mess. We were in dire straits, actually. Really dire. Mum and my sisters have a hard time seeing it, especially Mum. She has this throwback notion that if one of us marries well, all our problems will be solved. You asked me last night what happened with my ex-boyfriend. That’s what happened.”
“He was rich and didn’t want to marry you?”
“Exactly. Except that we’d been poor together, struggling through school and scrambling for rent every month for a year when we moved here to the city. I was actually the one making more money for the first while. I thought we were in love and that we would get married. Then his folks sold a piece of property and said they were going to split the money between their children. It was a few hundred thousand each, enough to make a nice down payment on a good home. I honestly thought he was being cagey for the weeks following the sale because he was shopping for an engagement ring and planning how to propose.”
“Non?” He was holding on to a very neutral tone, betraying nothing of what he might be thinking.
“Hell, no! He was telling his parents to hold off doling out his portion so I couldn’t put a claim on it, then he siphoned off half of what was in our shared accounts and kicked me out of our flat the day we were supposed to renew the lease.”
She looked at her eggs and knew Avery had been dry, white toast at best while Henri was a mouthwatering croissant.
“I know my family
