“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
