His Mistress with Two Secrets(15)

Please, God, don’t let him know how susceptible. Would it be too obvious if she excused herself to the ladies’ room and caught a cab away from here?

“What did you get for the happy couple?” she asked, trying to steer the conversation off Henri. “I saw they’d registered for one of those bullets to make smoothies, but someone beat me to it. I got them the yogurt maker instead.”

“He’s coming,” the woman said, barely moving her lips, then pasting on a big smile. “Mr. Sauveterre. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Bonjour.” He nodded and set his wide hand on Cinnia’s lower back as he leaned in to shake the offered hand. She stiffened, burned by the imprint of his touch through the satin of her dress. “Cinnia. Nice to see you again. Will you introduce me to your friends?”

She could hardly breathe with his palm sending waves of sensual excitement through her.

“Of course, um—” she squinted at him, making a show of guessing “—Henri?”

His gaze flashed and his thumb and finger dug into her waist in a suggestion of a pinch, promising retribution. “Oui.”

He was a master at the small talk game, asking people how they knew the betrothed couple, discovering occupations and commenting on places of travel without offering a single detail about himself.

She stood dumbly paralyzed by his hand resting against her spine, telling herself to walk away, but unable to. Her entire body was reacting with the tingling memory of his muscled body moving against hers. Within her. It was all she could do not to betray that she was growing aroused by standing next to him. If she walked away, she’d only draw attention to how gripped she was by her reaction.

“Oh, Cinnia, there’s someone you should meet. Let me introduce you.”

Henri smoothly snagged her hand and drew her away while Gerald stammered, “Nice chatting with you, Cinnia...” in their wake.

Enough. She had to get away. She tugged at her hand. “I’m leaving,” she told him.

“Excellent. Me, too.”

Oh, nice one. She had walked blindly into that.

“But I do have to say hello to this couple.” Apparently he knew them from New York. He drew her across the room.

She followed to avoid making a scene and they chatted for a few minutes. Cinnia quietly fumed, hating him and herself for still reacting. She was just about to make her escape by excusing herself to the powder room and crawling out a window when Henri tightened his grip on the hand she was subtly working free of his.

“I’m afraid we have to run. We should say good night to our hosts,” he added to Cinnia, exactly as if they were a couple who had arrived together.

“They” were not a couple. He had demonstrated that clearly enough at the nightclub. Growing hot with fresh outrage, she waited until they’d left the prospective bride and groom and their roomful of friends with a meaty chunk of gossip to chew over before saying, “Why are you doing this? You’re ruining my reputation.”

“Untrue. Nothing a Sauveterre touches turns to anything but gold. You can thank me later.”

“How?” she demanded with undisguised bitterness.

“Don’t be crass.” He steadied her with a hand under her elbow as he walked her down the stairs and out through the lobby of the hotel. A car glided to the curb before them. His guard reached around them to open the back door. “Where can I take you?”

“I think you know where I want you to go. I prefer you go alone.”

“So hostile. You can’t possibly be upset about how we left things since it was your choice to leave. Let’s have this conversation away from our audience.”

Flashes started going off and she realized paparazzi were swarming like mosquitos scenting fresh blood.

She slid into the car and he followed, reaching forward to close the privacy screen before the door had been slammed behind him.

His guard moved into the passenger seat and the car pulled away.

“I didn’t expect such a cold greeting.”

She made a choked noise. “I can imagine how you thought I’d greet you, given the way I behaved, but forget it. That was me getting over an old boyfriend. That’s all.”

That’s what she kept telling herself and she believed it about as well as anyone else believed she hadn’t slept with Henri Sauveterre.

“Vraiment?” His tone chilled by several thousand degrees.

“Oh, 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.