His Mistress with Two Secrets(27)

An excruciating twist of betrayal wrung out the muscle behind his breastbone as he took in that she had disregarded his wishes.

“I see I’ve given you a lot to think about,” Killian said, rising.

“You have.” Henri stood, brain exploding. He was coated in a cold sweat beneath his tailored suit. It was all he could do to form civil words as his mind raced to Cinnia and a demand for answers. Somehow he managed to grasp the relevant threads of this conversation and tie them off. “Ensure the guard in question receives a suitable bonus.”

“Of course.”

“And submit a quote for extending your services to include my growing family.” There were times when he recklessly played tennis in the heat and wound up this light-headed, walking through gelatin. He could barely breathe.

“The proposal is being prepared along with a selection of suitable résumés. Are you headed to London? I have staff on standby if you need them. Let me know.”

“I’ll go straight to her flat, but didn’t you put someone on her the minute you learned she was pregnant?” He snapped the words, straining to hold on to his temper, not wanting the pregnancy to be real, but slamming walls of protection into place with reflexive force anyway.

This would be the longest flight of his life. His palms were clammy, he was so fixated on ensuring the safety of his child. If she was pregnant, he wouldn’t breathe easy until he had Cinnia locked behind the Sauveterre vault-like doors.

“I came here the minute I learned,” Killian said. “Less than two hours ago. Although I gather the guard has been aware for a few weeks. Preliminary surveillance reveals she’s paying one of my competitors to keep the paparazzi at a distance. They’re good enough they would notice if someone started watching her, so we’re maintaining a distance. She’s staying at her mother’s, by the way.”

Henri nodded and shook Killian’s hand.

“Merci,” he said distantly. “And one of my siblings knows about this?” He struggled to take in that incredulous piece of the news along with the rest.

“Yes.” Killian refused to say which one.

From there, Henri operated like a robot in a sci-fi thriller. Get to her. Order the car, text his pilot they were flying to London, climb on the plane, blow through any obstacle without regard.

Wring Ramon’s neck. It had to be Ramon. Was he still in touch with that friend of Cinnia’s? Cinnia had told him Vera had married last year.

Henri couldn’t imagine either of his sisters learning something of this magnitude and keeping it from him. They were far too softhearted to leave him in the dark, knowing how heavily the family’s security weighed on him.

But Ramon would have taken the necessary steps to guard her. He wouldn’t be satisfied with leaving Cinnia to make her own arrangements.

It was all a jumble and nothing would make sense until Henri saw her. Topmost in his mind would be... What the hell had she been thinking?

* * *

Cinnia was tired. Not just tired because she was building two more human bodies with her own, but because today was one thing after another. Nell had been quick to tell her it was because Mercury was in retrograde, when she’d used the phone from the pub where she worked to say that the Wi-Fi was on the blink at the flat.

Perhaps it was true, since Cinnia’s new partner running her London office was having phone and network issues. She was forwarding all the office calls and emails to Cinnia today. Cinnia had asked her tech guy to check both, but he was stuck in traffic. Again, thanks to a certain planet traveling backward, apparently.

Dorry, bless her, had something going on at school. She was doing most of her learning online these days, accelerating to finish early. She usually sat at the desk in the parlor across the hall, answering the handful of calls Cinnia typically received, allowing Cinnia to concentrate on the piles of work in front of her.

Not today. Nope. Today Dorry was out and their mother was “pitching in.” Which meant rather than screen calls and take a message, or look up a price and answer a simple question, she said things like, “Sorry to interrupt, love, but they want to set up a video chat. How do I do that again?”

When her mother knocked for the billionth time, and pushed in without waiting for an invitation, and the phone hadn’t even rung this time, Cinnia snapped, “Mum. I’m working.”

“Well, he wasn’t going away, was he?”

Cinnia glanced up and the sight of Henri struck her like an asteroid. Like an atomic bomb that had been packed with nuclear energy bottled up by the weeks of being apart from him. Instantly she shattered into a million pieces—and had to sit there trying not to show it. Her entire body stung with the force.