His Mistress with Two Secrets(28)
He was painfully gorgeous. Cutting-edge dark blue suit, a narrow line of ruthless red in his striped tie, clean shaven, tall and trim and larger than life, as always. His intense personality honed in on her with that piercing quality that made her insides twist with joyful reunion .
It was quickly choked off with a quake of abject fear.
She wasn’t ready for this.
Because the flutters in her belly were not just the butterflies of excitement he always inspired. They were the movement of his offspring.
She said a word that was very unladylike.
“Lovely to see you, too.” His mouth curled in something that was the furthest thing from a smile.
“You called him?” she accused her mother, because that’s what one did in times of deep stress: attack the people who loved you unconditionally.
She couldn’t believe it, though. She’d been so careful to hide her pregnancy, practically living like a shut-in since she had begun to show. In the most uncompromising of terms, she had bribed and cajoled and threatened her family into silence. How had he found out?
“I did not.” Her mother chucked up her chin in offense, silver coif trembling. “But it’s long past time you did, isn’t it? Shall I hold your calls?”
“Oh, thanks, Mum. That would be great.” Cinnia rolled her eyes as her mother closed the door, locking Henri into the library with her.
“Trella told you?” She lowered the angle of her laptop screen to see him better over it, but quavered behind it.
“Trella?” His sister’s name came out with the weight of grim consideration. “I was wondering which one of them it was. How the hell does my sister—” He held up a hand. “We will come back to that.”
“You haven’t talked to her?” Oh, damn. Sorry, Trell.
Cinnia glanced at her phone, wanting to warn her friend that big brother was on the warpath, but she had to survive his wrath first.
She took in the way he looked like a caged lion, tail flicking and muscles bunched, ready to pounce. They had argued in the past, but he’d never been this angry. He’d never looked at her like this—as though whatever he’d felt for her was completely gone.
Their breakup had been agony for her, but it was nothing compared to the raw squirming torment that accosted her under that accusatory glare of his.
“How, um...” Wait. If Trella hadn’t told him, did he even know she was pregnant?
She scooched her chair a little tighter to the desk and tugged her lapels over her noticeably more ample breasts, adjusting the angle of her laptop one more inch, hoping to hide what was pressing up against the edge of her desk.
“Why are you here?” she asked shakily.
“You know damned well why I’m here.” He planted his hands on the two-hundred-fifty-year-old Chippendale masterpiece that her mother refused to sell. “Stand up.”
“You came to school me on my manners?” She pretended she wasn’t torn to shreds inside and lifted haughty brows. “Sorry I didn’t rush around to greet you like a long-lost relative!”
He made a choked noise.
“Yes, chérie. I think there is a certain courtesy concerning relatives that you have grossly overlooked.” His hazel-green eyes were stainless steel. Chop-chop, his gaze warned. Prepare to be sliced and diced.
She had known he would be angry, but this was so unfair. Her hand wanted to go protectively to the bump that had sent him away and was now bringing him back, but not with so much as a hint of pleasure at seeing her again.
She had been trying to work up the courage to call him. Her ego had held her back. Pride and ego. Pride because she was still devastated that he had let her go, obviously feeling nothing toward her despite the fact they’d essentially been living together, and ego because she looked ridiculous.
She gathered her courage and stood, bracing to take it on the chin.
He slid his gaze down and jerked, pushing off the desk, clearly taken aback by the small planet that shot straight out of her middle and arrived a full minute before she did in any room she entered.
“Thanks,” she said acerbically, but couldn’t blame him. While she was a little plumper in the face and chest, she really hadn’t gained much weight except in her middle, where she looked like she’d stuffed a sofa cushion under her shirt. The whole sofa, actually, and she was only midway through this pregnancy!
Henri took a long inhale, cheeks hollowing as he stared at her belly with such laser focus she was compelled to block his fierce stare with her hand.
His own hand went into his hair. His nostrils flared as that cutting glance swung up to pierce hers. “Why would you do this?”
He was gray beneath his swarthy skin. Obviously he was shocked.