His Mistress with Two Secrets(33)

He thought of all the ugly conjecture that had followed them for years.

“They pushed her into a breakdown and I swear they caused my father’s death. He might have withstood nearly losing his child, but trying to keep us out of that microscope? There was no pity for the pressure he was under! If he showed signs of cracking, they turned it higher. I know.” He smacked his hand into his chest. “I stepped into his shoes. The corporation is enough for any man and then to be worried sick for the rest of your life that another attempt would be made? All because those vipers insist on making us into demigods?”

He threw an accusatory point at the closed curtain, vainly wishing, yearning, for the ability to incinerate every camera on earth.

“I hate them. I bloody well hate them. They’re vile and they set us up to be victimized in every way—by trolls, by opportunists, by criminals who want to steal a child for profit.”

He ran his hand down his face, trying not to think of such a thing happening to his child. He pointed a railing finger at her.

“You have no idea what they’re really capable of. And you definitely don’t have the resources to hold them at a decent distance. So, no. Do not think for a minute that I will leave it to you to ‘handle’ security. I can’t even say I will take the babies and let you live your life away from us because you are part of this now, like it or not. So you will come to Paris with me and I will handle security.”

At some point she had pulled a cushion across her chest and had drawn her knees up, buffering herself against his outburst.

He pushed his fingers through his hair, scratching at his tight scalp, feeling like a bully now that the worst of his temper was spent, but—

“This was why I didn’t want children. This is how I knew it would be.” He was defeated by circumstance. “But we’re here now, so we’ll do what we must. You’ll marry me.”

“No,” she said in a husk of a voice, lips white.

He drew in a tested breath, frustration returning in a flood of heat. “Did you hear what I just said? You can’t stay here.”

“Yes, I heard you. Fine. I’ll live behind your iron curtain, but—” She swallowed. “But I won’t marry you.” Her chin came up in what he knew was her stand-ground face.

His ears buzzed as he sifted through her words. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ll live with you, but I won’t live with you.” She flushed and pulled her shoulders up defensively around her ears.

“You don’t want to sleep with me?” His heart bottomed out. She couldn’t mean that.

She flinched and looked away, blinking hard. “No. I don’t.”

“Liar.” It came out of him as a breath of absolute truth. A dying wish.

She made a face that held shame and guilt and self-contempt, but when she brought her gaze back to his, she didn’t try to convince him she was being honest. She couldn’t.

The naked vulnerability in her expression caught at something inside him, though. It was out of character and gut-wrenching, making him tamp it down with resistance. Cinnia was tough. He had always liked that about her. He needed her to be resilient and as impermeable as he was. It was too much on him if she was fragile.

Despite the revelation of weakness, however, she was resolved.

“We can carry on pretty much as we did before.” Her voice was a tangle of conflicted emotions. “I’ll work remotely around your schedule and go into my office when I can. I’ll have to see what my doctor says about travel, but I’m not up for a lot. I was planning to take a few months off work when the babies come, but I don’t care where we are when that happens. We can figure that out as we go along, but I’m not going to take up with you again.”

“It’s not ‘taking up.’ It’s marriage.” Did she realize how deeply she was insulting him? “Are you trying to make some kind of point? Damn it, Cinnia, are you still trying to prove something to a man in your past who has nothing to do with me?” He wanted to physically hunt down the jerk and shake him.

Her stare flattened to a tundra wasteland of blue that chilled him to the marrow.

“Do you want to marry me, Henri? If I wasn’t pregnant, would you even be here right now? If I had ended things purely because I wanted to marry and have children, would you have crossed a street to even say, ‘Nice to see you’? No. So, no, I’m not being perverse. Yes, this has everything to do with you. If you want to marry me, you can damn well get down on one knee, ask nicely and mean it.”

* * *

Cinnia went upstairs to pack.

Henri forced himself to sit and drink his cold tea while he ate a sandwich, determined to regain his composure after his flare-up.