His Mistress with Two Secrets(37)

“She seems to be doing well for herself, helping people navigate those regulations and avoid that kind of debt.” He had to defend Cinnia. She worked hard. Surely her mother saw that.

“Oh, she does. I only mean she has that same streak of independence my husband had. And his stubborn... She calls it a failure to plan, but no, it was a kind of anarchy, his refusal to fall in with what was clearly the accepted approach. He was being a bit of an ass, trying to prove he knew better. She’s the same, completely determined to show her dead father the choices he should have made. And show me that a woman should never rely on a man,” she added pithily. “The exact same obstinacy channeled in a different direction. But you’re quite right. I’d have been in the poor house long ago if not for Cinnia knuckling down with her career and sorting things out for all of us.”

Flip.

Henri thought again about how hard life had been after his father had passed. Their situations were very different, but Cinnia’s devotion to her family, her desire to look out for them, was every bit as strong as his. She must have been overwhelmed.

“How old was Cinnia when you lost your husband?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen,” he repeated, wondering why he didn’t know that already. For all the times she’d admonished him as being reticent, she wasn’t terribly forthcoming about herself. “That must have been a lot on you at the time.”

“On Cinnia,” she amended with dismay. “Little Dorry was barely walking. I was a wreck. Well, you know. It’s devastating for the whole family when the cornerstone is gone, but I was completely unprepared. I didn’t know how to even pay a bill. Genuinely didn’t know how to write a check or how to call a plumber if the sink backed up. All I knew was that I needed to keep my girls in this house. It’s the only home they knew. That’s all you think, isn’t it?” She set her hand on the open book and looked at him, old grief heavy in her expression. “Hang on to what’s left so you can stay on your feet after such a terrible blow.”

Henri nodded. She was stating it exactly right. His mother had been shattered, his sisters distraught, he and Ramon overwhelmed.

“Cinnia doubled up with Dorry so we could let her old room along with the rest. It wasn’t worth asking the other two to share. You’ve met them. You know what I mean,” she said with an exasperated shake of her head. “The blood wouldn’t have come out of the carpets, but at least they express themselves. Not Cinnia. No, she and Dorry bottle everything up and use it like fuel to get where they’re going. Heaven help you if you try to give either a leg up. Dorry is allowed to answer the phone because Cinnia pays her to do it. Quid pro quo, but if I so much as pick it up so it stops ringing? Well!”

Henri folded his arms, thinking of the way Cinnia had refused to let him glance over her business plan until after she’d secured financing elsewhere. Then there had been her reluctance to tell him what she was looking for in a flat, let alone the location she preferred or the price range she could afford. As it turned out, living above her office space had been her plan all along, and a sensible one, but he’d been in the dark on the entire thing until she’d closed the deal. It wasn’t just that she hadn’t wanted his help, he was seeing, but she needed every last shred of credit to be hers. She was independent to a fault.

“That self-sufficiency isn’t just because of your husband’s situation, though, is it? Tell me about that boyfriend she lived with in London.”

“Avery? That is a perfect example of how obdurate she can be. She let that, well, it’s not fair to call him a ne’er-do-well, but you could tell at first glance he wouldn’t amount to much. I made the mistake of saying I thought she could do better and that was it.” Her hand went up in surrender. “She let that boy attach to her like a lamprey. I say ‘boy’ deliberately. Her first suitor wasn’t ready to act like a man, but you could see straight away he had some stones. You remind me of him, if you want the truth.”

Henri wasn’t sure how to take that, especially when Milly was taking his measure with such a shrewd eye. He didn’t like talking about Cinnia’s past, either. Not when it included men her mother knew so well.

Aside from Cinnia, his mother had rarely met any woman he’d slept with. Cinnia was the only woman he’d ever trusted enough. First he’d taken her to watch Ramon race a few times, then he’d included her in a dinner with Gili in Paris after she began staying with him there. They’d been seeing each other a full year before he’d taken her to Spain for his birthday, where she’d finally met Trella and his mother.