The next morning, Henri had taken her down to breakfast only to receive a call as they were entering the restaurant. She had gone ahead to the table with Sadiq and some others from their group. While Henri had watched from afar, Ramon had arrived.
Of course Ramon was wearing the same shirt Henri already wore and of course Ramon had tried to trick Cinnia into believing he was Henri.
Henri’s hand had tightened on his phone and he’d missed what his executive was telling him as he watched Ramon come up behind Cinnia and set a familiar hand on her shoulder exactly as Henri might have done. Without a doubt, Ramon had said something like “Je m’excuse, chérie. I’m here now.”
Then his bastard brother had leaned down to kiss her in greeting, exactly as Henri would have done.
Cinnia had paused in midconversation, lifted her mouth in absent acceptance of his arrival and kiss—and had nearly leaped out of her chair before Ramon’s lips touched hers. Henri had heard her scream of surprise through the window. If Ramon hadn’t caught her and kept her on her feet, she would have stumbled to the floor.
Henri might have found it as funny as everyone else if he hadn’t been worried she had hurt herself. He’d cut short his call and hurried into the restaurant, where Cinnia, being a good sport, was laughing at herself even as she scolded Ramon to never ever do that to her again.
Henri had then heard every account from every other person who had witnessed it, all ringing with great humor and awe that she could tell the brothers apart so easily. Most of them had also presumed Ramon had been Henri. Pretty much the entire party had been taken in by his joke except Cinnia.
Cinnia didn’t react to Ramon the way she reacted to him.
He might have been reassured by that, but her heart, he was realizing, was as out of reach as his own. It made him jealous of the rapport Ramon still had with her.
“If you laugh...” Cinnia warned with a sideways look.
“I said you look stunning. As always.” Ramon held Cinnia’s hands out at her sides. His mouth twitched as he took in her belly.
“I look like a boa constrictor after it swallowed a goat.”
“Two. Let’s be honest,” Ramon said, then he laughed as he dodged her attempt to slug his belly. “Small ones. Kids!” He gathered her into a gentle bear hug and kissed her hair, exactly as he would do if he’d teased one of their sisters into reacting.
“You’re a brat!” She playfully shoved out of his arms.
Henri was forced to turn away as the doorman rang to announce their second guest. “Oui, send her up.”
“Who else is coming?” Cinnia asked as Ramon dropped his hand from her arm and frowned a similar inquiry.
“Isidora Garcia.” He didn’t bother moving away from the door since she would be knocking momentarily. “You would have met her father, Bernardo, at my mother’s birthday.”
“Oh, yes! He’s lovely.”
“He doesn’t retire until next month.” Ramon’s scowl held more than confusion. “We have a team of people under him. I thought we agreed to promote Etienne.”
“We have a lot of sensitive information to manage. Angelique and Kasim will go public with their engagement in a few months and you spoke with Bella?”
“I did.” His brother’s mouth flattened and he shot a look at Cinnia. “Do you know who the father is? Is it that Prince of Elazar?”
“She wanted me to have plausible deniability,” Cinnia told him with a rueful moue. “She refused to say.”
Ramon made a noise of dismay. “Regardless, I don’t see why you think we need—”
The knock on the door interrupted him.
Henri opened it and greeted Isidora.
She was a Spanish beauty with a fiery hint of auburn in her long dark hair. Her warm brown eyes were framed in thick, sooty lashes. She took after her notorious socialite mother far more than the short, barrel-chested man she called Papa. Henri privately had his doubts that Bernardo was her father, biologically, but had never asked. Bernardo had always guarded the Sauveterre family secrets so diligently, he allowed the man his own.
“Bonjour, Isidora. Thank you for coming.”
“Of course. It’s always lovely to see you.” They exchanged cheek kisses. Hers were well-defined and aristocratic, perfumed and soft. She turned to greet Cinnia.
Her smile fell away as she saw Ramon.
“Ramon,” she greeted flatly.
Isidora was a little younger than their sisters. Given her father’s close relationship with their own, and Trella’s homeschooling after the kidnapping, at times Isidora had been one of the few playmates the girls had had. The adoring crush she had developed on Ramon through her adolescence had been awkward, but they had never teased her over it. She was too nice. And Ramon had never encouraged her. She’d been too young, for starters, and he was too conscious of her father’s protectiveness of her virtue.