Ramon slapped his shoulder, yanking him back from staring into a bleak void.
“I have your back, hermano. Together we’ll keep tus niños safe. Your wife is my wife.”
“A comforting sentiment,” Henri said with a humorless snort. “If she was willing to marry me. She’s not.”
“That happens?” Ramon stepped back, astonished.
“Apparently.”
Do you love me?
Did it matter?
Given all he faced, he couldn’t allow himself to be preoccupied with courtship. It was better that she was holding him off.
Still, as the women came back and Cinnia’s smile of good humor fell away, he found himself snaring her gaze and holding it, searching for something he couldn’t name.
“I was just telling Isidora that I don’t even want to think about a wedding dress until I’ve got my figure back,” she said, expression neutral.
The singed edges of his ego continued to smolder, filling his throat with an acrid aftertaste.
* * *
The media circus was in full swing by the end of the month.
They had released a photograph with their statement that they were delighted to announce the upcoming birth of twins, but that wasn’t enough. The paparazzi went berserk. Cinnia only went out a handful of times, once for a checkup with her new doctor and twice to visit Henri’s sisters at the design house. She was mobbed every time. Her guards earned their exorbitant paychecks, practically needing a whip and a chair to keep the lions at bay.
What made her groan loudest, however, was how many of the photographers didn’t even bother capturing her face. Shots of her belly cluttered every gossip rag as if the twins she carried were visible if you looked hard enough. It could have been any woman’s swollen abdomen. She told Henri she was going to start wearing T-shirts with obscene logos and vulgar catchphrases.
He gave her his don’t-you-dare look, but then suggested something decidedly unprintable, making her snort.
Henri, who rarely spoke to the press unless it was through a prepared statement that invariably pertained to the business of Sauveterre International, became old news. Why photograph any of the adult Sauveterre twins when they could harangue the mother of the newest set? Even Ramon’s best efforts to draw fire with his racing antics and half-naked supermodels failed.
Henri would have taken the attention off her if he could. They were living in an armed truce, managing to be civil and, in some ways, falling into their old routine very easily. Most days he worked at his Paris office while she worked out of his home office at the flat, exactly as she used to when staying with him here in Paris. Their evenings were filled with arrangements for their future: how they would modify the family home in Spain to accommodate the twins, signing up for a private birthing class, reviewing résumés for the babies’ security staff.
He took pains to include her in all of it, but she felt the undercurrents of being one more thing he had to manage. Maybe some of that was sexual tension, since they were still sleeping separately, but she saw how frustrated he was with the press and precautions and the sheer volume of to-dos.
It fueled her sense that things were tenuous between them, making her all the more determined to maintain her own income and have a fallback position. Which made him say she was working too hard, forcing her to point out they had enough topics to debate without throwing her career into the mix.
He began swearing yet again as their car was swarmed when they arrived at a hotel in Milan.
Already prickly and nervous, she flinched at his tone.
“You told me the day we met that you’ve learned to pick your battles,” she reminded him, forcing herself to bite back a reflexive apology. It wasn’t her fault she was pregnant. She told herself that every day.
“You should be able to move in public without being harassed,” he growled as he helped her from the car and held her arm up the red carpet.
She wore sunglasses, but was still terrified the flashes were going to blind her into stumbling. She clung to Henri’s arm as she walked. At twenty-four weeks, she was already ungainly, and tonight she’d put on proper heels, wanting one thing to feel normal after so many changes.
They were attending a charity gala put on by a banking family he worked with regularly. Ramon had taken on all the long-distance travel, but Henri was still covering Europe.
She had vainly hoped this weekend would be a break from the paparazzi. She was due for a night out at the very least, even if it was only a business appearance.
It was decidedly more peaceful inside, thank goodness. The hotel was one of the most exclusive in Europe, the guest list for this ten-thousand-euro-per-plate dinner tightly vetted.