Hot Picks: Secrets And Lies

CHAPTER FIVE

Present day…

“KILLIAN.” HENRI STOOD and rounded his desk to greet the owner of Tec-Sec Industries as he was shown into Henri’s Paris office. They shook hands and Henri asked, “How are Melodie and the baby?”

“Well. Thank you.”

Henri wasn’t surprised by Killian’s succinct reply. Cinnia had summed it up nicely when she had first met the man who was an international security specialist and held the contract for the Sauveterre family’s safety. Did you meet at reticence school? He doesn’t care for small talk, does he?

They had met eight years ago, when Killian had come to Sauveterre International seeking investment capital to expand his global security outfit. Underwriting Killian’s ambitions had been one of the first really big risks Henri and Ramon had taken with their father’s money after their initial power struggles with the board. A year into watching Killian skyrocket with his business model and suite of military-grade services, they had hired him themselves.

That had been another type of gamble, a move Henri had not made without a great deal of reflection. Ramon operated on gut instinct while Henri was more fact driven. Killian had a good track record, but not a long one.

Ramon had left the final decision to Henri, after making a very good case for the change. “But we both have to believe in this. If you don’t like it, we won’t do it,” his brother had said.

Which had left the massive responsibility for any muck-ups squarely on Henri’s shoulders—where the weight still sat. Heavily.

Fortunately, Killian was a brilliant mind hidden behind an impassive face. Nothing escaped him. Aside from the occasional blip of overly exercised caution, they hadn’t had one security incident since signing contracts with him.

Not that Henri planned to become complacent as a result, but he felt he and his family were in very good hands. Even marriage and the arrival of his first child hadn’t thrown Killian off his focus on business.

“Coffee? Something stronger?” Henri offered.

“I won’t be here long,” Killian said with a wave of his hand and hitched his pants to sit.

Henri was relieved Killian was so reserved, not trying to bend Henri’s ear about the wonders of fatherhood. Henri didn’t need to hear what he was missing. Not when he was still stinging over Cinnia’s departure for that very reason.

The recollection jabbed like a rapier into his gut, swift and unexpected. She had left him to find the man who would give her the family she craved. Thinking of it sent a reverberation of frustrated agony through him every time he thought of it, so he refused to think of it and quickly pushed aside the temptation to brood today.

He took the chair opposite, distracting himself by getting to business. “You said it wasn’t an emergency. I assume it’s a price increase?”

“No, although there will be one at the end of the year to go with a system upgrade. The briefing for that will come through regular channels. No, this is something I thought was best dealt with promptly and face-to-face. One of my guards—I should say, one of the Sauveterre guards—brought me an ethical dilemma.” Killian braced his elbows on the chair’s arms and steepled his fingers. “In performing regular duties, this guard became aware of a situation that will be of interest to you, but the guard couldn’t come to you without compromising the privacy of your sibling.”

Henri frowned. “Which one?”

Killian canted his head. “I work for all of you, Henri. I won’t betray the trust of one to another. You’d fire me yourself if I did. This guard was reluctant to say anything, but brought it to me because Tec-Sec is charged with protecting the entire Sauveterre family. We take that responsibility very seriously.”

“Ramon has an illegitimate child somewhere,” Henri deduced, and was struck by something he rarely felt, but it was most acute if it happened to involve his brother. Ramon had something he wanted.

He didn’t want children, though. He didn’t want the responsibility. He had decided that long ago.

Nevertheless, the idea of his brother becoming a father seared his bloodstream with envy so sharp it felt like pure acid.

Then he heard Killian say, “I would take that up with Ramon, wouldn’t I?”

Henri’s mind blanked as it tried to recalibrate.

There was no humor in Killian’s face, no judgment, no emotion whatsoever. He was a master at hiding his feelings, which was one of the reasons Henri liked working with him. Their dealings were always straightforward and unsentimental.

“One of the girls?” he said, hazarding a guess. It was impossible in Trella’s case. There had been that one night three months ago, when she’d slipped out in public as Angelique. She’d been photographed kissing a man—a prince, no less—but she had sworn to Henri that’s all that had happened.

Gili was tangled up with a prince of her own, had even taken off into the desert overnight with Kasim while they’d all been in Zhamair for Sadiq’s wedding. He’d had a message this morning to say that things were back on, but hadn’t had a chance to catch up with her about it.

Even if she was back with Kasim, Gili was so cautious he couldn’t imagine her failing to take steps to prevent a pregnancy. She would definitely make arrangements to protect her child if she did happen to fall pregnant. Killian wouldn’t have to bring it up with Henri. Same went for Trella, for that matter.

Which had to mean…

“You can’t mean me,” Henri said dismissively. “Cinnia is the only woman I’ve been with—”

He ran straight into it like he was in one of Ramon’s high-performance race cars and hadn’t seen the big, red, tightly stacked, rough-edged bricks cemented into a giant wall that had arrived right in front of his nose.

I didn’t ask if you wanted to marry me. I asked if you loved me.

And the reason you’re asking is because you want to change things between us. I told you I’d never marry you.

He’d been taken aback that morning three months ago, not having seen that conversation coming, either. They were comfortable as they were. He’d grown quietly furious as she had put him on the spot with her “do you love me?”

He couldn’t. Too much was at stake.

From there, the separation had unfolded like surgery without anesthetic. He’d endured it with stoicism so he wouldn’t betray how much he begrudged her not being content with what they had. That’s all he could offer her. She knew that. He had to accept it. Why couldn’t she?

I would say that things have already changed, but they really haven’t. I’ve always wanted children. You said when I was ready to start a family, you would let me go. Are you going to keep your word?

Of course. He didn’t make promises he wouldn’t keep.

They had parted with as much civility as possible. Hell, he’d left the flat and come back a week after she was packed and gone. He hadn’t looked her up on social media. There was no point. She rarely posted and the last thing he needed was to see whom she was dating in her quest to marry and procreate.

Now he knew she wasn’t dating anyone.

Because she was having his child.

It couldn’t be true. Couldn’t. She would have told him.

Unless…

The next thought that followed was a screamingly jagged “was it even his?”

Of course it was. It had to be. Killian wouldn’t have brought this news to him otherwise and Henri couldn’t imagine… Didn’t want to imagine… No. Cinnia was highly independent, stubborn to a fault and honest. She would not sneak around having affairs behind his back. When would she have found the time? One way or another, they had shared a bed most nights and while she had been extremely passionate between the sheets, she had never been promiscuous.

No, if she was pregnant, the baby was his.

But how? She knew he didn’t want children. On that point he had been blunt, so what the hell had happened? Had she stopped taking her pill? Was this pregnancy deliberate?

Did she not realize how dangerous that was?

From the moment the responsibility of protecting his family had become his, he had felt as though a Russian roulette gun was pressed to his head. The mere suggestion he had a child on the way slid an extra bullet into one of its chambers. She wouldn’t put that on him. Would she?

An excruciating twist of betrayal wrung out the muscle behind his breastbone as he took in that she had disregarded his wishes.

“I see I’ve given you a lot to think about,” Killian said, rising.

“You have.” Henri stood, brain exploding. He was coated in a cold sweat beneath his tailored suit. It was all he could do to form civil words as his mind raced to Cinnia and a demand for answers. Somehow he managed to grasp the relevant threads of this conversation and tie them off. “Ensure the guard in question receives a suitable bonus.”

“Of course.”

“And submit a quote for extending your services to include my growing family.” There were times when he recklessly played tennis in the heat and wound up this light-headed, walking through gelatin. He could barely breathe.

“The proposal is being prepared along with a selection of suitable résumés. Are you headed to London? I have staff on standby if you need them. Let me know.”

“I’ll go straight to her flat, but didn’t you put someone on her the minute you learned she was pregnant?” He snapped the words, straining to hold on to his temper, not wanting the pregnancy to be real, but slamming walls of protection into place with reflexive force anyway.

This would be the longest flight of his life. His palms were clammy, he was so fixated on ensuring the safety of his child. If she was pregnant, he wouldn’t breathe easy until he had Cinnia locked behind the Sauveterre vault-like doors.

“I came here the minute I learned,” Killian said. “Less than two hours ago. Although I gather the guard has been aware for a few weeks. Preliminary surveillance reveals she’s paying one of my competitors to keep the paparazzi at a distance. They’re good enough they would notice if someone started watching her, so we’re maintaining a distance. She’s staying at her mother’s, by the way.”

Henri nodded and shook Killian’s hand.

“Merci,” he said distantly. “And one of my siblings knows about this?” He struggled to take in that incredulous piece of the news along with the rest.

“Yes.” Killian refused to say which one.

From there, Henri operated like a robot in a sci-fi thriller. Get to her. Order the car, text his pilot they were flying to London, climb on the plane, blow through any obstacle without regard.

Wring Ramon’s neck. It had to be Ramon. Was he still in touch with that friend of Cinnia’s? Cinnia had told him Vera had married last year.

Henri couldn’t imagine either of his sisters learning something of this magnitude and keeping it from him. They were far too softhearted to leave him in the dark, knowing how heavily the family’s security weighed on him.

But Ramon would have taken the necessary steps to guard her. He wouldn’t be satisfied with leaving Cinnia to make her own arrangements.

It was all a jumble and nothing would make sense until Henri saw her. Topmost in his mind would be… What the hell had she been thinking?

Cinnia was tired. Not just tired because she was building two more human bodies with her own, but because today was one thing after another. Nell had been quick to tell her it was because Mercury was in retrograde, when she’d used the phone from the pub where she worked to say that the Wi-Fi was on the blink at the flat.

Perhaps it was true, since Cinnia’s new partner running her London office was having phone and network issues. She was forwarding all the office calls and emails to Cinnia today. Cinnia had asked her tech guy to check both, but he was stuck in traffic. Again, thanks to a certain planet traveling backward, apparently.

Dorry, bless her, had something going on at school. She was doing most of her learning online these days, accelerating to finish early. She usually sat at the desk in the parlor across the hall, answering the handful of calls Cinnia typically received, allowing Cinnia to concentrate on the piles of work in front of her.

Not today. Nope. Today Dorry was out and their mother was “pitching in.” Which meant rather than screen calls and take a message, or look up a price and answer a simple question, she said things like, “Sorry to interrupt, love, but they want to set up a video chat. How do I do that again?”

When her mother knocked for the billionth time, and pushed in without waiting for an invitation, and the phone hadn’t even rung this time, Cinnia snapped, “Mum. I’m working.”

“Well, he wasn’t going away, was he?”

Cinnia glanced up and the sight of Henri struck her like an asteroid. Like an atomic bomb that had been packed with nuclear energy bottled up by the weeks of being apart from him. Instantly she shattered into a million pieces—and had to sit there trying not to show it. Her entire body stung with the force.

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.

She had expected this accusation. It was precisely the reason why she had left him and had worked so hard to put in place a means to do this alone. It still went into her like a knife. Nearly two years, two years of never asking him for one damned thing except “do you love me?”

“I did this to you?” she said, barely managing to keep a level tone. Oh, she felt so discarded and misused in that moment, worse even than when he’d shrugged off their breakup. “I suggest you take a hard look at which one of us is carrying three stone of our combined DNA.” It was closer to five, but shut up, bathroom scale.

“You were supposed to be taking your pill.”

“And I had the flu for a week last fall.”

“I used condoms after,” he reminded her, stabbing the top of the desk with his finger.

“I thought we were fine, too. What am I? A reproductive scientist? I don’t know how it happened! Sometimes when people have sex, they make babies. Super weird that it could happen to us, right? ’Cause we hardly ever had sex.”

Every night. All the time. She wanted to have sex with him right now, the bastard, coming in here smelling all yummy with that aftershave that drove her crazy and not having gained an ounce. If anything, he was sculpted into an even harder, sharper version of the man she had lusted after without reserve.

She looked away, hating her cheeks for flushing with awareness and her body for remembering.

If her eyes began to tear, she would throw herself through the curtain-cloaked window behind her.

“I never wanted this responsibility!” Henri blurted, like he’d been saving that statement for miles and miles. All his life. “You knew that.”