“Did you really know it was me who looked back at you, or is that an assumption? Because it usually takes people months, even years to tell us apart.” It was easy once a person realized Henri was left-handed and Ramon right, or that Henri tended to speak French as his default while Ramon preferred Spanish, but few noticed those details.
“You are remarkably alike, but…” She glanced into the suite, to where Ramon was holding open the designer bag, listening politely to Vera wax in delight over the contents. They usually let their mother pick over the contents of those bags, then handed the rest to their PAs, but Henri was just as happy to let these women take them home.
He took advantage of Cinnia’s distraction to glance at his phone. The bullet points backed up what he’d already assumed. Her mother was wellborn, but the family was broke. Cinnia worked for a wealth management firm and was listed on their website as an intern. Filing and fetching coffee, he assumed. The only risk Cinnia Whitley posed was financial and he was quite sure he could afford her.
He tucked his phone away, irritated to note she was still eyeing his brother, brows pulled together in consternation.
“But?” he prompted, having to stand close to be heard over the music below.
“I don’t know. I don’t read auras or anything like that, but… Never mind.” She flashed him another look, this one self-conscious.
Sexually aware?
“That’s interesting.” His annoyance evaporated, replaced by intensified attraction. He leaned his elbow on the rail so he was even closer to her, edging into her space, liking the way she tried to quell a little shiver. She smelled like roses and tropics and something earthy that further turned him on.
“Wh-what is?” She was trying to look blasé, but he knew the signs of physical magnetism. There was a pulse beating fast in her throat, but it wasn’t fear. She wasn’t moving away. She was skimming her gaze across his shoulders and down his chest.
Chemistry was such a wonderful thing. He didn’t move, allowing the primal signals to bounce between them, stimulating him and heightening his senses. Sex was the cheapest and best high in the world as far as he was concerned.
“You react to me, but not to him.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Didn’t you? My mistake.”
“You are mistaken,” she assured him hotly. “Whatever you’re thinking about me—us—and why we came up here, forget it.”
She wasn’t used to being so attracted to the men she exploited, he surmised. Poor thing. This must be very disconcerting for her. With that reserved personality, he bet she usually did quite well at stringing a man along. Was she afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold out with him until she had squeezed all she could from him?
“I’m thinking you’re here to watch the fireworks. What did you think I was thinking?”
She spun back to the view, setting her chin.
He smiled. “Listen.” He very lightly stroked the back of his bent finger down her bare arm, entranced when goose pimples chased the same path.
She shot him a look that was startled and uncertain, quickly rubbing the bumps away.
“I don’t have to work this hard to get a woman to sleep with me. This is how I live.” He waved his champagne glass at the opulence around them. “Enjoy it without feeling obligated.”
“You won’t expect anything after?” she scoffed.
“By anything, do you mean that?” He thumbed to where Vera was on tiptoe inside the suite, painting herself against Ramon, lips firmly locked over his.
Cinnia made a pained noise and looked out across the river again. As strategies went, her friend was overplaying her hand.
“I shall remain hopeful,” Henri drawled.
“Yes, you will remain that way,” Cinnia assured him.
He hid a silent laugh behind the glass he lifted to his lips, deciding he wanted her quite badly and was willing to pay whatever it cost. He respected people who knew what they were worth.
But he only said, “Don’t make promises unless you can keep them, chérie.”
VERA, THE TRAITOR, left with Ramon before the fireworks started.
“That’s what you two were talking about in Spanish?” Cinnia hissed as she had three seconds alone on the balcony to react.
“I told you a language degree opened doors,” Vera joked, then rolled her eyes at the face Cinnia was making. “Come on. Look at them! Surely you’re tempted? It’s long past time you worked Avery out of your system, you know.”
She knew. And, of course, she was tempted. She wasn’t in Vera’s league when it came to sexual gymnastics, but she’d had a couple of long-term relationships that had been nice until they’d gone bad. The first had been an immature thing that should have ended before they went off to separate universities, but she’d clung to what they’d had and he’d wound up cheating. Her heart had been battered at the time, but looking back she knew they’d been far too young for the level of commitment she had expected.
Avery, however, had broken her heart in two, professing love for her while they’d both been struggling through a heavy course load and then trying to make ends meet when they moved to London together. Then he had come into some money and cut her off cold, stating bluntly that her family was too much of a handful and he didn’t need the dead weight. Thankfully Vera had been there for her when he’d kicked her out.
Since then, Cinnia had stayed out of the relationship arena, thinking it wiser to concentrate on getting her career off the ground.
Not that Henri would offer a relationship. She knew that without asking. But she couldn’t deny she was intrigued by him. Every time he glanced at her with male appreciation oozing out of his pores, her hormones swayed in an erotic dance of come-hither. Like the extravagance of the night itself, she kept trying to rationalize indulging in whatever he was offering.
She didn’t do one-time hookups, though. And even if she did sleep with him purely for the fun of it, he would believe she’d done it in exchange for being wined and dined here in this heavenly suite. She hated the idea of him thinking she could be bought. It went right to the core of the insecurities Avery had instilled in her.
“It’s quite a signature for the autograph book,” Vera murmured with a self-satisfied grin. “You know your mother would approve. There’s a first-class trip to Australia in that bag, you know. And a smartwatch and a year’s lease on a sports car. Get what you can out of it!”
Henri came back from taking a call, probably overhearing Vera’s vulgar suggestion—like he needed any more ammunition to believe they were a pair of opportunists.
Seconds later, Ramon came out and said, “The car is waiting. Lovely to meet you, Cinnia.”
He and Vera disappeared like a snuffed flame leaving a wisp of burned friendship hanging in the air.
Henri sat down across from Cinnia at the high-top table, mouth relaxed, but she had the sense he was laughing at her ill-disguised panic. He signaled to the butler to freshen their drinks.
“Where do you think he’s taking her?” she asked as the butler left.
“The nearest hotel with a vacant room, I imagine.”
She shouldn’t have asked.
“Why does it bother you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“You’re