Hot Picks: Secrets And Lies. Dani Collins

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      Those had been big steps for him and she hadn’t pressed him to meet and mingle with her family, either, disappearing for a dozen lunches and overnights to see them before she’d started inviting him to accompany her.

      He’d been relieved, but now it irritated him that other men had come and gone from this kitchen. He’d had many lovers before Cinnia. Why did he care that she’d had two?

      “James would have been a good match for her, but they met too young. He let her down,” Milly continued with a disheartened sigh. “She went to the opposite end of the spectrum with Avery. Saw him as safe, I suppose. Not so capable of breaking her heart.”

      That was why he hated the thought of her previous lovers. No other women had impacted him the way Cinnia had, but those other men had been fixtures in her life. They’d shaped her. They affected how she reacted to him.

      “Avery could barely spoon his own oatmeal. It was my fault she got in so deep with him, of course. ‘Mum thinks we should marry for money.’ I never said that.” She held up an admonishing finger, then waved it away. “But that doesn’t matter. She had to prove she’s a feminist who can support a man, like someone would pin her with a Victoria Cross for that. Oh, she wanted so desperately to make me eat my words about him. And how did that turn out? He was a complete waste of her time and stole a thick slice of her savings, didn’t he? Exactly as I called it.”

      She lowered her nose to the book and gave another page a loud flip.

      Everything she’d said had given him a fresh view of Cinnia. Not so much a new angle, as a deeper understanding of her edges and shadows. Was this why she was holding him off? He came on strong at the best of times and his children’s safety was a red line for him. She had to live with him.

      He shouldn’t have lost his temper, though. That must have scared her.

      At the same time, she must also know he wouldn’t let her down the way those other men had. He kept his promises.

      You said when I was ready to start a family, you would let me go. Are you going to keep your word?

      Of course.

      The pit of his belly roiled.

      “I have my opinions about you, too, Henri,” Milly told him without looking up. “Not all of you falls short so if my daughter decided to marry you, I would support her decision.” Her head came up and her mouth was tight, her brows arched. “Exactly as I will if she refuses.”

      He was absorbing that statement as she dropped her attention to the book, adjusted her glasses and set a fingernail onto the page.

      “There we are. Classifieds. If she’s leaving, I can let out the rooms again, can’t I?”

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