CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS WEEKS after the nightclub before Henri found himself in London again. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Cinnia Whitley and he didn’t know why. Their evening together had followed exactly the pattern he’d assumed it would and it wasn’t a new one.

      Well, he usually closed an encounter with more grace, but she was the one who had disappeared when he’d stepped away to take what he thought might be an emergency call from his sister.

      Regardless, it wasn’t as if Ramon was giving a second thought to her friend Vera, so he didn’t know why he couldn’t stop thinking about Cinnia. Maybe it was because she hadn’t behaved as predictably as her friend.

      Vera had posted the selfie she’d taken with the four of them when they’d first entered the hospitality suite. She was using her rub with a Sauveterre to gain some celebrity status of her own. Absolutely nothing new and he didn’t even bother feeling disgusted by it.

      Cinnia hadn’t shared the selfie to her own account, though. The one online quote he’d found attributed to her about him was “I met him briefly. There’s nothing else to say.”

      Not one to kiss and tell, obviously.

      Neither was he, so he appreciated her discretion.

      Of course, what could one say about their lovemaking without sounding like a blatant liar or an overly romantic poet? He liked an involved partner and always did what he could to ensure the woman got as much from their lovemaking as he did. But to say he and Cinnia had had sex, or had given each other an orgasm, was to completely understate the act.

      He kept rationalizing what had made it seem so powerful. She’d been resisting their attraction in a slow burn that had made her capitulation all the sweeter. The partially public location had held a titillating appeal. Their chemistry was very compatible.

      As he’d leaned against the soft cushion of her body, barely able to keep his knees from buckling, he’d been… He wanted to call it empty, but even though he’d felt drained, he’d also felt utterly satisfied.

      At peace.

      All the responsibilities that weighed on him were still there. He hadn’t stopped caring about them, but in that moment of euphoria, he’d accepted it all. If that was what had made him into the man who could be there with that woman, forehead tilted against the wall, cheek pressed to hers, inhaling her scent and twitching with reaction long after the pulses of orgasm had faded, feeling the very light stroke of her fingertips at his spine…

      So be it.

      Then he had heard Trella’s ringtone and his demanding life had rushed back in to consume him. He had stepped away from Cinnia and straightened himself, snatching up the phone and answering it without visuals, stepping outside in case Trella was in crisis and he needed to talk her down.

      Looking back, he knew he had reacted almost like a shock victim, rushing to get on with his life after a collision that had nearly taken his life. His head had been spinning, his body firing with adrenaline.

      Since then, he had been telling himself he was wrong. Their lovemaking hadn’t been anywhere near so profound as he recollected. Even if it had been the best sex of his life with a woman who possessed an ounce of discretion, so what? He wasn’t in the market for a relationship and given the life he led, never would be.

      At best, he might have stretched their association into the rest of the weekend, if she hadn’t disappeared like the fire bell had rung. When he had realized she hadn’t just ducked into the ladies’ room, he had told himself it was for the best and asked for his order of strawberries.

      The berries had been both sweet and tart, imprinting on his memory a little deeper with each bite. He suspected he would think of her every time he glimpsed a strawberry for a very long time and would wonder if she was managing to stay away from them.

      Why? Such a ridiculous question to clog up his brain.

      And yet, weeks later, as he entered a party he had no desire to attend and spotted her, his first thought was so far so good. She was alive and well, not having succumbed to fruit poisoning.

      Her blond hair was gathered in a knot and held in place with a couple of sticks, but a few delicate spirals fell around her face. Her shoulders were bared by her white summer dress, her heels an attractive spike that showed off her legs. She wore only a pair of silver hoop earrings for jewelry.

      She was as casually beautiful as he remembered, her expression serene as she listened to a man who wasn’t her date, but looked like he wanted to be.

      As was his habit, Henri had insisted his security be given the finalized guest list before he accepted the invitation. If people wanted him to show up to their affairs, they complied. That’s how he had known Cinnia would be here and he’d made himself take a full ten minutes of sober second thought before he’d accepted the invite himself—without a plus one, as she had also done.

      His heart started to thud with male need as he looked at her. He knew what lurked beneath that air of containment and he’d be damned if that gangly pontificator would discover it, as well.