href="#litres_trial_promo">Extract
ISIDORA GARCIA DIDN’T glance up as her boss entered her office. She recognized him in her periphery and was only a little surprised he was here in Paris. He was a new father, but when there was a crisis with one of his sisters, particularly Trella, he waded in without hesitation.
“I just saw it,” she assured him. “I’m emailing—”
She cut herself off as preternatural knowledge struck. Her body tingled and her skin felt stroked. Her fingers became clumsy while her blood grew hot and thick in her veins.
She didn’t have to look up to know that was not Henri Sauveterre advancing on her. It was his twin, Ramon.
A flash of intense vulnerability went through her. Treachery. Anguish.
She clamped down on the rush of emotion, hiding it behind a falsely cool lift of her gaze to the man who looked identical to the one who had arm-twisted her into taking this position. They were both ruthless in their own way, but at least Henri wasn’t cruel.
“I didn’t know you were in Paris.” Her voice came out steady enough to hide the tightness that invaded her throat.
Like Henri, Ramon’s dark hair was cut short, but had a tendency to spike on top. His clean-shaven, spectacularly handsome features were sophisticated without being pretty, angular without being rugged. His Sauveterre eyes were green when they were amused and gray when they were not.
His irises were somewhere between slate and ash this morning, making a knot of tension coil in the pit of her stomach. His sensuous mouth sat in a flat line. His honed physique flexed beneath his tailored suit as he set his hands on her desk, leaning in to confront her.
“Why aren’t you doing your job?”
His lethal tone cut her in half, sending a burst of adrenaline through her.
Oh, she hated herself for still being sensitive to his every word. Him, with his superiority, and opportunistic streak, and complete lack of conscience. She wanted to hate him. Did hate him. But she remained susceptible. In fact, it was worse, now that she knew how brutal he could be. At least when she’d been young and stupid, she hadn’t feared him.
She took a firm grip on herself and tried to hide her dread by casually looking back at her screen. She couldn’t absorb what she’d been writing. She waved at her keyboard, aiming for nonchalance. “I’m doing it now. If you weren’t interrupting me, I could get on with it.”
She managed to sound composed and begged her hand to stay steady. She didn’t want to reveal the fine trembles that worked upward from a deep, inner flutter in the pit of her stomach.
Because even with hatred and fear gripping her, she found him utterly compelling.
“What can you possibly do at this stage?” he growled. “The cat is out. Why didn’t you prevent it?”
“Prevent your sister’s pregnancy?” Her pulse hammered once, hard, as she met his gaze, but she managed to tilt her mouth into a facetious smirk. “Not in my bailiwick, if you can believe it. I’ve had three discussions with her, suggesting we leak the news in a controlled way. She chose to stay mum.”
Pun not intended. Trella was tall and a wizard with cutting cloth to create the effect she wanted, but she was five months along. She couldn’t hide it forever.
“You should have had a fourth discussion. And a fifth. Your father had the contacts to keep these things under wraps. Why don’t you?”
Her heart stalled. Oh, he was not going to bring her parents into this, was he? That was such dangerous ground.
At least it flipped her out of defensive mode into a willingness to go toe-to-toe.
“Even my father can’t control every person with a social media account. The photo was posted by a woman visiting her mother at the hospital. You took Trella there yourself—in that car everyone notices. Of course people watched to see who got out.”
She punctuated with a look that said, “Take some responsibility for a change.”
“The only reason it took this long for the trolls to call it a baby bump was because they were having so much fun shaming her for gaining a few pounds.” Then, as she remembered his sister-in-law had delivered twins by emergency cesarean a few days ago, she asked, “How are Cinnia and the babies?”
“Fine.” He pushed off the desk, expression blanking to aloofness—it was the way he and all his siblings reacted when questioned about their family, even when the inquiry was sincere.
The Sauveterre twins had become media sensations the minute the second pair, Angelique and Trella, came along. Born to a French tycoon and his Spanish aristocrat wife, the children had been mesmerizing in their mirrored resemblance and elegantly perfect lives.
Then, when the girls were nine, Trella had been kidnapped. She was recovered five days later, but rather than give the family breathing space, the media’s microscope had focused even more intently on their slightest move. The pressure had sent their father into an early grave and the fallout had continued for years.
Angelique—Gili to her family—seemed to have found some happiness, though. She was secretly engaged to her soul mate, Kasim, which was why the family had convened in Spain.
Their celebration had been cut short when Cinnia was rushed to hospital.
Trella had jumped into Ramon’s distinctive Bugatti Veyron to chase the ambulance with him. Not content with the limited edition Pur Sang, worth millions, Ramon had had one custom-built to his own specifications. It was fully carbon this and titanium that, didn’t have a lick of exterior paint and topped out at a speed of over four hundred kilometers an hour.
Isidora was dying to ask if it had air-conditioning.
Worried for Cinnia, Trella had leaped out of the car without taking due care over how much midsection she showed.
Any casual snap of a Sauveterre went viral. And one that allowed the public to speculate on a secret pregnancy and the identity of the father...? There was no containing such a nuclear bomb.
Isidora knew all this because she had grown up with the girls. Her father had worked for Monsieur Sauveterre. She’d had tea parties with the girls before Trella was taken and still had slumber parties with them. She cared deeply for them and wanted the best for the whole family.
That was why Henri had hired her. He trusted her with his sisters and all of the family’s most delicate PR announcements—most recently a statement that he and Cinnia had spoken their wedding vows in the hospital with their newborn daughters in attendance.
None of that mattered to Ramon, however. To him, she was an outsider, not entitled to anything more than criticism and a pat. Fine.
Fine. It didn’t hurt. She was so past yearning for his positive regard.
“I was hoping you were Henri.” For a million reasons. “I was going to suggest taking the family portrait with Cinnia and the babies sooner than planned. I’m inundated with requests. Releasing photos might divert this focus on Trella.”
“By all means, let’s make sacrifices of my brother’s innocent children before they’re a week old.”
She was only trying to help. Swallowing back a lump that formed behind her breastbone, she rose to walk a file to the cabinet in the corner, mostly as an excuse to put distance between them. “Do you have another suggestion?”
“Yes.”
Oh, that supercilious attitude grated. If her father hadn’t badgered and cajoled, if Henri hadn’t offered her disgusting amounts of money, if she didn’t adore