scared. His worst family secret had been painstakingly—and yes, agonizingly—buried. Reports that he had affairs with beautiful women only aided that particular cause.
“Your men can call that number with the details,” Angelique said.
He pocketed the card thoughtfully. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“No need. My security will deliver me.”
“So cautious.” He felt the seeds of irritation forming. Perhaps he didn’t care about the notoriety she provoked, but the triple-A level of security could become tiresome. “It’s a test?” he guessed. If the arrangements for a simple dinner were too much for him, he was not prepared for the rest of the way she lived, she seemed to be conveying.
“It’s my reality,” she said with a flat smile.
* * *
He annoyed me.
That was the only reason Angelique had agreed to dinner.
Or so she told herself.
And repeated to Trella, when her sister rang through on the tablet before she’d got round to calling Henri.
“What’s going on with you?” Trella demanded with a troubled frown. “I’m feeling... I don’t know. Restless. Keyed up. Henri texted that your blip was a false alarm, but was it more serious?”
She and her sister didn’t keep much from one another. There was no point. They read each other too well.
Not that they were psychic. Angelique never feared Trella could peer into her private moments, but they had an uncanny connection. Despite whatever distance might separate them, they were eerily aware of the other’s emotional temperature. They knew if the other was happy or sad, angry or scared.
It was one of the reasons Angelique was encouraged to believe Trella was actually getting better this time. The Sauveterres were all paranoid to a point, but for Trella, terror had become her constant companion and a very debilitating one. She didn’t want to fall apart with anxiety attacks, but for years they had struck without mercy and Angelique had always been aware when they did. It hadn’t helped her own sensitive nature one little bit.
Living a cloistered life had leveled out the worst of Trella’s episodes, but now she was trying to overcome her fear of being in public so she could go to Sadiq’s wedding. It wasn’t so much fear of actually being around people or in the public eye that held her back, but fear that any change in her routine would trigger fresh attacks. So it was proving to be a “two steps forward, one back” process, but she was getting there.
Angelique was just as worried that anything could cause Trella to backslide, so she was very firm in stating, “Today was me being an idiot. That’s all.”
She didn’t go into detail about the kiss, but gave Trella a good laugh describing the scene as Kasim set off her panic button.
“He said it would be a treat to have dinner with him. I’ll show him a treat,” she muttered.
“It’s been a long time since you went on a date. Even longer since it was someone you were genuinely attracted to,” Trella noted.
There went any attempt at disguising from her sister how deeply Kasim affected her.
“I don’t know why I am! He’s not my usual type at all.”
“You don’t have a type. You go out with men who make you feel guilty if you turn them down, or sorry for them.”
“Well, there’s no feeling sorry for this one. He’s...” Indescribable. She was reacting to him from a completely different place than she’d ever experienced. He didn’t pluck her heartstrings as Trella suggested, or tweak her conscience. It was a way deeper reaction than that. He drew her to him.
And made her feel too transparent just thinking about him. She quickly mentioned she still owed Henri a call, but lingered to ask Trella, “Have you noticed... Is something going on with Henri and Cinnia?”
Trella tilted her head in consideration. “He hasn’t said anything to me, but now that you say it...”
Henri didn’t peep a word about anything unless he wanted it known, but if he did confide a secret, it was to Trella first. They were all close, but they each had their own special relationship with each other. It went all the way back to the day Angelique and Trella were born. Their twin brothers had been allowed to name their sisters and it had created a sense of responsibility in each boy for “his” baby sister.
Ownership, Trella and Angelique had often called it in a mutter to each other. Half the time the boys acted like their sisters were kittens picked up from the animal shelter, but it was a dynamic that had colored their entire lives. They all loved each other equally, but when it had come to holding a sister’s hand or pushing her on a swing, they had naturally divided into Henri and Trella, Ramon and Angelique. Oldest with youngest, middle with middle.
Which wasn’t to say that Henri was any less protective of Angelique than he was of Trella, or that Ramon was more. Trella’s kidnapping had sent the boys’ instincts off the scale. Their father’s death six years later, when the men were barely twenty-one, had added yet another layer to their self-imposed yokes of responsibility.
Thus both men would insist on an explanation for today’s false alarm.
Angelique hung up on her sister and placed the call to both brothers at once, opening with, “I can’t talk long. I have a date.”
Their identical faces stared back at her, Henri in the London flat that he often shared with Cinnia, Ramon in the corporate office in Madrid. They both gave her their full attention, but Henri’s expression was marginally more severe, Ramon’s a shade amused.
“Do you really expect us to believe the ‘looking at your necklace’ story?” Ramon asked.
“Do you really want a different one?” she challenged.
“Soyez prudent, Gili,” Henri said. “He doesn’t keep his women long and he has publicly stated that his father will choose his bride—a traditional virgin from Zhamair, no doubt. I wouldn’t recommend a romance.”
“Hear that, Ramon? Don’t get your hopes up.”
No smile out of Henri. He really was a grump these days. Angelique scanned behind him for Cinnia. She usually dipped into the screen for at least a quick hello.
“I have to go to Beijing for a week, but I’ll be back in Paris after that. You can explain properly then,” Henri stated.
Good luck, she thought, suppressing a snort, and took note of how permanent that sounded. Back in Paris after that. Henri usually divided his time between Paris and London with occasional popovers to New York and Montreal. More often than not he said “we,” meaning him and his companion of two years, Cinnia.
Ramon only introduced his lovers to the family if they happened to bump into each other at a public event. Women were a catch and release sport for him and he was forever on the run anyway, covering Spain, Portugal and all of South America for Sauveterre International. The men were actively working on acquisitions in Asia and Australia, but as Ramon sometimes joked, “We’re only one person.”
“Trella told me not to bring her tomorrow,” Ramon said abruptly, dark brows pulling into a frown. “Did she tell you that?”
“What? No!” Angelique was taken aback. “I just spoke to her. She said, ‘See you tomorrow.’ We’re going to finish Hasna’s gown and start packing everything.” Had she blocked her sister from airing some misgivings, too focused on herself and her date with Kasim?
“No, I mean she said she wants to travel to Paris alone. With guards, of course, but she doesn’t want me to come with her.” Ramon scratched his eyebrow. “It started because I said I was heading to Rio right after and that I had to be there until Sadiq’s wedding. She said I shouldn’t have to double back and she would go to Paris alone.”
“Go