Page 61 of The Billionaire's Temporary Governess (French Conquests 2)

“Ugh! It’s taking foreverrrrr! I want to meet my new baby sister!”

“Sister?” William questioned. “What makes you think—”

“Well,” Willa answered reasonably. “I already have a brother. Christien. I want a sister now.”

He smiled at her indulgently.

Naisha didn’t say anything, but deep down, she sensed in her heart that she was carrying a boy. Maybe it had had something to do with Alex’s comment a while ago that for the past century, all the family’s firstborn children had been boys.

Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in!” William instructed.

It was Hassan, looking sober faced. “I’m so sorry for the intrusion, Comte, but you have an unexpected guest.”

As far as Naisha knew, William usually kept specific visiting days, and between his admin and Hassan, they were strictly managed. He frowned in surprise. “Without an appointment?”

“I apologize, but no. Your visitor arrived a few moments ago, by taxi. She says it’s urgent. I’ve taken the liberty of showing her to your waiting room.”

William rose, but he still looked puzzled. As lord of a vast amount of property and holdings in the neighborhood, he was often called upon to resolve simple issues concerning things like land, employment, or the town’s well-being. But the townspeople knew the family protocols well enough to know they couldn’t just appear on their doorstep. And for Hassan to show them in? This was serious. Naisha felt a niggling sense of unease begin deep inside.

“Did she tell you who she is, at least?” William demanded.

Hassan threw an apologetic glance at Naisha and Willa and then answered reluctantly, “It’s Comtesse Sofia’s mother, sir.”

21

After instructing Willa and Naisha to stay put, William strode out of his suite and down the hallways to his offices, to the small anteroom outside of his main study. He dismissed Hassan, who had been following nervously, with a single movement of the head. He knew his butler wouldn’t go far: if trouble brewed, he would be on hand to respond.

But his brain was whirring. Sofia’s mother? His former mother-in-law? How? And why? In ten years of marriage, he had never met the woman. He had the inkling that Sofia’s childhood had been troubled, and that she and her mother barely got along. At the start of their marriage, he’d approved the payment of monthly stipend to the woman, which Sofia sent in cash by courier, rather than actually go visit, which to William’s mind spoke to the level of rancor between the two women.

So why, two years after Sofia’s death, had the woman seen fit to turn up? His instincts, his very gut, told him to be on his guard.

He walked into the room to find a short, small-boned woman standing with her back to him, but at the sound of his arrival, she turned around. She was holding a small 19thcentury Japanese statuette in her hand, as if she’d been examining it. For some reason, he suspected that she was less interested in it as a work of classical Asian art than she was trying to assess its worth.

He scowled. He wasn’t attached to things, but he was very territorial about his patrimony, and everything that connected his family to the past.

She caught his look and coolly put it back onto its stand, a defiant glimmer in her eye.

That was when he decided he didn’t like or trust this woman. “May I help you?” he asked politely.

She held out her hand. “Annelise Heroux.”

He shook it firmly and let go at once. Her hand was chillingly cool and limp. “Sofia’s mother,” he affirmed. “I’m sorry, but we’ve never met.”

She shrugged. “My daughter and I didn’t see eye to eye. She was a young girl with issues.”

Distaste filled his mouth at the thought that a woman could speak that way about her own child, especially when she hadn’t even had the decency to turn up at her funeral, even if it was only to show her young granddaughter some support. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said smoothly, wondering if this woman even cared that Sofia was gone.

“Thank you, Comte.” She gave him a tight smile.

Time stretched out between them. Finally, he said, “How may I be of assistance, Madame?”

“I notice you are engaged to anAmericanwoman.” She said it as if the nationality was a slur.

“I am,” he said shortly.

She squeezed her lips tightly as if she’d sucked on an acidic prune, and then heaved a huge, theatrical sigh. “I’m afraid that this union is unacceptable to me.”

He gaped—actually gaped, a man as stoic as he.“Pardon?”

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