My anxiety fled the moment Cosima and I pulled up to Mama’s town house on the border of Soho and Little Italy. It was an old brick affair with black trim and red flowers in the window boxes. Mama had lived there since she and Elena had moved to America four years ago but I had only been inside once, when Cosima had flown me in for Mama’s restaurant opening.
As soon as Cosima opened the door, we were hit with the pungent smell of Mama’s Italian cooking and the warmth of many bodies. We shuffled through the small entrance area and into the long living room where, to my slight horror and surprise, a small gathering of people stood yelling, “Surprise!”
I laughed delightedly at Cosima as she propelled me into the many waiting arms, “I can’t believe you did this!”
“Giselle.”
My mother’s voice, the thickly accented, heavy sound of it, froze me in my tracks and without knowing why, tears came to my eyes. Hers was the only face I saw in the crowd and I realized with sadness that I had forgotten what she truly looked like. The twins had inherited her coloring, the inky waves, the golden eyes and caramelized skin, but her figure, a classic hourglass like Sofia Loren but softened with good food and kind age was like mine. A silent sob escaped me when she wound me up in her warm arms and the scent of rosemary and sunshine enveloped me.
“Giselle, my French baby,” she murmured over and over as she held me, her fingers pulling gently through my tangled hair.
“Mama,” I breathed once, before tucking my face into her hair.
We stood like that in the middle of a room full of people for a few minutes before I could compose myself. Though we had talked almost every day on the phone or by email, it felt unspeakably good to be with my mother again. As with my other siblings, she was everything to me and it astonished me – now that I was home – that I could have ever been comfortable staying away.
“Quit hogging her, Ma.” A rich voice, the male equivalent of Cosima’s, but deeper, darker, resounded throughout the room and with a shriek of joy, I threw myself from Mama’s arms into Sebastian’s.
He chuckled as he caught me, and lifted me easily into his arms. “You’ve grown, mia sorella, and your hair…” He tugged a piece. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you red since you were twelve.”
I pulled back and smiled into his ridiculously handsome face. “God, I missed you.”
Mama tapped me on the bottom and tsk-ed at my use of God’s name but Sebastian and I only laughed as he placed me once more on the floor.
Seb had visited me last year in Paris while he shot a movie, and it still wowed me that my two younger siblings were doing so well in their respective careers. Two years ago, Sebastian had starred in a low budget Indie movie about an impoverished Italian immigrant in New York during the 20s. It had won three awards at the Cannes Film Festival and now, my baby brother, the same person who used to run naked through the grimy streets of our home in Napoli, was a burgeoning movie star.
“I missed you too, bambina.” Though I was older than the twins, they both called me baby because I was decidedly shorter than their towering heights.
“I like it better this way.” Elena stepped forward, suddenly in front of me, her hands awkwardly extended for an embrace. “Your hair, I mean.”
My oldest sister shared my coloring but little else, her auburn hair was darker than mine, a red so black it was the color of wine, cut short and chic around her angular face, showcasing a creamy expanse of freckle-free skin and sloe eyes the colour of storm clouds. Her body was lean and small boned where mine was softer, curved like the other women in our family and I knew, as her eyes fell over my breasts and tucked waist, that she felt a pang of isolation at seeing me again. Whereas I took comfort from knowing that we looked at least vaguely similar, Elena saw only the things in me that made her different. She was the spitting image of our father and we all knew that was hard on her but I always found her heartrendingly beautiful anyway, somehow sharp and romantic all at once.
And though she was also the smartest person I knew, and despite my deep respect for her, our embrace was awkward. Something between us had wilted years ago and I was still unsure how to recover it.
“You look beautiful too, Elena.”
We both took a large step back after our hug but the twins and mama filled in around us.
Though I was tired and still mildly queasy from the long flight, it felt good to spend time with my family and the close group of friends they had made over the years. I met Sebastian’s girlfriend Sophie, who I had recognized immediately as being a model for Calvin Klein and a good friend of Cosima’s. It wasn’t serious, Seb assured me later as he refilled my wine glass, but she was a good lay.
There were also my Mama’s three best friends, all chefs like herself, and Cosima’s old roommate Erika, a Dutch model with cheekbones that could cut glass, and Elena’s assistant Beau whom I had known for years and who I was closer to than Elena herself.
“So,” Cosima began as she caught my arm and spun me through the doorway into a dark room off the main hall.
I had only visited the house once, on my only trip to America after the twins had officially moved Mama and Elena here three years ago and the layout was still unfamiliar but I thought we were in the guest bedroom.
“Tell me how things ended with the Frenchman,” she said before she flicked the light on and gracefully collapsed on the deep red covered bed, patting the space next to her so that I would sit.
I sighed and placed my head next to hers on the pillow, comforted by her spicy scent and the way she casually took my hand in hers. “I left.”
“Oh?”
“I left before he woke up this morning. I just couldn’t say goodbye. What was I going to say? Thanks for the hot sex and amazing adventures. I love you. Catch you never?”
I held myself still in the ensuing silence and resisted the urge to turn over to look into her expressive face for her response. Cosima was careful with her words – when she wasn’t in a temper – and I knew she was meticulously shifting through them like individual grains of sand.
“I was worried you would love him. You didn’t tell me much about him, I don’t even know the mystery man’s name, but I know you.” Her thumb swept back and forth over my palm. “And intimacy for one so passionate cannot be untangled from love.”
I scoffed. “You’re the passionate one, Cosi.”
She propped herself up on one elbow in order to glare down at me. “Can there be only one passionate woman in this family?”
I pursed my lips but said nothing.
“Exactly. Now tell me why you left like this. You took away his chance.”
“His chance to what?” Break my heart in person?
“To ask you home with him.”
She said it as if it was a simple choice, as if it was only natural that he would want to take a complete stranger home with him.
“He didn’t know anything about me.” But I winced even as I said it because I knew it wasn’t true.
“You can know a person without knowing the trivialities.”
“I don’t even know where he lives, that’s a pretty big omission.”
She snorted inelegantly and I couldn’t help but smile at her. Before Sinclair, I had never loved another human being like I loved Cosima. To me, she was the essence of beauty and life, full of volatile emotions and overwhelming love.
“You would have liked him.”
Her expression softened and she smoothed a piece of hair away from my face. “I’m sure I would have.”
We both turned to look at the door as it creaked open, revealing Elena who blinked owlishly at us cuddled on the bed before muttering an unintelligible apology as she closed the door.
“Get in here, Elena,” Cosima scolded and jumped up to tug her forcibly into the room.
Our eldest sister looked uncomfortable but allowed herself to be maneuvered by Cosima so that we lay in a row with Cosima at our center, connecting us but tactfully giving us the space we nee
ded with each other.
“We were talking about men.”
“Ah.”
“Giselle had a little fling in Mexico.”
“Really?” Elena’s brows almost touched her hairline. “That doesn’t seem like you.”
Anger rushed through me like a brush fire before I settled it with a deep, careful, breath. “It isn’t but I’m glad I went through with it. I want to be more bold.”
“There’s a thin line between bold and reckless,” Elena said in her schoolmarm voice, the same tone I had heard countless times as a child and the same tone I still heard every time I faced a potentially thrilling situation, always cautioning me to stay safe.
“Oh come on, Lena, it’s only a harmless fling.” Cosima winked one of her golden eyes at me. “And besides, you of all people can’t blame a girl for falling for a pretty face.”
“True.”
“Daniel was a model for a few years.” Cosima laughed at the expression of prudish disapproval on our sister’s face. “That’s how we met.”
I remembered Sinclair’s terse expression when he brought up his own short lived modeling career and even though I didn’t know his foster parents, a flare of hatred burned up my throat. I was grateful to Mama for not pressuring Cosima into the profession but that didn’t mean my little sister didn’t carry invisible scars on her pretty gold skin.
“Wait till you meet him, over the last few years he’s become even more stern.” Cosima made a face, comically constipated looking, before dissolving into laughter. “If Elena didn’t make him have Bran cereal every morning, I’d think he was having serious issues.”
I laughed, scooting from the bed as I did so. I indicated pouring some wine and moved towards the door when I got their nods of approval. It was a rare conversation amongst our family that didn’t include a bottle of wine.
“Very funny.” Elena smiled indulgently at our favorite sibling. “I should get out there, he’ll be here soon.”
“Where was he this time?” Cosima asked, idly running a hand through Elena’s short, elegantly curled tresses.
“Mexico,” she said as I closed the door behind me and made my winding way back into the large kitchen at the front of the house.
It was an open space punctuated with a large wooden island over which Mama’s prize copper pots and pans resided on a sort of rustic trellis. The cabinets were an unfinished birch and the gleaming countertops were cool under my questing fingers as I sought out the clay pitcher of red wine Mama kept filled at all times.
I smiled at the sounds of laughter from the main room and for the first time that night, I relaxed enough to stop worrying about Sinclair. The decision to leave him without a word would plague me for the rest of my life, I knew, but at least for this first month in a new city, surrounded by my loving family, I would have plenty of opportunities to take my mind off of it.
I was pouring out three glasses of wine when I felt the prickle of awareness race up my spine. There was the soft fall of shoes crossing the wooden floors and then the heat of another body pressed close to my back. Somehow, though I didn’t know how it could be possible, when I turned around to face the stranger it was my Frenchman.
“What are you doing here?” he snapped, his eyes blazing.
He looked at ease in the space. His crisp shirt was still pristine and tucked into his charcoal grey pants but it was open at his throat to reveal a deep slice of brown skin, the cuffs were rolled hastily over his forearms and his jacket hung across his shoulder casually as if he had just taken it off to relax. Even though I had just seen him this morning, the sight of him in my Mama’s kitchen threw into stark relief just how absurdly good looking he was.
“Well?” he growled when I didn’t immediately answer.
I couldn’t believe that he was here. My mind spun wildly, trying to confirm his presence. It seemed more probable that I was imagining him. I had the strongest urge to reach out and run my fingers through his glossy red brown hair.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, afraid he would disappear.
Confusion crossed his face but something like horror came over his features and he croaked, “Elle… Giselle Moore.”
About Giana Darling
Giana Darling is a Canadian romance writer currently writing the third in The Evolution of Sin series. After living in the French Alps, Paris and various places on both coasts of Mexico, she lives in the gorgeous city of Vancouver, British Columbia with her Chef best friend and a cat named Persephone. When she isn’t writing, she hosts dinner parties, travels extensively and reads like it is going out of style.
She couldn’t have written The Affair without the loving support of her best friend Belle and Kevin’s constant cheerleading. Many thanks go to Najla Qambar of Najla Qamber Designs for the gorgeous cover, Mark My Books Publicity for the blog tour and those bloggers who took the time to read and review my book and my beta readers Cassie Fite and Angela Plumlee.
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The Affair (The Evolution Of Sin #1) Page 18