The Consequence
The Evolution Of Sin Trilogy. Book Three.
Copyright 2016 Giana Darling
Published by Giana Darling at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table Of Contents.
Title Page.
Table Of Contents.
Dedication.
Prologue.
Chapter One.
Chapter Two.
Chapter Three.
Chapter Four.
Chapter Five.
Chapter Six.
Chapter Seven.
Chapter Eight.
Chapter Nine.
Chapter Ten.
Chapter Eleven.
Chapter Twelve.
Chapter Thirteen.
Chapter Fourteen.
Chapter Fifteen.
Chapter Sixteen.
Chapter Seventeen.
Chapter Eighteen.
Chapter Nineteen.
Chapter Twenty.
Chapter Twenty One.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Chapter Twenty Three.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Chapter Twenty Five.
About Giana Darling.
Thanks Etc.
Dedication.
To the French, who taught me the language of love.
Prologue.
Sinclair
Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
Blaise Pascal was a fucking genius. Then again, he was French and my countrymen knew a thing or two about being in love.
Therefore, it should stand to reason that I may have inherently known a thing or two about love as well but the idea that love could outweigh logic had never occurred to me. It could have been because I couldn’t remember much about my birth parents, my Roma mother and her French husband who both died mere months apart when I was seven years old. Willa and Mortimer Percy had adopted me when I was sixteen but our family was one of deliberate choice, calculated divination. They loved me in their own way, I think, but it was a secondary emotion. A result of pride and cultivation, the way Frankenstein might have loved his monster.
Then there was the love of Elena Lombardi.
She loved me for the reasons I loved myself: my drive and work ethic, my reasonability and sophistication. I enjoyed her company and coveted her mind; the twisted turns it took to shortcut the obstacles in our road to success. She was dark beneath the veneer, hiding away the same inherent ruthlessness I had been born with, and even though we never spoke about the deep-seated ugliness that poverty had wrought on our souls, it was a comfort to both of us just knowing it existed.
The truth is, we saw in each other the ideal partner for our ideal selves and for years, it was enough because it never occurred to me to ask for more, for the kind of love my kinsmen waxed poetic about…
… and then I saw her.
It wasn’t love at first sight. That implies my response to her was subtle and warm, something easy and quintessentially human.
No, the moment I saw Giselle Moore sitting curled up and vulnerable with sickness and fear in the first class cabin of that plane, my humanity - the class and refinery that I had cultivated for years - sloughed off me like molted skin and revealed the heart of the animal I secretly knew myself to be.
My heartbeat roared in my ears and my groin tightened with a desire so fierce, I almost doubled over. Only one thought reverberated through my head like a fucking mantra.
Take her.
Take her.
Own her.
I felt the pulse of the words in my blood as it scorched through my body and ricocheted off the walls of my heart. I wanted her. It was primal and fiercer than anything I’d ever experienced before. It took every ounce of civilization I had left in me to approach her politely, to keep my twitching hands in my lap instead of spreading them all over her luminous pale skin.
At first, she was reserved with me, barely allowing her eyes to slide my way. I took the time to visually devour her, noting how the golden freckles across her shoulders and cheeks contrasted with the olive tint of her complexion, how her auburn hair glowed like copper under the dim cabin lights. And when she finally met my gaze, I stared hard into her eyes, wide and pure as silver dollars.
I found myself jealous of her smiles, wanting to own them for myself. When I leaned over her, the smell of her lavender and honey fragrance intoxicated me. The soft brush of her aroused breath against my skin nearly made me lose control.
I knew even as I left her behind on the plane that meeting her had changed my life but I never could have guessed how much.
I wasn’t a man that believed in fate but when she showed up at The Westin in Los Cabos, I couldn’t say I was surprised. It solidified the proposal that had waited poised on the tip of tongue since I had first laid eyes on her– a weeklong affair to purge myself of this egregious need for her. Those torturous hours while I had waited for her answer were some of the longest of my life and they set the precedent for the weeks of indecision that followed, horrific bouts of self-loathing peppered with moments of such clear, bright joy that they obliterated all memory of shame and hatred.
Now, here I was, rearranging everything I had always known and thought I wanted, to make space for my siren, my Elle. The mantra that had infiltrated my head like a siren’s song from our first meeting had only intensified, sunk into my bones and saturated my blood. I couldn’t take a breath without feeling her in the previously unused muscles of my heart.
Look at me; she’d even turned me into a fucking poet, a true Frenchman when I’d forsaken my homeland years ago.
I was jeopardizing my reputation and therefore my career, and polarizing the only family that had ever really cared for me. Worst of all, I was forcing the love of my life to choose me over her sister.
Do you want to know the worst thing about this cluster fuck of a situation?
I didn’t care.
Everything I had loved before Elle paled in comparison to my need for her. The thought of anything getting in the way of being with her both incensed me and perversely excited me because I knew I would eviscerate it.
It wasn’t rational and it was completely out of character but as my compatriot Blaise Pascal said, “the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.” And since the moment I met Giselle Moore, my heart had stopped being mine to reason with.
Which was how I found myself opening the door to my suite and temporary home at the St Regis with a completely idiotic smile on my face - high on my courage, exhilarated for the first time in my life at the prospect of my future because a gorgeous redhead by the name of Giselle Moore had just promised to be in it indefinitely - only to find my ex-girlfriend at the door.
It was obvious that Elena had come directly from the airport by the large canvas bag she carried over one shoulder. She was still wearing one of her power suits, an inky black ensemble from head to toe that was meant to detract from her femininity. Instead, it highlighted her delicate beauty like a neon pen. She looked polished and gorgeous, not at all heartbroken.
“Daniel, we need to talk,” Elena demanded. “I don�
�t care if it’s a bad time. I’m not leaving until you hear me out.”
It was a bad time.
The worst.
It was fucking awful because I had just shared the most extraordinary night of my life with the woman I had finally convinced to be mine and she was currently tucked away within hearing distance of this very conversation, wearing only a post-coital smile and the scent of our sex on her skin.
Anxiety pricked my skin like a thousand hot needles. I couldn’t afford to lose her, not after tasting, however briefly, the possibility of a future with her.
Giselle Moore was mine. And I wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of that.
Not even her sister.
“I appreciate that we need to talk, Elena, but now isn’t a good time,” I said, widening my stance so that I blocked most of the doorway.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s eleven thirty at night, you can spare ten minutes to talk to the woman you devoted the last four years of your life to,” she snapped.
I gritted my teeth against a brief flare of guilt as she brushed pass me into the suite. She stopped in front of the couch, delicately placing her coat, bag, and Prada purse there before facing me again with her hands clasped before her. Even in her righteous indignation, Elena comported herself like a princess. She was heartrendingly beautiful, with a face like a renaissance painting and a spine made of titanium steel. If I had never met Giselle, I knew I would have stayed with Elena for the rest of my life. It would have been so much simpler that way.
And yet, the thought was singularly depressing.
Giselle brought my ordered black and white life into color with her passionate strokes and exceptional love. There was no going back from something like that.
I crossed my arms. “I leave for Paris early tomorrow morning.”
“I just got back,” she said, as if that made it unacceptable for me to leave.
I didn’t say anything.
“Fine, that just means it is even more imperative that we talk now.”
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I considered the wisdom of either just kicking her out or hashing it out with her. I was well aware that Giselle was in the bedroom listening to our every word. It might do her good to realize how serious I was about leaving Elena, to hear some of the things I needed to say. And a large part of me realized that Elena needed the opportunity to discuss her feelings with me. When I had ended things with her last week, she barely spoke, barely even moved. She just sat perched on the edge of the couch with her hands demurely held in her lap. I deserved a thorough tongue lashing at the very least, even a good hard slap or two across the face. It was, pathetically, the least I could do to ease her pain.
“Okay, take a seat. Can I get you some water?” I asked, moving forward towards the bar to pour myself a much-needed drink.
I had briefly tidied up the suite before answering the door, more out of habit than anything else and I was intensely grateful for my compulsion now. Still, I cast my eyes about the room, spotting the neat pile of Giselle’s clothes partially hidden under the coffee table on the other side from Elena.
Fuck.
I composed my features and carefully slid my gaze to her. Thankfully, taking her seat and smoothing the immaculate black pants over her thighs preoccupied her.
“A whiskey, please.”
I nodded curtly, two cold glasses of liquor on the rocks already in my hands as I skirted the coffee table. I kicked Giselle’s purple garter belt further into the shadows as I moved past to sit on the chair adjacent to Elena.
She accepted the tumbler with a tight smile and a sincere ‘thank you’ because her politeness wouldn’t allow for anything else.
“What is it that you would like to say?” I asked, leaning back in my chair and crossing one leg over the other.
Elena’s eyes flickered over the bare skin of my torso as my muscles contracted with movement. She had never been overly effusive about my looks, something I had always been thankful for, but I knew that the sight of me unclothed affected her. Strangely, perhaps, the knowledge did nothing for me.
I wished for Elle’s sake that I was wearing a shirt.
“I want to better understand this early mid-life crisis you seem to be having. I’ve had time to think about it and I can see that your company’s expansion could be putting too much stress on our relationship.” I opened my mouth to speak but she held up her hand. “We both have one hundred hour work weeks and even though our professions have always come first, we need to remember to take time for us.”
I knew she must have taken the time to read articles and books about our situation: what-to-do-when-your-partner-leaves-you-unexpectedly and how-to-breath life-back-into-your-relationship psychology dissertations and magazine findings. When Elena was faced with a problem, she researched the hell out of it so that when the opportunity arose she could beat it to death with thought and theory. I knew all of that because even though we weren’t married, for the last four years we had lived like husband and wife. I knew all of the things that made Elena Lombardi frequently intolerable and constantly brilliant. I could see the despair she tried to hide in the lines around her pursed mouth, the helplessness she held tightly in her clasped hands. I was actively destroying her and it was killing me.
It helped to remind myself that it was the least that I deserved.
She offered me a small, shaky smile.
Putain, I was such an asshole.
“It’s too late for that, Elena.”
“It doesn’t have to be. There is no deadline on a relationship, no expiration date. We can work this out. A co-worker recommended an excellent couples councilor.”
“Not interested.”
“Don’t be so closed minded,” she urged, her voice still pleasantly modulated even though her hands had unconsciously curled into fists.
“It’s not a matter of obstinacy. Counseling wouldn’t work for us.”
“How can you know that?”
Because I’m savagely in lust and irrevocably in love with your sister, who, coincidently, is laying naked about fifteen feet away from us in my bed.
“Because we don’t have any issues to work through. We’ve never been passionate with each other, which I always thought was a good thing,” I tried to explain.
“It is,” she agreed eagerly.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, caught the scent of Giselle’s sex lingering on my fingers and fought the urge to lick her off my skin. “It isn’t a good thing for a couple. How can there be erotic love without passion?”
Elena’s lips twisted, then went lax. “Are you saying that you aren’t attracted to me anymore?”
Yes.
Instead, I said, “Have you ever head the Greek term, philia? It describes the love between two warriors or best friends, a partnership based on unswerving loyalty and respect.”
Elena blinked at me. “Are you kidding?”
I spread my hands and shrugged. “The Greeks actually valued it more highly than romantic love.”
Her eyes, just shades darker than Giselle’s, narrowed dangerously. I sounded callous and cruel, as I often did when discussing emotional issues. It was difficult for me to marry the empathy I felt with the logical methodology of my thoughts. Giselle was the only one who gave voice to my mute soul. I wished, irrationally and unfairly, that she was beside me.
“I,” Elena cleared her throat. “I thought we both valued those characteristics. You make our relationship sound so… unfeeling. Maybe I didn’t do a great job of showing it, but you mean the world to me, Daniel.”
Her words pressed around me like a cold iron fist. Was it possible to feel heartbroken even though I was the one ending things? I wanted, no, I needed to be with Giselle but in doing so, I was effectively antagonizing my best friend. Elena and I had never been as perfect as we thought, but we were still a team. I was losing my right hand man and despite how unromantic that may have seemed, it was fucking devastating all the same.
“You mean th
e world to me too,” I said.
But my love for your sister is bigger than the world.
Elena stared at me. She was still waiting for the punch line of a bad joke, for me to laugh and tell her it was all a ruse.
I sat taller in my chair.
It would be unkind to allow her to think she stood a fighting chance of winning me back so even though doing it sickened me, I slaughtered the last of her hope.
“But I’m not in love with you and I’m not going to change my mind about this. I want you to have the Gramercy apartment and the furniture. I’ve moved out the things I wanted to keep and had them put into storage. We never had shared bank accounts, or any other permanent assets.”
A choked sob escaped her lips like the whistle from a punctured balloon. She clapped a hand over her mouth, cleared her throat and resumed her enforced dignity.
I had never wanted to hold her more than I did in that moment.
I cleared my throat too. “I am sorry, Elena. It makes no difference, I know, but I need to tell you that you are my dearest friend. Hopefully, after the dust has settled, we can find that again.”
Elena stared at me impassively for a long time. It was utterly silent throughout the hotel suite but I didn’t allow myself to linger over thoughts of Giselle and what she thought of the entire conversation. That would come later. For now, I owed it to Elena to be present.
I tried to relax the muscles in my face, open my posture up so that she could see how much I was grieving and even, if she was perceptive enough, how little I deserved her understanding.
“You are serious,” she finally breathed.
I nodded.
She took in a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly through a mouth I had kissed a thousand times. It was indescribably strange to look at the woman I had thought myself in love with and feel so devoid of feeling. I was sure it made me a horrible person. I let myself drown in it for a minute.
“Okay,” she stood up swiftly and strode forward to offer me her hand.
I stared at it before clasping it within my own. She had long, lean fingers that stroked piano keys more passionately than they had ever stroked me. I rubbed the back of them with my thumb and it felt absurdly final.
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