The Consequence

by Giana Darling

  “Never,” she said, so softly that at first, I wasn’t sure she had spoken at all.

  “I loved him too much for that and, apparently, he felt the same way.”

  “You began an affair again,” she stated.

  “We began an affair again,” I agreed on a whisper. “We were only physically intimate once or twice before he left her, but either way it was an emotional affair. I don’t know, maybe that’s worse.”

  “Si, it is.”

  I bit my lip so that it wouldn’t tremble and for the first time in years, I spoke to my mother in our native tongue. “On posso vivere senza di lui.”

  I cannot live without him.

  “And he feels this way?” Mama asked.

  The memory of Sinclair declaring his love for me in his office after the horrible Thanksgiving dinner, how impassioned and primal he was in staking his claim on my heart. I knew without having a mirror that the thought of him lit me up like a traffic light.

  “He does.”

  Mama hummed, the way both she and Elena did when they were processing things.

  “I love him more than I have ever loved anyone and,” I swallowed, “he made me love myself too.”

  A long silence followed my words. I could have said more, I could have definitely clarified whom it was that I spoke of and what our future plans entailed but instead, I chewed on my lip. Meanwhile, mama finished shaping the last of the semolina dough and braced her hands on the table. I waited with my heart in my throat for her to look up at me and yet, I was jolted out of my skin when her rich brown eyes found mine.

  They were eyes I had stared into for the majority of my life and her gaze was the one I had grown up looking to for guidance, support and redemption. So, I think a large part of me was expecting to see the acceptance that I had always found there even though I knew what I had done was at least mildly despicable.

  Only, there was no acceptance there.

  No, Mama’s eyes were filled to the brim with disappointment and condemnation.

  “Have you told your sister?”

  The urge to weep clutched me by the throat and held me captive for a minute before I was able to nod.

  “I should go to her,” she said.

  A noise of complete distress, something like a dog’s yelp, leapt from my lips before I could slap a hand over my mouth. I knew she was right. Elena deserved Mama’s time and attention right then more than me. Yet, Mama’s pure dismissal of my admission and obvious guilt hit me like a freight train on repeat. I struggled not to hyperventilate; I didn’t want Mama to take pity on me for medical reasons when she was clearly as disgusted with me as I was by myself.

  “I understand,” I said.

  Mama’s eyes narrowed. I sat still, my posture straight and strong despite my innards caving in on themselves. I remembered Sinclair’s advice about holding strong, remembering that I had made a choice, a premeditated decision to serve the greater happiness of two people, not just myself. It was horrifyingly easy to picture Sinclair five years from then with Elena, his soul subdued and his work his true mistress.

  He belonged with me.

  I tilted my chin higher and said, “I’m willing to accept your judgment, Mama. I’m even willing to accept that for, at least a little while, you might not want to see me.” I couldn’t help the tears that began to race scalding hot down my cheeks but I didn’t let my voice wobble. “I can almost bear the thought of not seeing you and the twins at Christmas and birthdays and for our weekly lunches even though I’ll be miserable without you. But what I could not ever bear, what I will never again even entertain, is the thought of being without Daniel Sinclair. He’s it for me and if he is the only family I have now, I can deal with it, if I have to.”

  She stared at me still, for an eternity. At one point, I began to tremble because my body was physically incapable of maintaining its structure under the crushing weight of her scrutiny.

  “I am glad for that, bambina,” she said softly, “because as you say, for a little bit at least, I will not see you.”

  My lips rolled under my teeth to lock in my scream.

  “I do not mean to punish you for finding love. Love…” she sighed heavily, “I know what a person will do for it and I will never say the consequences are not worth the love. But, Giselle, there will be consequences and loosing me like this is one of them. I cannot speak for the twins,” her face crumpled as she thought about Cosima, slowly recovering in the hospital, “but I have a feeling they will feel the same.”

  I nodded as I slipped off the chair, glad that I hadn’t taken off my coat. She was reacting properly, she was right and I was wrong. I let those words repeat in my mind, finding the words and assembling them so that I grew numb to them.

  “Thank you for listening to me,” I murmured, ducking my head as I turned to leave.

  I had to get out of there before I imploded.

  “Stammi bene, bambina,” she said as I pushed through the swinging door.

  Happily, they swung shut before I started sobbing.

  I felt mildly better when I was out in the street, absorb by the myriad of New Yorkers with better things to do than observe my pity party. Even though I had never in my life felt so utterly devastated, so unbearably raw, I also felt a profound sense of relief. I was glad that I had put myself through the ordeal of Elena and Mama in one day. I couldn’t imagine how long it would take for me to digest this grief, but at least the accusations closest to my heart had been dealt with. Now, I only had to worry about the judgment of my siblings, who I truly believed might be vaguely supportive, and New York as a whole. Daniel Sinclair was a vital part of its high society and I fully expected them to lend their voice to the criticism laid at our doorstep. The thought of more was frankly harrowing and for a while there, as I wandered aimlessly around the city, I seriously wondered if I would have a nervous break down.

  My phone rang in my pocket. I pressed ignore, but not before I saw the line up of notifications across the screen. Sinclair had called me six times and sent two texts.

  Frenchman: No matter what happens. No matter how awful she makes you feel about yourself. Remember the woman I fell in love with. The brave woman with flaming hair and bold eyes, that captivated me from the first. It wasn’t your beauty that drew me in, my love. It was your capacity to feel, to filter every emotion and experience through your body so that you can better understand life. You are so utterly alive that you even succeeded in bringing me to life. Feel for Elena, feel grief for what you have to give up for me (I am more sorry for that than I can say) but then release the grief. If you can forgive me, you can forgive yourself.

  Frenchman: Et aussi, je t’aime. Come home to me when you are ready. I have a surprise that I would like to share with you.

  My heart ached and throbbed like a mortal wound as I read and reread his words standing in the middle of 7th avenue as people jostled and rushed past me. The loneliness that had crippled me like a physical condition my entire life seized me in its iron fist. Memories assaulted me: Cosima leaving followed by Seamus and then Sebastian, arriving alone in Paris to make a new life, fleeing it to get away from the threat of Christopher, the distance that remained between my siblings and I. The agony of solitude whipped around me, swirled me into a vortex of pain and then left, abruptly.

  I placed my hands on my knees and panted lightly from the intensity of my revelation.

  I wasn’t alone any longer and, if I had the strength to accept the repercussions of my relationship with Sinclair, I never had to be again.

  Chapter Fourteen.

  Sinclair was practically vibrating with excitement. His knee bounced up and down under our clasped palms as we sat in the back of the cab that was transporting us to a surprise location. He had seemed incredibly relieved and then uncharacteristically giddy when I’d arrived at the suite, dropped my things and dove into his arms. He’d held me in silence until I collected myself and then he had asked me to go with him somewhere. I didn’t tell him about the ord
eal with my sister and my mother, I wasn’t ready to unleash my grief onto him, but I’d sealed the promise that I’d made myself - to devote myself to our future - with a long kiss.

  “We’re going to Brooklyn?” I asked now, surprised.

  His boyish enthusiasm was immediately snuffed out by the incredulity of my tone and his mask slipped back in place. He raised a cool brow and said, “You dislike Brooklyn?”

  “Not at all.” I smiled. “In fact, I kind of love it. It’s a hipster haven after all.”

  “You are not a hipster,” he said, appalled by the thought.

  I laughed. “No, but I am an artist. I like the grittiness that still lingers here, the cool little shops and the community feel. Besides, this is where we spent our first ‘date’ after we found each other again.”

  His grin was back.

  I shook my head at him as our cab pulled up to a building near the water overlooking the Manhattan skyline. He was out of the car and opening my door before I could pry my eyes away from the gorgeous nightscape.

  “I’ve never seen you like this.”

  He tugged me out of the car and into his arms, one hand firm on my chin so that I was looking up into his eyes. “I’ve never been like this.”

  The air was cold and bitingly fresh in my lungs as he led me to the gorgeous building right beside the Manhattan Bridge overpass.

  “Mr. Sinclair,” a professionally dressed older woman greeted from beside the entrance. “It’s lovely to see you again.”

  “Meagan,” he said, shaking hands with the statuesque blonde. “How are you this evening? I appreciate you meeting us here at such a late hour.”

  She blushed. “Don’t be silly, I’m happy to accommodate you. After all, how much business have you sent our way in the last eight years?”

  He inclined his head to acknowledge her words and tugged me forward by our joined hands. “Meagan this is the woman I was telling you about, Giselle Moore.”

  To my surprise, she beamed at me and took my hand warmly in both of hers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Giselle.”

  “Oh?” I asked, sliding a glance up at Sin.

  “Of course, it’s not often Sinclair can’t shut up about something other than work,” she joked.

  My eyebrows were somewhere startlingly close to my hairline as I stared up at my Frenchman. He raised one of his reddish brows at me haughtily, as if such behavior was to be expected.

  “Who are you and what have you done to my enigmatic, aloof Sinclair?” I asked.

  He chuckled darkly and leaned close to my ear to whisper, “Trust me, your Sinclair is still in here, waiting to have his wicked way with you.”

  I gulped as his words ignited that ever-ready powder keg of desire in the base of my belly.

  “Shall we go in, then?” Meagan was saying as she buzzed through the glass doors and into the lobby.

  I followed mutely after her, listening vaguely as she explained the buildings amenities and the appeal of living in Brooklyn’s trendy DUMBO neighborhood. Sinclair’s thumb swooped rhythmically over mine as he conversed with her in the gorgeous glass elevator that took us impossibly high in the converted boxing warehouse. A sense of impending wonder and anxiety churned in my gut as the doors slid soundlessly open to reveal a massive open concept kitchen and living area.

  My mouth hung open like a flytrap as I stepped into the space, pulled instinctively towards the massive glass faced clock at the center of the far wall. Through the wrought iron face, I could see the entire western layout of Brooklyn. I swiveled around to gape at Sinclair who stood with his hands deep in his pockets, watching me with his usual neutral expression. I caught sight of another identical clock face in the wall perpendicular to me and rushed towards it. This one offered an unparalleled view of the Manhattan Bridge and the sparkling lights of the big city.

  I turned again to Sinclair, unable to speak.

  He stepped into the recessed living room but kept a wide swathe of space between us. Meagan, good real estate agent that she was, made herself scarce.

  “Sinclair, what are we doing here?”

  He pulled a hand through his hair, cleared his throat and shrugged one shoulder. “It is obvious, no?”

  “No,” I said. “Not so much.”

  “If you don’t like it we can find something in Manhattan. I would offer to leave the city entirely but my business is based here and it would take some time to move the base of operations. I thought Brooklyn was a good compromise, a place close to our family and our old lives but a new neighborhood; one we could explore and learn to love together. We wouldn’t run the risk of constantly running into people we knew.”

  He stepped forward slowly, as if he was approaching a cornered animal. When I bristled at his touch, I realized I was giving him reason to act like that. Struggling to relax, I gave him my hand so that he could lead me towards the staircase.

  “It’s rather large; three floors and three bedrooms,” he explained as we ascended the stairs to the second level. “I know it might be hard to imagine our lives here so I took the liberty of labeling a few things.”

  I moved forward silently to read the large label on the master bedroom door, Our Room. Swallowing a sob, I explored further, finding each closet labeled his and hers, a drawer marked Giselle’s sexy underwear and another fishing attire in Sinclair’s neat, sloping script. A sticky note on the main wall was a placeholder for a yet untitled work of art by Giselle Moore. I want to sleep beneath your art - read the caption.

  Crying now, I left the bedroom to explore the rest of the floor. The guest bedroom was equipped with a list of approved guests - Cage, Seb, Cosima, Brenna, Santiago and Katarina but under no circumstances Stefan Kilos. There were random red sticky notes on floor length glass windows, in closets, on the glass elevator doors and the banister that merely promised sex here. I laughed wetly through my tears, aware that Sinclair was following behind me at a respectful distance. He would be nervous but of course, he put my feelings first.

  God, I loved him.

  And that was before I stepped in front of the other bedroom’s closed door and frowned at the lack of a label.

  “I wanted to explain this one before we went inside,” Sin said from behind me; close enough to touch but deliberately avoiding it.

  “I want you to understand that this isn’t me trying to rush you into anything. Honest to fucking God, I didn’t even know if we would survive the night. This is me showing you what I’ve had a hard time telling you, what I’ve never had to tell anyone before. I love you, Elle. I love you like there is a second heart inside my chest that beats just for you.”

  One of his cool hands found my hip while the other pushed open the door before us. I held my breath as we took three steps in tandem into the room.

  A purple sticky note on the wall opposite us read - baby’s room?

  I felt my body light up like a flare, leaving only my heart bloody and beating loudly on a pile of ash on the floor. All thought, all reservations, fell away as if they had never subsisted and all I felt was shock and awe.

  “We are going to be faced with a lot of acrimony for making the decision to be together but I know we can get through it. And on the other side of all those obstacles, is a future where we belong to each other and we can have whatever life we want together. Mon amour pour toi est aussi plus grand que le monde.”

  My love for you is bigger than the world.

  It was. Our love was something colossal, so heavy and uncompromising that it ground to dust everything that stood before it. It had its own gravitational force, wrote its own law of physics and code of morality. It was separate from anything that had ever existed before us and would ever exist after.

  How could I ever have thought it possible to walk away from him?

  I walked over to the wall and gently unpeeled the sticky note, folding it before putting it in my pocket. Sinclair watched me, his anxiety like static in the air. My Frenchman wasn’t used to giving up power and I loved that he was
doing it for me.

  My feet carried me back to him as if on a cloud. I placed my hand firmly over his heart, felt the quick patter of his pulse, and smiled up at him.

  “Too much?” he asked with a wry twist of his lips.

  I canted my hips against him, moved his arms around my waist so that he was holding me. “Never.”

  “I want to move in immediately,” he warned but his hands clamped over my hips and pressed me closer against him.

  “Yes,” I agreed, licking at the pulse that was beginning to throb in his neck.

  He groaned. “Should we christen our new bedroom, my siren?”

  “Isn’t Meagan downstairs?”

  He leaned back to look at me with cold, demanding eyes. “Does that matter?”

  I shivered in anticipation. “No, sir.”

  “Good girl.”

  I wanted to spend the night in our new apartment but we didn’t even have a bed yet so Sinclair convinced me to go back to the St. Regis but he promised me that we could move in the very next week as long as I was okay with his interior designer decorating the place for us to expedite things. I’d never had my own home before so I was eager to leave my stamp on things but I understood Sin’s desire to rush, having a permanent place of our own lent our precariously placed relationship a stability that we both desperately wanted. So, Sin sent me Emma Meyers email and we were already communicating about color schemes and designs. I took a liking to her immediately, especially as she was originally from London and understood my desire for a European style home.

  I looked up from the screen of my phone, drawn by the feeling of Sin’s eyes on me. He stared at me from over the thin sheets of the New York Times, his eyes aglow with love and the morning light filtering in through the windows. Even though we were in the States again, we still tried to have a coffee together every morning before heading out separate ways.

  “What are you staring at?” I asked, playfully annoyed.

  “The love of my life.”

  Heat suffused my cheeks. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re almost unbearably romantic?”