by Kira Graham
She’s not an easy person, but she’s also not a monster. She is well liked—or was well liked—by everyone who knows her. People often laughed off her temper tantrums and cursing as just Sin being Sin, and I once heard a customer—someone she’d cussed out in front of the other patrons for daring to ask for salt—laugh and comment that she was the best chef, if somewhat temperamental, and that he’d still wait three years to eat her food because it’s that good.
It really is. I’ve been blessed enough to eat at Helos once, and I will never forget that night. I have never experienced anything as good as Sinai’s cooking, and that’s saying something because my ma is a magician when it comes to food.
So here’s the million-dollar question that’s plagued me all night. What is going on with this woman that she’s lost suppliers, staff, and lifelong friends in the last few months? And more importantly, why would a woman who’s yelled from the rooftops that she doesn’t want me, look at me with such longing that I could feel it like a physical touch?
Even now, while I drink my scotch and watch Sin shudder her way through a series of dainty sips, her eyes are fixed on me, almost as if against her will, and what I see there isn’t just regret or a plea for forgiveness; it’s want. Sinai Sweet wants me. So why push me away so hard that I can still feel the bruises from her assault?
“What happened, Sin? Did you suddenly find yourself in the driver’s seat with no idea how to drive stick?” I taunt, disappointment filling me when she looks away instead of reacting to my barbs.
“I guess.”
“Sin—”
“I guess that I just…don’t want to do this anymore,” she says softly, her lip trembling before she firms up her mouth and meets my eyes. “That’s why I’m sitting here going through the last invoices and receipts. Here,” she says, clearing her throat when the word comes out as a croak.
I pause in the middle of my next sip and slowly lower the glass to the gleaming bar when she slides an envelope my way. Something about the way her eyes lose focus, and the way her jaw is clenched, tells me not to open the envelope, and yet, I take it and do just that, my mouth falling open as I read words that I never thought I’d see.
“This is a resignation letter.”
“Yup.”
“You’re quitting Helos?” I ask, so shocked that I find myself struggling to find words.
I’m not just shocked, though; I’m pissed. This can’t be happening! I was coming back to patch things up and use my time with Sin to seduce her. There are plans at stake here, goals that I am determined to meet, and I won’t ever realize any of those goals if she quits and walks away, I think, a sense of desperation filling me when I meet her eyes and see just how serious she is. She’s giving up, I think. She’s…cracked. No, my heart whispers, that ever-present ache, which I’ve been ruthlessly drowning out, panging in my chest. She’s…breaking. She’s…
“I need some time off after the monumental fuck-up that I’ve made of things lately. I was, uh, thinking about taking Zeus up on his offer and taking some time off on that Greek island of his,” she says, her mouth tipping into a rueful smile. “The last time I was there, I didn’t get to stay all that long.”
Oh, I remember. The day we arrived on that island was the very same day that most of us left. After Sin treated me to an unfiltered, honest, and nut-blasting lecture about just how much she didn’t want me.
“You can’t quit,” I tell her, ignoring the lead-in she’s trying to use to give me yet another useless apology.
I’ve heard it all from her, every apology and every excuse she’s given me, but none of them hold water, I think, the thought slamming into me with the force of an eighteen-wheeler. That’s what has been bugging me. I don’t actually believe any of the excuses she’s given for the way she treated me, because, first and foremost, Sin and I were friends. And as her friend, I know her well enough to finally realize that that wasn’t her on the day she yelled those things at me. Nothing that she said then, or that she’s done since, is something that she would normally do.
Which once again leads to the question of what is going on with this woman, and what exactly drove her to lose it the way she did. Nothing can absolve her in any way for what happened between us, because, at the end of the day, she did hurt me, and she did it using the one thing about me that I can’t escape. My optimism. I believed wholeheartedly that if I kept at it and showed Sin that we’d be great together, she’d finally cave.
And she should have. She was so close to giving in and giving us a chance. So why didn’t she? I ask myself silently, watching her struggle with whatever emotions she’s fighting at the moment.
“I can. I have to. Look at this place!” she yells, waving back toward the empty restaurant. “We aren’t open on Mondays, but there are usually at least five other people here even when things are quiet. Usually. Now, there’s no one left, and that’s all my fault. Sandra refuses to work when she doesn’t have to, and she’s taken to calling in sick twice a week or giving me some excuse as to why she can’t come in. The servers are mostly all gone, working down at Giovanni’s, and even Rhett has threatened to walk out on me. I’m running this place into the ground, Paris. This is all me,” she whispers, her voice choked up. “It would be better for Helos, and for me, if I just walked away now and focused on…other stuff.”
“Like what? This place has been your dream since you were too young to work. You’ve busted your ass here, working your way up, for years. What about that star, huh? This is the best shot you’ll ever have at getting one, and suddenly you’re done?” I challenge her, fear and panic filling me.
She can’t just walk out. If she walks away, then I don’t have any chance at…what? I ask myself. It’s not as if I see Sin and me falling in love and finally getting married. That dream is over for me, and not just because she hurt me, but because it’s finally hit home that sometimes, love doesn’t conquer all. For a guy like me, who has believed in love and romance ever since Ma got me hooked on The Princess Bride—fuck me, I will never live it down if people know that shit—it’s been a hard pill to swallow, but one that I’ve finally choked down. Sometimes, there is no such thing as “happily ever after,” and sometimes, fate isn’t so much a good thing as it is a noose around your neck. Yeah, so maybe I’ve taken things a little far by partying every night, drinking myself blind, working myself into the ground, and inuring myself to reality, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t get something out of…whatever this thing is between Sin and me. Because there is something, and I know that now more than ever, when I meet her eyes and see just how lost she is.
“I was done months ago. I just didn’t admit it until now,” she says sadly, shaking her head. “I don’t want that stuff anymore.”
“Why?” I demand, a light sweat popping out on my brow, because I’m sinking here.
Every plan I spent last night making is falling apart at the seams. For anything to go the way I want it to, Sin has to be here, with me, every single day.
“Because sometimes, there’s more to life than you realize, and then when you do, it’s too late.”
“Sinai—”
“With regard to the contract I signed, I have to give you three months to find another chef and train them according to the way Costa stipulated. Now, as Rose would put it, that contract is bullshit, and I could walk after a month if I wanted, but it’s what I agreed to when I took this job, and so I will stick to it, if that’s what you want.”
“Of course it is.”
The only trouble is…I don’t think that I even know what I really want.
Chapter Three
Sinai
“That one would look killer on you,” Tee muses as I pull the pink silk sheath dress off the hanger and hold it out to inspect the cut.
I snort at the sarcastic tone that she injects into her statement and glance over to where Cleo is standing in front of a full-length mirror, sweating bullets and shaking so badly that I would feel sorry for her—if I had
it in me to lie.
“This is the last dress that I am buying for this wedding that is never going to happen,” I grumble, hissing when Rosetta pinches my hip hard enough to draw blood.
“You shut your stupid mouth and keep smiling before she takes off again. The last time I chased her down, I had to run two fucking blocks, in heels, and almost got my ass knocked over. Don’t even talk to me about the lecture I got from the security guys who had to chase after us. And don’t you even get me started on the hour-long scream-fest I got from both Z and Adonis for failing to anticipate Cleo’s Running Man impression,” she growls through a smile that looks so fake that I blink when Cleo smiles back and takes a breath to calm herself.
It’s a running joke in the family that Cleo and Adonis won’t ever make it down that aisle. Not because Cleo doesn’t love her man, because she loves him so much that it’s almost sickening to witness, but rather because my cousin has what I would call “a psychotic abhorrence of weddings.” She’s deathly afraid of getting married, even though she’s admitted that she really does want to. Over the last year or so, she’s sabotaged no fewer than five of her own weddings, as well as planning an elopement that won’t ever happen unless she wants her mom to hunt her down like a wild animal—or worse, wants her daddy, my Uncle Jack, to break down in a never-ending fit of crying.
In short, I’ve got myself five—no, wait, six—no, wait…dammit, I have a closet full of unworn bridesmaid dresses that likely won’t ever see the light of day, because either I’m going to burn them all in a symbolic gesture to break the curse of Cleo, or I’m going to kill Cleo.
“I’m just saying that this is never going to happen. Come on, guys—last month she set the church on fire!” I hiss, my memory of it still clear enough that I have to cross myself and ask Jesus for forgiveness. Again.
Which would make this the two thousand seventh time that I’ve begged him to forgive the fact that I had to pull down my panties, squat, and take a piss on the altar in order to put out the fire that Cleo set. I’m going to hell; I just know that I’m going to hell for urinating on the Lord’s holy altar! Fuck you, Cleo!
“Correction: some poor, misguided soul, who is probably homeless and drinks his own urine, attempted to set the church on fire. Cleo made a fifty-thousand-dollar donation, out of the goodness of her heart, when she heard that the church was in need of repairs,” Rosetta tells me in a hard tone that matches the glint in her eyes.
Did I say that I am scared of Tee, because she’s a little insane and violent? Well, that is nothing compared to what I feel when I have to meet Rosetta’s eyes. She’s my cousin, I love her, and I would dig a grave in order to hide evidence if she needed me to, but there’s no denying that there’s something not quite right about the woman. As a lawyer—yeah, it’s true: some misguided schmuck gave this bitch the right to practice law!—she’s very much concerned with the evidentiary side of any legal battle that our family may have to defend themselves against. In other words, as far as she’s concerned, the only evidence of Cleo’s pyromania would be one of us opening our mouths and then promptly becoming a corpse, because I do fully believe that if anyone ever narcs, Rosetta will kill them.
Gulp.
“The harder Adonis pushes for this wedding, the more Cleo is losing her mind,” I point out, hissing again when Rosetta digs her claws further into my hip and gives me a threatening glare.
“Cleo will be just fine, Sinai. Now, instead of harping on the details of a dress that you know you like, why don’t you tell me what the story is with you and Paris? I hear that someone’s been writing sad, unrequited love stories in her diary.”
“Tee!”
“What? I was bored, and we ran out of things to talk about after I threatened to kill Rosetta if she didn’t stop talking about the sex things that she does to Zeus,” Tee whines, grinning when I huff, close my eyes, and openly pray for God to strike me down.
Right this minute, I could go to hell for unatoned sins, like pissing on the altar, and it would still be better than being trapped between Rosetta and Nefertiti, who both want answers—and details—about my private life.
Not that I have one. After I handed that resignation letter to Paris two days ago and had to listen to him ranting at me for over ten minutes—neither the cops nor Paris can prove that I hit him over the head with a half-full bottle of scotch, but what, like I was supposed to just stand there listening to him, while fighting the need to cry—
“Sinai!”
“Rosetta—”
“I have that diary. If you don’t talk to us, I will totally give it to Honey and your mom, and then send copies to every Hart brother,” she threatens, causing me to gulp as my asshole shrivels.
She’d do it, too, and the sad part of my fear is not that I’m afraid of being humiliated when Paris reads my maudlin bullshit; it’s that I’m terrified of Honey!
“You wouldn’t,” I breathe, my eyes bulging so that I have to reach up to make sure that they’re still in their sockets.
As a very Emma-Stone-esque-looking redhead, Rosetta is as attractive as hell. Until you look into her eyes and realize that she’s evil. I know she’d do it. She would totally make copies of my diary and give them out to people.
“Puh-lease, bitch, I’ve already had the pages bound in fine Italian leather. Call it an early Christmas present for Uncle Jack,” she taunts, making even Tee gasp.
Of all the Sweets, I fear Jack the most—but not because he’s violent, because he isn’t violent unless one of his “babies” gets hurt. No, my fear of Jack stems from his emotional operas. Let me explain. My Uncle Jack gave each and every one of us Sweet girls the sex talk, the period talk, and then the STD talk, which was basically part and parcel of the sex and period talks, anyway. He’s been to my every game and graduation, and he even showed up on my doorstep the morning after I lost my V-card to Bruce Dickens. To put it mildly, while not going too heavily into who Uncle Jack is, I’ll just say that he’s like the emotional version of Nathan Lane, with definite opinions about what is and isn’t good enough for his girls. Once, Uncle Jack offered to buy a mall for me, when I mentioned that I like shopping but hate all the people walking around in crowds. True story.
So, yeah—hearing Rosetta threatening to send Uncle Jack a leather-bound copy of my diary is basically like signing Paris’s death warrant. Or our marriage certificate.
“You are going to burn in hell for the things you do, Rosetta,” I warn her, slumping down onto the couch and grabbing a glass of champagne just as Cleo turns around, a frown on her face.
“This dress is totally blah, right?” she asks desperately, groaning when all four of us shake our heads, and Alex titters.
“It’s perfect. Stop being such a fucking ass about this and admit that this is the perfect dress.”
“But—but I don’t want this to be the perfect dress! I can’t shred the perfect wedding dress. That would be, like…monstrous,” Cleo breathes, and I see real tears shining in her eyes until Rosetta gives Alex the signal to bustle her off to the dressing room, get her out of the dress—which will be carefully bagged and paid for—and into something so hideous that she’ll finally calm down.
Once they’re gone, Rosetta runs back to me, as does Tee, the two fiends caging me in so that I’m left trapped and reaching for the champagne bottle, like I should have been doing in the first place.
“Spill it, sister! I read all that disgusting and sweetly sad bull hockey that you wrote about Paris, which makes me want to throttle you and ask, if you were already into him, then why did you pull such a bitch move on him?” she yells, her pink lipstick smudging her teeth when she peels her lips back to sneer at me.
Gulp. Gulp. Oh, my God. I should run.
“Rosetta—”
“Is it because you’re still tripping over that Cole guy?”
“How the hell do you know—Nefertiti, you stinking narc!” I yell, clutching the bottle so hard that my knuckles turn white.
“Hey! It w
asn’t me. Didn’t mention that asshole to her—I swear on my mother’s life,” she vows, grinning when Rosetta and I both snort and shake our heads.
Tee swears on her mother’s life all the time—to the point where I am convinced that she really does want the poor woman to drop down dead, because we all know that at least eighty percent of the time, she’s lying through her teeth and totally guilty of whatever crime she’s being accused of. Case in point: tomorrow she’s going to attend a mediation because her PA has accused her not only of threatening her with bodily harm, on more than one occasion, but also of committing actual assault. If I remember correctly, and I probably do, Tee’s looking at paying the woman off to the tune of something around seventy grand, and is currently on what her partners are calling “a little holiday.” A suspension, in other words. Funny, since I’m almost certain that I saw Tee and her PA, Gladdy, having coffee together yesterday morning.
Freaks.
“It wasn’t her. I, uh…so you know how I’m super concerned about everyone in the family? People I love?” Rosetta begins, making me groan and roll my eyes.
“Please tell me that you aren’t having me followed.”
“What? No, of course not. What kind of freak do you take me for? I pay the guys on your security team to take photos of anything that they think I may need to know about, is all,” she scoffs, grinning when I shriek softly and start to chug from the bottle still in my hand.
“That’s stalking,” Tee points out, waving suggestively at the security team standing outside the exclusive boutique.
She likes to flirt with them, which is hilarious, because Tee would never go for a man, or men, who play by the rules the way the security guys do. Hell, it’s all she can do to tolerate their following us all around.
“It’s called keeping my finger on the pulse.”