“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 needed 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.”
I opened my mouth but no noise would come out, probably because my thoughts kept running into themselves and collapsing. I cleared my throat, about to ask something when Elena came in from the hall, obviously looking for him. “Oh good, you’re here.”
She walked briskly over to him and planted a perfunctory kiss on his cheek. He was still staring at me, a stunned expression on his arresting features. And as Elena tucked herself into his side, I finally understood why.
“Giselle, this is my partner Daniel Sinclair.” Her voice was cool, carefully devoid of the Italian accent the rest of the family still maintained.
A loud sound thrummed through my ears, a crackling, creaking and thunderous noise akin to a burning building falling in on itself. I hadn’t known that heartbreak was audible but – I swallowed hard against the rise of sobs in my throat – I discovered that, apparently, it was. I didn’t have time to fully absorb the behemoth emotion because Elena was staring at me as if I had grown three heads.
An awkward moment ensued where we all stared at each other but finally, my face flaming with embarrassment, I stepped forward with my hand extended.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“You are supposed to be a scrawny brunette,” Daniel asserted as he quickly took my hand in his.
Even though the connection was brief, desire vibrated through my core. Irritated, I took a step forward and fought the urge to bare my teeth. I couldn’t believe this was happening.
Things like this didn’t happen in real life.
My heart crashed against my ribs and I gritted my teeth as I said, “When I was eighteen maybe.”
He plucked a framed photo off the windowsill behind him, demonstrating a familiarity with Mama’s house that unnerved me.
Thrusting it into my hands he said, “Eighteen?”
It was a picture of me from two years ago, the last time Elena had visited me in Paris. We stood before the Eifel Tower and I had to admit, it was easy to mistake me for someone else. My first few years in Paris, alone, after everything that had happened, were hard on me. Though somehow the family had scrounged up enough money to send me to school, there was little else to spend on food or good clothing. As a result, the twenty two year old me was undernourished, pallid and adorned with hair dyed an unnatural shade of black.
“Twenty two,” I demurred, unable to look up into the blue eyes bearing down on me.
“She went through an awkward phase, Daniel.” Elena took a fresh glass from the cupboard and poured wine as if she was completely oblivious to the tension between us. “All girls do.”
She and Cosima hadn’t, but I didn’t bother to say that.
“I’ve never seen a picture of you,” I spoke quietly, desperately wanting this to be a private conversation. “I don’t have Facebook.”
“Who the fuck doesn’t have a social media account,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous.
Shame flared through me, because it was an omission that my mentor at L’École des Beaux-Arts had harped at me about but growing up in Italy hadn’t instilled a great love of technology in me and honestly, the current social media frenzy kind of freaked me out.
I opened my mouth to snap at him defensively when I noticed that we were close, only a step away from being pressed up against each other, as if we couldn’t stand the space between our bodies even as we reeled from the shock. My heart was fluttering madly but I wasn’t sure if it was with desire or some heady mixture of anger and fear.
I raised my voice and felt it lique
fy with rage. “So, Daniel, you’ve been with my sister four years. What an amazing commitment.”
Suddenly, he loomed over me and I lost my breath when I saw the electricity in his eyes. Thrilled to be sparring, I looked up at him, ready to volley a return when Elena came between us. She pressed a wine glass into Daniel’s hand, frowning at him when he didn’t immediately take it. Finally, with a scowl, he took the glass, put it deliberately down on the table and poured himself a tumbler full of the brandy Mama kept hidden behind the flour in the pantry.
Elena watched him with concern but didn’t say anything. Instead, she tilted the bowl of her wine glass around and around so that it caught the light and cast a red tinted glean against the white wall.
“So, you’re back for good,” he muttered over the rim of the crystal glass as he came to stand before me once again.
I nodded, even more sure of it than I had been before this exchange. I was giddy with nerves, hot with shame and lingering desire for the man who had been my sister’s for the last four years.
“And you are going to help make that happen,” Elena reminded him with a gentle hand on his tense arm and steel in her tone. “You promised to introduce to her to Rossi, remember?”
Daniel’s features softened when he looked down at her, as did hers and I was struck by how perfectly compatible they seemed. It was obvious that they shared a powerful ambition and an iron hard exterior that was impenetrable to most but the very, very lucky.
I swallowed hard; I knew Sinclair better than that.
“I’m sorry, Lena.” He patted her hand and smiled tightly.
Her smile was wider, and I noticed how full her mouth was. “Mexico was hard?”
He nodded and ran a hand through his thick russet mane. Just last night my hands had pulled on those silky strands as I climaxed around him, hoarsely calling his name. “It was necessary.”
“Well, I’m glad it’s finished.” She turned to me and stepped closer against his side for comfort. “It’s so good to have you home after so many years, Giselle. But I have a case going into mediation tomorrow and I’m afraid I have to be off.”
We embraced each other again, and Daniel snared my gaze over her shoulder. We stared intently at each other with my heart thrumming against Elena’s, as if we could somehow discern the beginning of our inexplicable bond and severe it at the base.
“It really is nice to have you home,” Elena murmured once more as she moved away and I caught the flicker of insecurity in the quirk of her lips.
“I’ll get your coat,” Daniel offered, already strolling purposely across the room but she stopped him with a tired wave.
“You just got back, Daniel, and Mama made your favorite Kobe meatballs. Stay.” She walked over to him and placed a tender kiss on the corner of his lips. “I’ll see you at home.”
Daniel’s eyes barely flickered my way, his intractable jaw clenched, before he nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I won’t be late.”
She nodded. “I’ll be up.”
After a quick glance and half a step in my direction, she pushed her arms into a gorgeous black trench coat and left through the front door without looking back.
And I was left with the one man in the world I most wanted to avoid.
Chapter Two.
Obviously, he wasn’t pleased. He stared at me with a severe scowl and it disturbed me that I felt a shiver bite into the sensitive skin at the small of my back. I could hear the murmur and explosion of passionate chatter from the other room but it was muffled in my ears as I strained to remember every detail of our week together. There must have been clues but my lust-saturated memories were hazy. The only thing that kept coming to mind was Sinclair, his laughter as we rolled through the waves, his cool commands as he directed me for his pleasure, the way he had held me so tenderly our last night together. My eyes stung with tears and my throat burned but I kept my jaw locked against the emotions, only taking a moment to acknowledge the irony of my constraint; I had learned it from Sinclair.
“Jesus Christ,” Daniel Sinclair groaned. “I should have known.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I murmured and my voice came to me as if I were underwater.
He paced away from me, putting the counter between us before he faced me again.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything,” he growled, still unwilling to look at me. “This is too fucked for words.”
My mind was whirring stuttering and smoking like a failing engine, making my eyes tear. I coughed to clear my throat and tried to assemble some rational thought. “I don’t know what to say.”
He spun around and swooped down on me, his fists clenched by his sides. “You ran off.”
“Excuse me?”
“You left this morning without a word, Elle.” His breath hissed through his clenched teeth and he took a large step away from me. “Not a bloody word.”
“I thought it would make it easier.”
“And is this what you had in mind?” He glowered at me, those striking brows pulled low over his blazing eyes.
He took my breath away. Even in moments like this.
“I didn’t know,” I shrugged, trying to ease the load of guilt off my shoulders. “I didn’t expect to see you ever again.”
Something powerful darkened those blue eyes I had grown to love so much and I held my breath wondering if my words had hurt him. But before I could say something, he was in front of me again, his cool mask in place.
“Giselle?” Sebastian called from the other room.
We both leapt apart and I let out a shaky laugh, pulling a hand through my hair self-consciously.
“Be out in a second!”
“We can’t do this here,” Sinclair said.
I fisted my hands on my hips and corrected him, “We can’t do this anywhere. You are dating my sister!”
“I’m aware of that. But we need to talk about things before we pretend this never happened.”
Never happened? My heart faltered and almost gave out. How could I forget about him? I caught a glimpse of one of the many family photos lining the wall beside the massive dining room table. Sinclair stood with his arms around Elena and Cosima, his smile small and tight. Anger surged through my blood but I was already so weak with guilt that my voice wasn’t as condemning as I wanted it to be.
“You cheated on my sister, Sinclair. Or should I call you Daniel?”
“It takes two to cheat, Giselle.”
His dark eyes narrowed and I flinched away from the truth of his words.
“I’m not the one with the partner!” I bit out between my gritted teeth.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said in that damn slippery smooth voice. “You knew there was a woman, you just didn’t know who it was.”
Guilt surged through me, tripling my anger. I stalked towards him, my eyes glinting as I caged him in the corner of the kitchen.
“Are you saying this is some kind of lesson in karma?”
He cocked his head slightly, a piece of burnished hair falling into his eyes. “Yes.”
“How can you be so fucking philosophical and calm right now?” I hissed.
I had never been so full of poison in my life. My thoughts were gathering speed hurling into my conscience, sending straight shots of shame directly into my heart. I reached out to grab him and noticed my hand shaking.
He stared at it too before dragging his eyes across the rest of my body. My face flamed as each pass of his gaze evoked a memory of his skin against mine and when his eyes finally met mine, they were bright with something other than hatred or horror.
The murmur of voices grew louder and I heard Mama heralding people into the kitchen to search for me. Sinclair looked to the door, his jaw hardening again. He took a bold step towards me so that my breasts just brushed his lower chest. Despite myself, desire furled deep in my belly.
He stared at me for only a second, but to my sluggishly beating heart, it felt li
ke a lot longer. I sucked in a quick breath when he lifted his hand and brought it with astonishing tenderness to my overheated check, dragging his knuckles down the slope of it in a gesture I had come to yearn for.
“I never stood a chance.” He smiled thinly and brushed his lips against my forehead so lightly I couldn’t be sure he actually touched me.
When he stepped away, I was trembling with a heady combination of longing, regret and anger but before I had a chance to voice it, Sinclair was striding from the room. He collected his coat in the main hall and I heard him run into Cosima. They spoke too swiftly to hear, in a voice too low for me to understand. I was still standing there when the front door closed behind him and Sebastian strolled into the room with Mama on his arm.
They both took one look at me and frowned. Mama rushed to my side and settled me against her soft body, cooing softly in familiar Napoli dialect while Sebastian immediately refilled the empty wine glass beside me on the counter. It was Elena’s but I didn’t protest when he pressed it into my hand. My gut clenched when I realized how much more we had unintentionally shared. Now that Sinclair was gone, I felt hollow and rotten like an old house creaking in a tunneled wind.
Cosima swept into the room with a large smile that immediately dropped into a scowl when she took in the temperature in the room. She glided over to my side and took my face between her warm, dry palms.
“She said something to you, didn’t she?”
Oh God, I almost moaned. Of course, they would think Elena had said something to upset me. It was usually the case. But now, after what I had done, it hit me like Thor’s hammer in the stomach.
“No.” I tilted my face into her left hand and tried to smile. “Jet lag.”
There was silence in the kitchen as my family debated whether or not to press me. They knew better than to believe my deception but I was hoping that they would accept it anyway.
Cosima pursed her lips and shared a look with Sebastian but it was Mama who turned me in her arms and hugged me tight again.
“You go home with Cosima now, bambina, unless you want to stay here with me?” She pulled back to look down at me. Her beauty settled the turmoil currently twisting my stomach into knots.
The Secret (The Evolution Of Sin Book 2) Page 2