Elena: Guest bedroom is made up. Left a key with the receptionist, please let yourself in.
I sighed, and was about to put my phone away when another text came in.
The Frenchman: Please don’t worry about tonight. And, more importantly, please think of me during your ‘date’.
I grinned, shook my head and tucked my phone in my bag just as I reached the long line leading into Prune.
Ulrich Wick was an incredibly nice guy.
He was also incredibly dull.
“I tried to explain how important the discrepancies were to the overall dynamic of the company’s infrastructure,” he continued, “but of course, it was beyond comprehension for someone with such a pea sized intellect.”
“Of course,” I murmured, looking down at the salad he had ordered for me without my consent. Prune had so many delicious things on the menu that I had felt robbed when I arrived to see him already seated, our orders in place. I had spent the last twenty minutes watching him daintily consume a plate of spaghetti alla carbonara and it was torture.
Not to mention the endless conversation about corporate accounting.
“You wouldn’t know either though, I suppose, being a painter.” He smiled at me, and the worst thing was that it was a pretty smile, a truly kind one despite his patronizing words.
“Oh, excuse me for a moment but I believe that is Willa Percy coming this way.” Ulrich pushed ungracefully out of his chair, exhibiting more passion in the single movement then in our entire hour-long brunch. I couldn’t understand his enthusiasm, I had met Willa Percy and she was not passion inducing.
“Mrs. Percy, it is lovely to see you again,” Ulrich gushed, reaching out with both hands.
Willa’s eyes weren’t on my date though. Her stare pinned me in place so that she could get a really good look at every inch of me, finding fault with my freckled skin, overdramatic curves and harlot red hair.
But instead of burning shame, of comparing myself to my flawless sisters, I thought about Sinclair, the only person in the Percy family I cared about. I thought about the map his hands, lips, and body had drawn over my skin in the last twenty-four hours and suddenly, Willa’s scrutiny didn’t matter anymore.
Ulrich was still talking and Willa was indulging him with miniscule facial ticks, but eventually he noticed the tension and petered off.
“Giselle,” Willa began, her voice cool as silk wrapping around my throat. “You will wait with me while they bring my car around.”
It wasn’t a question and normally, I would have protested but Ulrich looked ready to swoon at the privilege I was being bestowed and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Willa Percy was a self-serving heartless bitch, so I grabbed my purse and followed her outside.
She didn’t speak for a moment, opting to fix her lipstick in the mirror of a Chanel compact instead. Her elegance was absolute, from the tips of her pale pink painted nails to the bottoms of her low-heeled cream pumps and I felt worse than bohemian next to her. I wondered if she had ever known poverty, how she would have judged my perfect older sister or me if she had witnessed the desperation of our childhood.
“You think I don’t like you,” she began, in a cool voice like poured cream, “and you are mostly correct. It is obvious that you lack elevated social graces, a sense of fashion and the common sense not to get involved with a taken man, let alone a man pledged to your very sibling.”
A thin smile punctured her cheek, cutting off my protest before I could even open my mouth.
“I know my son very well, Miss Moore, and it does not escape my notice that he seems to be very much in lust with you. You do not need to protest, because I do not blame either of you. My son is quite simply an incredible man and you have your,” she hesitated and gestured vaguely to my body, “obvious charms. So, I do not blame you for your initial bad judgment but I am encouraging you as civilly as possible to cease and desist.”
My lips twisted into something like a sneer but she only laughed softly. “Abandon your pride and think for a moment. If you love my son, as I’m certain you think that you do, then you know that Elena is the best choice for him. Her elegance, intelligence and stature are perfectly suited to Daniel’s pursuits. You know, one day he wants to run for office, just like his father.”
My insecurity vibrated as Willa hammered her point home. I didn’t want to listen to her but it was hard to ignore the truth of her statement especially when she spoke so calmly, so rationally. It was tricky to argue against a lack of passion.
“Daniel had a rough beginning and I for one, believe that he deserves happiness now. You may believe that you are the one to bring him that happiness, but you’re mistaken.” Her eyes swept over me dismissively. “You do not have what it takes to stand by my son.”
A beige town car rolled up to the curb and a handsomely dressed young man with skin like roasted coffee beans came around to open the door for the Governor’s wife.
“Go back inside, enjoy the rest of your meal with Mr. Wick, then go home and call my son. End it. I’m asking nicely, my dear, but the Lord knows I have other ways at my disposal.”
I stood silently, stupidly, while she slid into the car, closed the door and opened the window so that she could stare at me as they pulled into traffic. I stayed there for a long moment after she was gone, my eyes closed and my senses open to the riotous noises of a New York City afternoon. The cacophony calmed the turmoil churning through me and when I opened my eyes again, I started off down the street towards my next destination with renewed confidence.
Despite my earlier determination to see him, I was nervous giving my name to the receptionist. The young ginger haired man smiled warmly at me and complimented me on my choice of dress but his recognition of my discomfort only heightened my nervousness. If it was that obvious, I wondered, was it possible the entire office knew about our secret affair?
I was being paranoid obviously, but not without reason. Sebastian and Cosima already suspected and I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if they had figured it all out for themselves. It seemed almost ridiculous that anyone could remain oblivious to the sultry, heavy air between Sinclair and I when were together but the mind was a powerful thing. It was easy to believe what you wanted to believe.
I was still dwelling on it when I was ushered into the office so it took me a moment to recognize the slick dark haired man grinning at me with his arms outstretched. Of course, the outrageously loud burnt umber blazer helped.
“Santiago!”
He laughed richly as I stepped into his arms. “Beautiful Elle, the New York smog does wonders for your complexion.”
I laughed with him. “You’re just being kind.”
He nodded solemnly. “I am. But this is easy with such a beautiful woman before me. Isn’t it, Sinclair?”
We both turned to smile at the Frenchman who was staring at us with his arms crossed and his feet braced. He looked every inch the successful property developer behind his glass and chrome desk, his hair perfectly smoothed away from his broad forehead. I wanted desperately to tousle it with fingers.
“She is lovely, though I don’t believe that gives you the right to fawn all over her, Iago.”
Santiago laughed, a series of quick high yips that made me grin. I allowed him to usher me to the seat beside his across from Sinclair’s desk.
“I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised to see you. Last time I spoke with Sinclair, he was cursing the fact that you had abandoned him in Mexico. There must be a good story here,” Santiago said.
I bit my lip and looked to Sinclair to answer his friend. I was surprised by the admission that my decision to flee had perturbed him but the longer I thought about it, the more it made sense. Sinclair was a man who appreciated closure and neatly tied up ends. Even more, he was a man of power and I had unwittingly stripped him of that power by leaving before he could say anything.
God, was it outrageous to think that he might have wanted to stop me? That he might have wanted to solidify the bond
between us with facts and figures, the where and who of it all so that we might have really been together?
My head pulsed painfully in time with my heart.
“…so I would appreciate your discretion on the matter. You know how much I dislike mixing business with pleasure,” Sinclair was saying when I tuned back into the conversation.
Santiago was frowning though, his thick brows knotting together in one long black smear. “This is ridiculous.”
I laughed weakly. “You can’t make stuff like this up.”
“No, no you cannot. The situation is ridiculous but what I really meant was that you, Sinclair, are ridiculous. The only reason Elle isn’t Mrs. Santiago Herrera right now is because you were there first but if you insist on being ridiculous about it then…” he petered off with a shrug, as if he couldn’t be held accountable for what happened next.
Something like a growl emanated from Sinclair’s direction but before he could calmly slice his friend into ribbons with a steely retort, I said, “Let me assure you, that is not the only reason I’m not your wife, Iago.” I sniffed dramatically. “Now if you bought me a ring bigger than your second wife’s… then we could talk.”
He laughed again and even Sinclair’s lips twitched, which effectively diffused the atmosphere.
“Anyway, I hate to interrupt business,” I said with wide, innocent eyes as I waited for them to protest.
Santiago opened his mouth to do so but Sin’s chuckle caught him off guard.
“She’s just fishing for compliments. You weren’t interrupting, Iago has been here for much longer than his allotted appointment and, if I’m not mistaken, he is keeping a lovely woman waiting in his hotel suite uptown.”
The Mexican magnate shrugged. “She may be my fourth wife, if Elle won’t have me.”
“Is Katarina with you?” I asked, jumping slightly in my seat at the thought of seeing his wonderful sister.
“Alas, she is back home. Had I known you would be here, I couldn’t have stopped her from joining me. She has remarked a number of times with sadness that you did not exchange information.”
“Give her my card,” I said, pushing one of my newly minted business cards towards him. “I’m actually having a showing the second week of December at DS Galleries. I don’t suppose you’ll still be here for it?”
His large obsidian eyes lit up and his smile was overlarge, goofy, like a kid with a candy bar. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“If you are in town until then, you have to come to our family Thanksgiving tomorrow.”
“If you insist,” he agreed easily.
We beamed at each other until Sinclair cleared his throat, and then we both laughed before turning to look at him.
“Yes, sir?” I asked mildly.
He raised one haughty brow at my innuendo and the simple gesture was enough to send an arrow of desire straight to my core. God, but that man could imply a lot with a simple look. It probably helped that he was already sinfully attractive.
“If you’ll excuse us, Iago, I have plans to show Elle around the office.”
It was my turn to raise my brows, but Santiago leaned forward to take both my hands in his for lingering kisses.
“Of course, but allow me to request Giselle’s company on my walk to the elevator. One does get lonely in a foreign city,” he added sagely.
Sinclair would have snorted, I think, if it wasn’t such an undignified thing to do.
I linked my arm through Santiago’s and smiled over my shoulder at Sin as we exited. “Be back in a moment.”
Margot was at her desk outside his office when we passed by, but happily Santiago blocked her view of me and we escaped unscathed. He must have sensed my relaxation as soon as we were out of hearing distance because it was only then that he patted my hand where it rested on his arm and leaned in close to say, “Are you a religious woman, Elle?”
I startled a bit at the randomness of the question. “Um, no, not particularly. My parents used to be Roman and Irish Catholics but we all kind of abandoned religion when we felt God had abandoned us to poverty and abuse during my childhood.”
He frowned down at me, not in sympathy as I might have expected, but appraisingly. “I sensed poverty in you. It gives a person a certain quality, a greedy ruthlessness.”
I tried to step away from him but his clutch on my arm only tightened and he tutted me like an old matron. “Now, now, don’t shy away from the truth. I didn’t mean it as an insult. Only when you’ve known true hunger and desperation are you willing to go after what you want, the consequences be damned. It is, if not an admirable quality, than certainly a successful one.”
He gave me a moment of silence in order to digest his words while we waited for the elevators. The unpalatable thing was, I agreed with what he was saying. Only the ruthless succeed. I truly believed that. The only thing I remained unsure of was if I had the balls to submit to my brutal instinct to steal happiness away from my own sister.
Santiago was watching me as if he was asking himself the same question. “You are no longer the person you thought we were before you met him, Giselle. That woman, one whom you undoubtedly thought was good and moral? She has already been murdered by the new you, the one that went after a taken man knowingly even if it wasn’t without qualms.” He held up a single finger to hush my protest. “There was strength in making that decision. Do not be weak and unkind now by not going after what you want. In my experience, it only leads to misery for everyone.”
My throat was swollen and aching as if I was responding to his words with anaphylactic shock.
“Besides,” he cast me a sidelong glance, “wickedness looks good on you.”
I was mute as he leaned forward to press a kiss against my cheek, smelling like heat and expensive cologne. He stepped into the elevator without breaking eye contact and we watched each other as the doors slid close.
Just before he winked out of sight behind the metal partition he lifted his hand to his throat and said, “You would look even better in a collar.”
Chapter Fifteen.
I didn’t go back to Sinclair’s office.
He would come looking for me, I knew, but I still needed a moment to digest Santiago’s words. Besides, I reasoned with myself as I fled the 60th floor in an elevator of people dressed in impeccable business attire, I had business to conduct in the gallery and I might as well take care of it while I was in the building.
I made my way to the storeroom where we were housing my completed paintings, too preoccupied to notice the woman following in my wake. It was only when the door closed with a slam that I twirled around to see Margot Silver standing against it with her thin arms crossed over her chest.
I sighed. “I don’t suppose you came down to help me move these?”
“Don’t be cute with me, Giselle. We both know it’s just an act.”
I crossed my arms to mimic her pose and raised my eyebrows Sinclair-style.
She rolled her eyes at my demonstration. “I’ll get to the point because spending any amount of time with you rubs me the wrong way. Stop fucking around with Sinclair.”
“I hate to break it to you when you’ve been so nice to me, but I don’t care what you think. You don’t know anything about the situation.”
“I know that Daniel Sinclair is the best man I know and yet he’s acting like a moronic dickhead chasing after your nice pair of tits.”
“Awe, thank you, Margot,” I said with faux delight.
“If you think I’m the only one who has noticed you two, you’re an idiot.”
That gave me pause. I had wondered about the twins knowing but the people Sin worked with? I didn’t want them to think less of him.
She practically snarled at me. “I’m not being a bitch because I enjoy it. I’m doing this, whether you choose to believe it or not, because what you two are doing is going to hurt everyone involved. Are you really willing to tank your career and loose your family over what God only knows has to be admittedly pretty d
amn good sex?”
I gritted my teeth. Those words were my own, the ones that echoed in my head every goddamn day since I’d discovered Sin’s Darling was Elena. Yet hearing them voiced with such vitriol made me defensive. Her darkness brought to light all the wonderful things I had experienced with him. We were so much more than the (admittedly damn good) sex.
“I’m not willing to loose anything, including Sinclair. If you’re his guard dog, shouldn’t you consider the fact that I make him happy?”
“Are you so sure that you do?”
Okay, that arrow found its mark.
She grinned like a viper, her small teeth shining, poison-slicked weapons. “I’m asking you as nicely as I know how – back the fuck off. You don’t have the balls to see this through to the end. If you don’t care about ruining your own life, what about his?”
I shivered at her icy tone. She didn’t understand that it wasn’t just my choice not to follow through on my attraction to Sinclair. He was just as reluctant to fuck up his life as she was.
“If you talked to him, you’d realize he doesn’t want anything more. It’s over now, anyway,” I said.
She snorted. “If you knew him, you would realize that Sin is about the things he doesn’t say.”
My brow tangled before I could mask the expression from her. She was right but it didn’t sit well with me. Had I been focusing too much on his uttered protests and not enough on the sweet touches and longing kisses? The fact that he still couldn’t get enough of me.
My heart fluttered like a hummingbird between one extreme and the next. I broke out in a confused sweat and blinked up at Margot without malice.
She sighed heavily and dropped her arms. “You’re a nice girl, Elle. So do the right thing.”
I turned away from her as she left. My paintings lay carefully propped and concealed against the wall. I ran my fingers over them lovingly, taking comfort from my art while my emotions rolled on ten-foot waves of indecision within my gut.
“Giselle?”
I startled at the sound of his voice even though I caught a whiff of his smoky scent seconds before he spoke. When I didn’t respond, he came to stand behind me. Goose bumps broke out over my skin as he gathered my hair and moved it over one shoulder. He wasn’t touching me but his lips hovered close to my neck, his hot breath like a kiss.
The Secret (The Evolution Of Sin Book 2) Page 18