The Secret (The Evolution Of Sin Book 2) (20 page)

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 damn 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.

“I thought you’d run away.”

I huffed. “Apparently, I can’t stay away.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Sinclair…”

“Giselle…” I could hear his amusement. “Stop worrying, stop hiding. Come out and let me introduce you to some of my team upstairs. I have at least another hour of work to do before we go back to my place but I’ll leave you with Candy, she would love the distraction.”

I turned around, tipping my head back to look up at his phenomenal face. “Okay.”

“Okay? I was expecting you to protest.”

I shrugged. “I want to meet the people you work with. I don’t know much about what you do.”

“I’m a property developer and you have actually met most of my core team. Duncan Wright is my CFO, Richard Denman is one of our chief architects, Candy is my right hand woman and Robert Corbett is head of our construction division.”

“Do they all work in the building?”

“No, most of the time they are out on location working on projects but Duncan should be here. Would you like to say hello?”

“Would that be okay?” I asked, unsure about the etiquette.

He shook his head and took my hand to lead me out of the back room. “Haven’t you realized by now that I can’t deny you anything?”

I was tempted for a moment to test his words by asking him to leave Elena for me. Happily, Rossi found us a moment later and the opportunity was lost.

Éclair’s apartment suited them. Tucked into a beautifully maintained Greek revival townhouse in Gramercy Park, it was luxurious without being ostentatious, stylish and classy without being too cold. I recognized the art on the walls as pieces that Sinclair would have chosen himself and the large pearly grand piano in the corner was Elena’s most prized possession, a housewarming gift from the twins. It was an older space with soft, glossy dark floors and a slightly cluttered floor plan that was so at odds with today’s open-style living spaces.

I loved it.

But it felt unspeakably strange to be in the belly of the beast, the place Sinclair and Elena shared as a couple. Especially after my previous night with him and the wonderful afternoon I had just spent at his office. As he introduced me to more members of his team and joked with Candy about my distracting capabilities, it felt almost as if I was his girlfriend. Candy had tried to emphasize exactly that point but I’d convinced her to move the conversation along to less complicated things, like her knew boyfriend Gregory, whose Russian accent was so thick that sometimes she could barely understand him. Apparently, it had made for some confusing situations in the bedroom.

Sinclair had stood silently by as I explored the place but now he stepped forward to slide his hands down my arms and link them through my fingers.

Pressing his nose to my hair, he murmured, “Is it terrible of me to say that I like seeing you here? In my space.”

I shrugged helplessly. “I think it is safe to say that we are not the best people.”

His hands tightened in mine. “You are very good, Elle. Your lightness, your kindness, is what drew me to you in the first place.”

“I don’t feel like a good person,” I said and felt him stiffen behind me, knew that my words hurt him. I spun around to place my hands on his cheeks, my thumbs against his cut glass cheekbones. “I feel selfish and gluttonous but I can’t help myself. Whenever I’m without you, I trick myself into thinking that I can survive without
this
and honestly, I know if I was strong and good, I could. But I don’t want to and it’s getting hard to remind myself why I should care.”

Sinclair’s electric eyes blazed down at me. I wanted to fidget or drag my gaze away but I forced myself to stay still, willfully trapped in his snare.

“What are you saying?” he said roughly. “Tell me I am not insane,
si
? Tell me you mean what you say.”

My mouth was beyond parched. I felt as if I had swallowed a gallon of sand and when I parted my lips to speak, I could hear them rasp apart like Velcro.

The rattle of a key in doorway had us springing apart before we could even rationally make sense of the warning. Sinclair cleared his throat and shoved his hands through his hair before turning on his heel towards the kitchen while I quickly settled onto the stone suede couch by the fireplace. That was how Elena found us when she came through the door, looking as beautifully put together as always.

“Giselle, I’m so sorry that you had to go through that today,” she said immediately, making her way over to me after carefully hanging up her coat, scarf and briefcase.

I accepted her soft kiss on the cheek and hoped she couldn’t hear my hammering heart. Immediately, she made her way to the sound system and plugged in her phone. A moment later, Chet Baker’s smooth tones spilled into the room and I was reminded of how much Elena loved music. As a girl, she had spent hours at Signora Donati’s house playing the piano and I’d often trailed after her, ducking in the dry brush beside the window to the living room in order to hear the music that pooled beneath her eloquent fingers.

“I decided to host dinner this year,” she continued, moving around the room to straighten already immaculate pieces of furniture. “It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, Daniel, did you remember to take the time off?”

“You’ve reminded me every day this week. Of course, I did,” he called from the kitchen.

She turned to look at me, narrowing her eyes as she took in the swell of my breasts in the brightly patterned neckline of my dress and the mass of curls that fell artlessly around my shoulders. I took the time to admire how beautifully lady-like she looked in her high-necked lace blouse and black pencil skirt. I tried not to compare her to Lady and I to the Tramp.

“Is that what you wore for your date with Ulrich?” she asked with a surprisingly playful pout. “No, don’t frown, this is very much my fault. I should have lent you something. Not that I don’t love the whole Parisian artist look but Ulrich works on Wall Street.”

“Trust me, I know,” I muttered as Sinclair came back into the room carrying three wine glasses and a bottle of Pinot Grigio. It was the same label we had shared together just last night. I wondered if he knew, and if he did, why he had chosen to drink it now.

“You had a date with Ulrich Wick?” he asked, after he had placed the glasses on the table and a brief kiss on Elena’s proffered cheek.

I caught the amusement in his eyes as he popped the cork on the wine and began to pour. With my chin tilted high, I replied haughtily, “I did, indeed.”

“Elena, how could you have?” he scolded lightly.

She sat down beside me on the couch, perched on the edge with her hands in her lap like a princess waiting to be served. But her eyes smiled too, sparkling back at Sinclair with warmth and good humor.

“What? Ulrich is a very intelligent and kind man.”

“He is also extremely dull, darling.”

Darling
, I so clearly remembered him calling her that while we were in Mexico. I had wondered what kind of woman she was. Though it was impossible for me to have known Elena was Darling, it was eerie how close my imagination had come to conjuring her exact image based on the little I had known in Los Cabos.

Elena was laughing, her true light and trilling giggle that made her eyes squinty. “He is not boring, Daniel. You think any man without knowledge of fishing, art or travel is a bore.”

He shrugged one shoulder and handed her a glass of wine. Her fingers brushed lingeringly over his and he bestowed her with a beautiful smile.

It was hard to listen to their conversation over the roar of blood rushing through my head but somehow I managed to.

“It is not so specific. A man, or a woman for that matter, must have passion or else they are a shell of themselves,” Sinclair said.

He was looking at me now, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet his gaze.

“Passion is messy,” Elena said, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “I think this was one of the first things we bonded over.”

He nodded his agreement but his lips were tight over his teeth with restraint. I fought not to let out a bitter little laugh. Passion was the first thing Sin and I had bonded over too.  

“Yes,” I managed to say. “How did you two meet?”

“Cosima introduced us.” I watched Elena’s features melt under the warmth of her recollections and felt my lungs tighten. “I was infatuated with him on sight, I think. He was wearing this gorgeous navy blue bespoke Brooks Brothers suit and it was before he let his hair get so long and unruly. He looked like such a gentleman.”

A wolf in sheep’s clothes, I thought.

“I offered to help with her English,” Sin explained. “It was as good an excuse as any.”

“Well, I certainly couldn’t resist my gorgeous tutor, now I could I? After our ‘study’ date, I was hooked and the rest is history.”

It was a cute little story, one that they had obviously shared countless times. I thought about my meet-cute with Sinclair, how I must have looked after puking for hours on the plane. The relationship that followed wasn’t exactly picture perfect either.