“It really is gorgeous, Richard. You have fabulous taste.”
He nodded as he pulled away, prompting me to laugh again. “Sinclair does as well. He is a very detailed man and frankly, a pain in my ass most of the time. But the end result is always worth his breathing down my neck, ordering me to redo the blue prints a thousand and one times.”
My Frenchman enjoyed control in all things. “He’s a man with a plan.”
Richard gave me an appraising look. “He is, indeed. You should be prepared for that.”
“Excuse me?”
He took my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “I have a feeling he has a number of plans for you.”
“He dated Elena for four years without much forward momentum. I think we are happy to take things slowly.”
Besides, we hadn’t even told Elena or the rest of my family about our relationship yet. That was something that I was dreading more than anticipating, if I was being honest. Just because I had decided not to live without Sinclair didn’t mean that I was eager to sacrifice my family, especially when we had just reunited.
“I think we both know that Elena wasn’t right for him. Now that he has the right woman, I have no doubt that he will want to charge ahead. Don’t let him sweep you into anything you aren’t ready for, he has a habit of doing that to people.”
We walked into the left side of the hotel where the elevator bank to this portion of the hotel was. The one we took was beautifully appointed with a red velvet bench at the back and wood paneling that harkened back to historic French designs.
“I appreciate that you’ve known him longer than I have, but I really don’t think you are right about this. It was hard on Sinclair to make the decision to choose me. I think we just need easy now, probably for a while. It’s a massive adjustment for both of us but mostly for him.”
I mean as of under a week ago, Sinclair was living with another woman.
That woman being my sister.
Yes, we were definitely going to take it slow.
“How do you even know that I’m the right woman for him?” I asked softly, because despite his declarations it was difficult not to compare myself to the elegant and successful Elena or find myself unequal to Sinclair’s own brand of movie star quality good looks and too-good-to-be-true awesomeness. And I meant that in the traditional sense of the word; I was in awe of him.
“If the only thing I knew was that Sinclair, a man I know to be steadfast, whip smart and intensely loyal, had left Elena and his beloved well-ordered life to be with another woman, I would know it was the right choice. As much as he has succeeded in his professional life, he lived like a robot for years and I’m sorry to say, your sister has too. They enabled each other. Now, especially when I have had the pleasure of meeting you and more, knowing you, I can assure you that there is no woman more perfect for Daniel. He needs light, love and creativity. You seem to need the things that he has always been ashamed of, his intensity, his need for control and his deeply hidden sensitivity.”
“Oh,” I responded, because I was struggling under the beautiful weight of his words.
He grinned at me. “So, I wouldn’t be so sure about his desire to move slowly. If I’m right, you let me know if he’s speeding too fast for you and I’ll have a word with him, okay?” Richard led me off the elevator at the tenth floor and into a corridor lined with crown molding and subtle silver, floral patterned wallpaper.
He looked down at me while giving my arm a squeeze. “I’ve worked with him since he was twenty one years old and hired my firm to renovate his club. Even though he is technically my boss now, I like to think that we are friends and maybe even that he thinks of me as a father figure.” He hesitated. “I know that I think of him as the son I never had.”
It was my turn to squeeze his arm as I was flooded with warmth at his words. From what I had seen of Mortimer Percy, he seemed like a nice enough man, if not completely self-consumed. In direct contrast to him was Richard Denman, Sinclair’s right hand man and, apparently, a nearly life-long friend. It thrilled me to know that even though Sin underutilized his loved ones, he had them in spades.
“I’ll let you know,” I promised.
He searched my face for sincerity and, finding it, he nodded curtly. “Okay, let me show you our latest baby then.”
After a long morning of touring the hotel with Richard, I left to walk around the surrounding streets of my old neighborhood while Sinclair finished his meetings somewhere across the city. Habit kicked in and somehow my feet took me to L’École des Beaux-Arts. It was the safe place I had found, thanks to Cosima and Sebastian’s generosity, after the hell I had fled from in Naples. It was the same place that had nourished the creative spirit of masters like Henri Matisse and Anne Rouchette. There was no other place in the world that felt more like home to me than the world-renowned university and even though my years studying there had been the loneliest of my life, I wouldn’t have changed the experience for anything.