“No,” I agreed, because I couldn’t imagine being ashamed of the man I held in my arms.
“Do not show her regret, she is a shark, your sister, and she will sense blood in the water. She will make you pay for that shame.”
I sighed loudly against his face and pressed another kiss to his lips. “You’re right, of course.”
“Of course,” he agreed with a smile as I pulled away to scoot off my stool. He gave my bum a playful slap as I moved past him to get ready. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
I was happy that Elena had chosen our location for coffee because I fully planned never to set foot in the place again. Like a nuclear blast site, it would remain toxic for the next forty years. As it was, the place suited my sister entirely, posh and trendy without being hip, with black and white photos on the wall and tons of smartly clad business people milling about even on a Saturday morning. We both sat at a small bistro table in one of the large bay windows, holding our cups of coffee tightly as if to make up for the intimacy lacking between us. We had been sitting there for five awkward minutes in silence while I worked up the courage to begin.
“How have you been?” I finally asked, lamely.
“Well, thank you. I’ve told you before that I’m on the partner track?”
Only a thousand times.
“You may have mentioned it once or twice. That’s very impressive.”
Elena nodded graciously.
Awkward silence reigned for an excruciating minute.
“Mama told me that you just got back from France. You went to visit friends?” Elena asked.
Her words hit my hollow heart with a dull thud. She was actually trying.
“I did, it was good to go back. It will always be home for me in a way that Naples never was.”
She nodded, her eyes glazed over as she looked out the window at the softly falling snow. “I know what you mean. I have absolutely no desire to ever return there, even to Italy. Do you know, I tell people that I am American?”
I wasn’t surprised but she did shock me by elaborating.
“It took me over a year of constant study and practice to rid myself of that common accent. It was the r’s that frustrated me, the flat English sound took me forever to master.”
“Why is it so important to you?”
She was startled by the question, as if I should know the answer. “Italy stands for everything that I abhor. It is gritty, dirty, violent and fundamentally debased.”
“Have you ever thought that you might be substituting the half for the whole? Yes, our childhood could be defined by those things but does that reflect on our country or only on our circumstances?”
Elena blinked at me. “Does it matter? The half contaminates the whole. The poison spreads.”
I swallowed thickly. “You’re saying that you cannot forgive Italy for the desperation of your childhood?”
“I see no reason why I should.”
“Yet you forgive Mama, for raising you like that?”
Finally, Elena looked uncomfortable. “She didn’t have the power to control it.”
I arched an eyebrow at her.
She pursed her lips. “I understand the point you are trying to make but it isn’t valid. Mama tried her best to raise us right, there was nothing more she could have done and she has more than made up for her mistakes every day since we got out of that hellish place.”
I sucked a deep breath into my lungs like a drowning man who knows that will be his last breath.
The stage was set, however poorly, and I couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Elena, I actually asked you to meet me here today to talk about something kind of difficult.”
She stilled so completely that it brought into stark relief the motion of the coffee shop flowing around us. It was a popular spot at a busy time and I had to swallow the impulsive panic that everyone was suddenly listening to us.
“I know that you and I have always had a… hard relationship and I wish so much that it was different.” I looked into her eyes and flinched at the lack of compassion there. She shared no such desire. “Our family has been through so much and it has been that, our strength and loyalty as a unit, that has gotten us through. I admire and respect you so much--”
“Cut the crap, Giselle. What is it that you want to say to me?”
My throat was so dry that it hurt to breath. Pain shot up my arms directly into my off-beating heart. I wondered if I was having a heart attack.
I gasped for one more lungful of air before willingly falling on my sword.
“I am in love with Sinclair.”
Silence.
Total and complete silence. A non-reaction.
For a moment, I wondered if I had even spoken.