She sat back in her chair with a comfortable confidence that was somehow cruel. There was a small smile on her lips when she said, “Did you know, when I first found out he was having an affair, I was concerned? Thank you for alleviating my fears. Daniel doesn’t love you, Giselle. When he inevitably grows tried of you, no matter how much you let him slap you around in bed, he will beg for a real woman, a woman of power and substance, to take him back. And that destruction you were so afraid of? It will eviscerate you. You will not have your family or Daniel at your side. I never wanted you to be a part of this family and I always knew Daniel needed to get his perversions out of his system.” She laughed lightly and took a sip of her coffee. “Two birds, one stone.”
I sat, my mouth gaping wide open like an angry wound. There were no thoughts in my head or emotions in my chest. I was nothing, just as she and I had always secretly suspected.
Elena searched my face for a long minute, her gaze scalping me, before she nodded, assured of my overwhelming pain. She stood up swiftly and tugged on her coat.
“Tell Daniel to call me when he’s through with you. Oh, and Giselle, stay the fuck away from my family and me. If you don’t, every person in New York City will know what a gold digging whore you are.”
Chapter Thirteen.
I couldn’t go back to the St. Regis after that. Instead, after Elena left and I threw up for twenty minutes in the café restroom, I wandered around Manhattan like some kind of urban zombie, both hollowed out inside and rotten to the core. I was empty of thoughts. In a weird way, it reminded me of what it was like to be in sub space, incapable of coherency but eloquent with emotions. They crashed over me in tidal waves, drowning me in dark pools of pain and guilt.
I knew that if I went to Sinclair, he would make it all go away. He would murmur sweet condolences in my ear, stroke my cheekbone in that way of his that made me feel priceless as a statue, more beautiful than anything rendered by Auguste Rodin or Botticelli. He would, as only he was capable of doing, as he always did, soothe my ugly, crumpled edges and fold me back into an origami swan.
I didn’t deserve that peace. A small, protected piece of my mind argued that I did deserve it, that I was worthy of Sinclair’s love and that maybe all was fair in love and war. But I also knew that if I went back to him before I had somehow disassembled and portioned out the immeasurable mass of self-hatred and grief churning through my system, I would leave him.
Margot had been right when she said Sinclair deserved more than a coward. It was difficult before, when no one knew about the affair. We had been disciples of immoral subterfuge and intense yearning, torn between our past and our dreams for the future. We had barely been able to see each other through the mess of obstacles between us.
Now, I had him. The thought sent a zing of happiness down my spine even in the thralls of my guilt. Daniel Sinclair, the beautiful, misunderstood Frenchman with the seemingly perfect life had risked his reputation, his family and his career on me.
Elena’s vindictive words echoed through my head. He was too good for me, on that we whole-heartedly agreed. I doubted that there would ever be a time when I believed myself worthy of his love. So few people ever found their soul mates, let alone had reason to believe in the concept, and there I was, finally, with mine. Whether or not I deserved such luck or not, I was not going to take it, him, for granted.
I had made my decision and now I had to live with it.
I wasn’t surprised when Mama’s restaurant loomed before me, the gold lettering of Osteria Lombardi glittering in the lower level window of the brick brownstone. I floated down the few steps to the entrance and entered before I could runaway in fear.
One of the servers directed me to the kitchen where Mama was preparing for dinner service. It was that awkward time of day in the restaurant industry when it is too late for lunch and early for dinner, when most of the days prep had been done by the day crew before the night line up came in, so Mama was alone at a long stainless steel countertop hand rolling orecchiette pasta when I pushed through the swinging doors.
She was so absorbed that she didn’t notice me, so I took a minute to watch her work. Her long silver threaded black hair was woven into her habitual plait and her soft features were arranged into an expression that was the foundation of a smile before it springs. Her nimble fingers gently folded the dough into tiny ear-like shapes before setting them aside to dry and she hummed as she worked. It was a different setting, but the sight of her like that took me back to the hot, dry afternoons in the Naples of my childhood.