She didn’t protest but I knew she wanted to.
We finished out meal in more silence.
“I have these for you,” I said, after I had cleaned up. I handed her the documents that I had my lawyer draw up. “This legally gives you the apartment.”
She stared at the stack of papers in my hand before taking them with a hard nod. “Thank you, I love this place.”
I never really had because I hadn’t spent much time in it. I already loved my house in the clock tower so much more; the mural on the wall of the nursery, the studio I’d had installed on the top floor in a room full of windows, the bed I shared with Giselle.
I wanted to get back there.
“I’m leaving,” I said, crouching in front of her. “I won’t be back again, but if you ever need me, you have to call me, yes?”
I meant it. Elena was the kind of woman who was really a Queen. She deserved knights and footmen and kings bowing at her feet, taking care of her every need. I thought that was one of the reasons I was drawn to her in the first place.
I didn’t want to leave her alone.
“Promise me,” I said, looking into those big grey eyes, so much darker than Elle’s but still so familiar to me. “I know it seems like a poor consolation but I will always be here for you.”
She swallowed hard twice before she nodded. “You can leave now.”
“Okay,” I said, staring at her for a second more before I did just that. “I don’t blame you for the anger, for the scene at the house or the article in the newspaper. I have to live with what I did to you and it won’t ever get easier.”
“Good,” she said without fire.
“Good,” I echoed before casting one more look at the place I had called home for almost half a decade and the woman I had thought was mine.
Good, I thought as I closed the door behind me and set out with a clear mind to get home to Brooklyn as quickly as my Porsche would carry me and the traffic would allow.
When I told Giselle that night, holding her in my arms after taking her hard in our bed, about my visit to Elena, how it had felt like closure, she too had murmured good and I knew she felt clear of it as well.
Chapter Twenty One.
It was finally time.
My life had taken on the quality of an Italian soap opera since meeting Sinclair, with so many incredibly highs and lows that it felt we would never settle in to our life together. I hoped that the excitement of the gallery opening would mark the end of the many consequences we reaped from being together and herald a new, calmer beginning for us.
But calm, I was not.
“Are you serious?” I asked, my voice shrill as a teakettle whistle.
Rossi laughed kindly. “I am. The New York Times, Robin Cembalast from ARTNews, and Jerry Saltz from New York Mag have all confirmed their attendance tonight.”
“I can’t breath,” I said with the last of the air left in my lungs.
“Yes, you can,” Eddie said, rubbing soothing circles on my back. “You have to breath so that you can answer all the lovely people who are coming to see your exhibit tonight.”
I shook my head manically, my hand over my tripping heart. Stars and black spots flashed before my eyes.
“Giselle, darling, people are going to begin arriving in half an hour. You need to calm down,” Rossi scolded.
“Can’t,” I squeaked.
Everyone was going to hate my work. It was the edgiest I had ever been, the most subdued of all the paintings was the one of Mama with a deep swatch of sweaty exposed bosom in front of a stove. I was already mildly notorious for my affair with Sinclair. What was my flagrantly sexual display going to do to his reputation? I tried to inhale and choked. How had I been so selfish?
I looked around frantically, trying to find an escape from everything, when I felt two cool hands descend on my shoulders, stilling me immediately.
“Ladies,” Sinclair’s cultured, slightly accented voice crooned over my shoulder. “What seems to be the problem here?”
Both Eddie and Rossi slumped in relief at the sight of him.
“She’s having a mental breakdown,” Eddie said, candidly.
“Eddie,” Rossi rebuked, but it was okay, it was the truth.
“I think I’m dying,” I told him, leaning back into his strength so that I didn’t collapse.
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” There was amusement in his voice but the arms that wrapped around my waist and the hand that subtly covered my slightly swollen abdomen were kind and supportive. “If you’ll excuse us for a while, I think I’ll take Giselle into the back to calm down.”