The Secret (The Evolution of Sin 2)

“You will,” he promised.

I shut the door and fled down the hall to the elevators.

We saw Wicked. I hadn’t wanted to see it. After all, a play about a woman who descends the slippery slope into villainy was a little too close to home for my tastes but Sinclair, with his slight smile – much preferable to Dante’s sinister smirks – had insisted that it was not to be missed.

“Okay, okay,” I admitted as we followed the crowd out of the theatre. “That was absolutely amazing.”

He shot me a sidelong look as we walked into the fading sunlight.

“Don’t you dare tell me ‘I told you so’,” I threatened, leveling a finger at his twitching lips.

He held his hands up in mock surrender but his voice was seriously lacking in sincerity. “I don’t even feel the need.”

“And I don’t want to hear anything about the bad witch being a sympathetic character or anything, okay?” I added with narrowed eyes. “Last time I checked, you didn’t have a degree in English.”

“No, you’re right. Just psychology.”

“You’re kidding?”

His gorgeous eyes sparkled as his hand found my lower back to gently usher me through the throbbing crowds in Times Square. “And a Master’s in Business Administration from Columbia.”

I stared up at him, knowing that he would safely see me through the swarms of people. “I really don’t know anything about you, do I?”

He shrugged and I immediately regretted puncturing our beautiful bubble with the sharp edge of reality.

“You know considerably more than most people. The facts you are referring to can easily be looked up online.”

“I thought about doing that, looking you up. But I was too nervous,” I admitted as I stopped to root through the pocket of my parka for change.

The violinist who swayed to the sound of his own lilting tune nodded at me even though his eyes remained closed. He was so absorbed in his music, his passion, that he had transcended his body. Art had always been the medium of my sublimity. My love for Sinclair was devastatingly similar, dangerous because it did not recognize right or wrong. It simply existed. I smiled at the violinist with my heart in my eyes before turning to look over at Sinclair who viewed me with that inscrutable expression.

“I must admit I haven’t read my own Wikipedia page, we have someone at the company to manage those sorts of things, but I am reasonably sure that there is no mention of me being a serial killer or something equally disturbing.”

I snorted. “I wasn’t worried about that. You tied me up and spanked me; if you had wanted to kill me then you definitely had the opportunity to.”

He grinned at me, shaking his head almost reluctantly as if he couldn’t quite believe I was real. I beamed back at him and didn’t notice the seriousness in his eyes until it was too late.

“You were worried about seeing pictures of me with Elena.”

I swallowed painfully and nodded.

He sighed and brought us to a complete stop in the middle of Times Square. The darkness brought out the multicolored lights flashing against his features and reminded me of our strangely intimate time at his club.

“Giselle, I want you to listen to me when I say this because I know you will only let me tell you once.” His hands fell heavily onto my shoulders so that he could bring me closer. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. At the risk of sounding callus, I do not regret the time I spent with you in Mexico and neither should you, not unless you truly did not enjoy it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” My voice was fainter than I would have liked but it was hard to speak past the gunk of volatile emotions clogging

my throat. “It’s not about me though, it’s about Elena.”

“Is it?” His hands squeezed my shoulders. “Or could it just be about us?”

I was already shaking my head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“We set the fucking rules, Giselle.” He stepped back from me and glared, his eyes so cold they burned. I didn’t know what he could have been thinking, staring at me with such furious intensity in the crowded space, the bodies bumping into us and the cacophony of downtown New York City completely forgotten.

“No, we don’t.” I laughed but there was a frenzied edge to it that made me realize I was close to having a panic attack. “I haven’t set the rules for my own in life ever. And now? When I could ruin the life that my sister has so carefully constructed for herself? It’s not the time to start.”

Sinclair glared at me for another long minute before stuffing his hands in his pockets. He looked off into the crowd and shook his head.