The Secret (The Evolution of Sin 2)

Elena fidgeted nervously and it was obvious that I wasn’t the only one who knew he spoke quietly when he was upset.

Paulson was pleasantly oblivious. “Yes, yes, though I have to say you’re making it an awfully long engagement. I had my wife at the alter before she could change her mind, let me tell you.” He guffawed.

Sinclair smiled slightly but when Elena placed a hand on his arm, his entire body stiffened.

“Pauly, please don’t tell me you are embarrassing me again,” a surprisingly young woman protested in a brassy Brooklyn accent.

Mrs. Paulson was maybe forty, at least fifteen years younger than her husband, with long dark permed hair and acrylic nails painted a vivid red that matched her lipstick. Though her dress was the same demure silver as her husband’s suit, it was obvious that she was rough around the edges, not born into the same stock as most of the other guests in the room. I instantly liked her.

“Never,” Paulson assured her, with a dramatic wink before introducing Teresa to the rest of us.

I watched him tuck her firmly into his side, how she placed her hand over his heart as if it was meant to be there. I sighed, long and gustily, before I could help it. Seb elbowed me gently and I realized that she was saying something to me.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re Giselle Lombardi, the artist,” she repeated, her brown eyes wide with excitement. “Sinclair told me how wonderful you were and I just had to look you up. I would be over the moon if you’d do a commission for Pauly and me.”

I really didn’t have the time with the showcase coming up but I understood how much it would mean to Sinclair to make the couple happy and I was delighted that he had taken the time to mention me to them.

“I would be honored, thank you Mrs. Paulson.”

Her laugh was brassy and, I thought, awesome. “Terry, please. We must be on familiar terms if you are going to paint me.”

Elena hid her smile behind her hand and even though it was studied to look like a subtle gesture, it drew the eye of everyone in our little group.

“Is something funny?” Terry asked.

My sister waved her hand airily. “It’s nothing really.”

But I recognized the sharp edges in that lady-like smile and my stomach cramped, because I knew what was coming.

“No really, what is it?”

Elena sighed. “If you really want to know, I just thought it was funny because Giselle’s upcoming collection is a series of nudes.”

The Paulsons both turned their heads to me in tandem. If I hadn’t been about to vomit, it might have been kind of funny.

The men – Sebastian, Cage and Sinclair – were all frowning at Elena with varying degrees of condemnation but it was the latter who wrapped a strong hand around her wrist in warning.

She didn’t heed it.

“Yes, I know, that was exactly my reaction at first. It might make more sense if you understand the theme. It’s about sexual perversions,” she explained, as if a plus b equaled c.

“Elena,” Sebastian gasped.

Cage just shook his head in disgust.

Mr. Paulson looked at me with unmitigated horror.

I had never seen Sinclair so still, his entire body hard as marble with restraint. One more wrong word, one breath released the wrong way, and he would shatter into a terrifying fury.

Terry looked at me for a long time. I waited without breathing for her to berate me, to laugh or even turn on her heel in disgust. But she just looked at me until I felt dizzy.

Then she did the most interesting thing.

She tilted her head to the side, squinted her eyes and threw back her head in raucous, completely genuine laughter. No one moved an inch as she laughed and laughed and clapped her red-tipped hands.

“How wonderful! How does one paint sexual perversions? I imagine it’s something like Fifty Shades of Grey but done in paint,” she said, laughter still bouncing through her speech. “I have to admit that I usually find art kind of,” her nose wrinkled adorably, “stodgy but I could definitely sink my teeth into something like that, couldn’t I, Pauly?”