The Secret (The Evolution of Sin 2)

“I’ll be seeing you soon, my siren,” he said with a full-fledged grin as he stood up and buttoned his blazer. “Oh, and make sure you eat something, si? It is hard to make life decisions on an empty stomach.”

It took me a few minutes after his departure to clear the fog of my thoughts enough to look down at my wrist. The gorgeous silver and turquoise cuff I had admired in the Cabo San Lucas market with Candy winked at me under the noon sunlight. I told myself it was the glare that brought tears to my eyes but as I looked down at the gift all I could really think was I’m fucked.

Chapter Nineteen.

Sinclair was true to his word.

The following day, a Saturday, I was discussing my finished paintings with Rossi and Eddie in the kitchen of Cosima’s apartment when the lavender arrived. Eddie had offered to answer the door because my hands were full of canvases and the next thing we knew, a team of men and women were carrying arrangements of fragrant purple stalks into the apartment. There were arrangements with white roses in delicately etched glass vases that they placed on every available table, four huge clay pots of it mixed with gorgeous golden grass that swayed in the breeze flowing in from the little balcony, and little silk embroidered sachets filled with the dried flowers that Eddie happily, and noisily, placed in our clothing drawers and closets. By the time they had finished, the apartment smelled like heaven. There was no note with the flowers, of which I was grateful because Rossi and Eddie were forced to accept that it was from Ulrich, the odious man I brunched with at Prune.

I opened the door Sunday to a smiling Santiago who had graced me with a kiss before handing me a brown paper wrapped package. I’d known somehow without opening it that it would be Frida Kahlo’s 1926 sketch Accident, the very one I had admired with Katarina at Santiago’s house party in Mexico. It seemed that Sinclair was calling everyone in my life in his quest to woo me. I wanted to be annoyed by it but as I hung Kahlo’s gorgeous conflicted work of art beside my bed, it was hard to be bothered by such thoughtfulness.

Monday was a framed picture of Sinclair and I from the Romani International Gala with a note that explained how he had paid the photographer for exclusive rights to the picture. I could understand why as soon as I studied it; we looked very much in love, or at least in lust, as I smiled up at him while accepting his hand. It was the moment he had asked me to go outside with him and I could clearly remember the swirl of apprehension and giddiness that had coiled my stomach into a sailor’s knot. Later that day another picture arrived, this one tucked into an unmarked envelope. It was of me, captured when I was exiting the gallery. My hair was caught in the breeze, the curls fanning out behind me and my dress pressed intimately to my curves. I didn’t know when he would have taken this or why he sent it to me but I carefully placed it in my bedside table all the same.

Cosima had been deliberately avoiding me but on Tuesday when she accepted a delivery of five packages from Dylan’s Candy Bar, including their Ultimate Chocolate Sharing Sweet Treat Tower, she finally confronted me about the unmarked gifts.

“The apartment smells like Provence, that sketch in your bedroom is worth thousands of dollars and now all this candy from your favorite shop?” Cosima stood before me with her hands fisted on her hips and her yellow eyes narrowed. “Who the hell is this secret admirer, Elle? This is more than a casual crush. Though he clearly doesn’t care about cavities…”

I shrugged and tucked my tongue beneath my teeth as I adjusted the shading on the painting of Candy’s mouth sucking suggestively at an oversized cherry red lollipop.

“Giselle, talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Cazzatte,” Cosima said, calling me on my bullshit.

I sighed and carefully placed my brush on the palette before putting them both down. “Fine, I should say I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Giselle –”

“Hey, if you don’t want to talk about the Mafia-eyed Dante, then I don’t have to talk about this. Okay?”

Hurt flashed across her features before she screwed them shut with a twist of her mouth. “Fine.”

I was happy that she wasn’t home on Wednesday to see the two tickets to watch Miles Davis play in the Rose Theatre at Lincoln Center for his 90th birthday. I clutched the tickets to my chest and tried to temper the rapidity of my heartbeat with deep breaths.

When that didn’t work, I called him.

“Bonjour, ma sirène. Ça va?”

His cool voice flowed over my skin like water, immediately cleansing me of my anxieties even though he was the cause of them.

“Sinclair,” I said after clearing my throat and affecting a pretty badass professional tone. “I’m calling to return the tickets.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m sorry, I thought I was speaking to the woman of my heart, Giselle Moore. Not some ungrateful…stewardess is it?”

“They aren’t called that anymore, old man,” I grumped, charmed out of my demeanor before I could help myself.

“And you’ve forgotten your manners, young lady.”

I shivered at the image his words imparted, picturing myself over his lap for a spanking. He chuckled as if he knew what his words had done to me.

“Why did you give me two tickets?”

“I thought you could take a friend.”

“Don’t you want to go?”

“Yes. The tickets were originally for me but I thought you would enjoy it more. I’ve seen him play twice before.”