The Consequence (The Evolution of Sin 3)

They shared a moment of meaningful eye contact before they both laughed, Sinclair more subdued than the other man’s bellowing chortle.

“So,” Terry said when they had recovered and Sinclair was nursing scotch on the rocks. “Who do you think leaked your story?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not much of a mystery,” Sinclair said with a wince. “Elena showed up at our new place last night because a colleague of mine discovered that Giselle is pregnant.”

Both of the Paulsons gasped and then expressed their heartfelt congratulations, which we both accepted with a smile.

“She was less than impressed and it wasn’t the first time that she threatened to tell the media about us but I think it was the final straw,” Sin continued to explain.

“Well, damn. I know it must be hard on her, but love is love, things happen and family is the end all be all right?” Terry said, her nose scrunched again in disapproval.

“It could be argued that if family is the end all be all, then I wouldn’t have done what I did,” I pointed out softly.

I was willing to move past our indiscretions and wrong-doings but I didn’t want to forget them or underplay them.

Sinclair placed a kiss in my hair.

It was Paulson, though, who offered the best advice I had heard so far. “She comes around or she doesn’t. She’s hurt but if she had handled things differently, you all could have healed together, found a way through that didn’t ruin your family. She chose differently and that’s on her.”

His words settled the last pieces of sharp-edged grief digging into my happy heart and I closed my eyes as they shifted and smoothed out.

“Happy,” Sinclair both asked and reminded.

“Happy,” I agreed, nestled on his lap with people we admired, his business deal saved and a baby on the way.

Yeah, I was definitely one of the luckiest people in the world.

Chapter Eighteen.

After weeks of no communication, the esteemed Governor of New York and his wife invited Sinclair and me for a formal dinner at their estate upstate.

To say that I was nervous would have been a gross understatement. My stomach rolled and bucked like a rabid stallion as we made our way through the beautiful country roads of Suffolk county. There wasn’t anything left in my belly but a few saltine crackers Sinclair had forced down my throat that morning but it was just enough to make me gag a few times behind my hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

He did.

“We can still cancel,” he offered for the twelfth time that day.

“No, we can’t.”

I didn’t want the Percys to have any more reason to hate me. Yes, I had stolen their son from a perfectly adequate mate while I myself was just a bohemian artist with loose morals whose greatest asset was her breasts, but no one would ever love their son more than I would and I was determined to make them see that.

“So stubborn, my siren,” Sin scolded, but his hand squeezed my thigh tenderly. “I just don’t want you to set unrealistic expectations. My father is a kind man but he doesn’t take an interest in anything outside of politics so he will probably leave you be. You know my mother, she will be looking for any reason to speak down to you, to belittle our relationship.”

My heart clenched. I knew he was right but our love was still so new, so unbelievably unbelievable that I didn’t have the emotional fortitude to weather much more censure. It was impossible for me to reconcile the moral wrongness of our relationship with the absolute rightness of our connection.

It seemed that everyone wanted to condemn us and as a person who had spent her life trying to avoid conflict, to stay firmly out of any kind of spotlight, it was wearing thin on my soul.

I linked my fingers through Sinclair’s and immediately felt soothed.

“We can do this,” I said.

He ran a thumb over the back of my hand. “We can do anything.”

“You are so cheesy,” I teased, even though his words warmed me.

“Only with you.” He shot me a small smile before looking back out the window. “I want to tell them that you are having my baby.”

My tumultuous stomach heaved painfully. “What?”

“I don’t want to hide,” he said, mulishly. “We’ve done that. I want the world to know I own you, my siren. I’ve told you this before.”

“Sin, I really don’t feel comfortable telling your parents.” I felt more than uncomfortable. I was terrified by the thought of it.

“When do you plan to tell them? When our child is two, twelve or thirty six?”

“Don’t be deliberately cruel.”

“Et tu? I am not the one who refuses to acknowledge our unborn child.”

Guilt and anger coursed through my veins like hot lead. I opened my mouth to say something but the sight of an enormous brick mansion secured behind beautifully constructed wrought iron gates distracted me.