The Consequence

by Giana Darling

  I made a soft whimper of empathy.

  He continued, “I caused you pain. That is unacceptable, especially when I promised you that I would protect you from judgment. I turned right around and judged us myself.” He made a noise of disgust and buried his nose in my hair. “Désolé, ma sirène.”

  “You are forgiven,” I said, because I knew he needed to hear it even though I didn’t actually feel the need to do it. “Let’s move on from it, okay? From this day forward, we talk about things that concern us instead of closing each other out.”

  He smiled against my cheek. “Look at you, Elle. When you first came to me in Mexico, you were this unsure, timid thing with a deep well of gumption and fierce feminine power that you had no idea how to tap into. Now, you are a siren come into her own.”

  “You had everything to do with that,” I said, because it was true.

  “You would have found it eventually.”

  I disagreed but I decided to leave it at that because we were having a moment. I knew there would be more trials in the future so I thought it was important to luxuriate in the peacefulness, the absolute rightness, of our togetherness while I could.

  Our phones buzzed simultaneously on the table beside Sin and he reached for them.

  “The day has officially begun,” he murmured drily as we both checked out notifications.

  “You were the one who wanted me to have a phone,” I pointed out. “I was happy without one for twenty-four years.”

  “You needed one. How else can I send you orders to ready yourself for me before I get home at the end of the day? You also need a camera phone to send me pictures of all this gorgeousness while I am away on business trips. A phone was a necessity.”

  I laughed, the sound trailing off as I read the email from Stefan.

  “Sin, Stefan is in town,” I crowed, delighted for the opportunity to see the Greek shipping magnate again.

  “Joy.”

  “Sin…” I giggled. “He is a very nice man. And, as I told you, he was the one who encouraged me to go after you that night when you had blatantly tossed me aside.”

  His lips flattened at the memory. “I am so fucking lucky you have the patience of a saint.”

  I laughed and snuggled closer. “You make it all worth it.”

  “You read the email and I’ll be right back. I have a meeting in an hour but I want to have a bath with you before we leave for the day. You must be sore from last night.”

  He pressed a sweet kiss to my forward. I watched him get out of bed, his naked body gilded with weak winter sunlight as he walked into the bathroom. My throat was tight with emotions but I swallowed them back and turned my attention to my phone.

  “He wants to meet for lunch,” I called so Sin could hear me as I read the note. “He has a proposition for me.”

  My words were met with a heavy silence and I bit my lips against my stupidity.

  “I think it was something to do with my art,” I amended.

  No response.

  “I still haven’t found my pills so I’m going to head to the clinic I used to go to in order to get a new prescription,” I said again, hoping to distract him.

  He didn’t say anything so I took the time to quickly send off a response to Stefan agreeing to meet him at noon at Le Cinq in the George V Hotel off the Champs-Elysées.

  When I entered the bathroom, I took a moment to love the rich wood paneling and the emerald green tiles that encased the deep bathtub that Sinclair was filling with steaming water and a plethora of lavender scented bubbles.

  “Get in,” he ordered, moving away to press play on the music system.

  The smooth jazzy refrain of Melody Gardot’s music flooded into the room.

  I was naked already so I just swept my hair up into a messy bun and stepped into the nearly painful heat of the soapy water. I sunk down, hissing from the sting and closed my eyes to absorb the heat.

  When I opened them, Sinclair was sitting on the side of the tub with a soft white washcloth that he dunked into the water. We locked eyes as he leaned forward to softly run the fabric from my neck down over my shoulders and arms, firmly around each finger, releasing tensions that I hadn’t even known I harbored.

  “That feels so good,” I murmured.

  “It feels good to care for you,” he responded, sweetly.

  I opened one eye to make sure he was real before closing them again so better feel the friction of cloth against my heat sensitized flesh.

  “I don’t want you to wear panties to your meeting with Stephan today.”

  My eyes flew open. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. I want you to go without panties.”

  “Ugh, I would have thought you would want me as clothed as possible.”

  A smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. “You would have thought wrong. I want you to go feeling the breeze tease your bare cunt under your skirt, knowing that the moment you get back, I will have my mouth on you and that you will already be wet, knowing that is what I have in store for you.”

  “Oh,” I said, because that seemed really nice even though it was a little possessive.

  Maybe because it was a little possessive.

  He grinned fully at me. “Now, lean back and close your eyes again. Let me take care of you.”

  There was something about the George V Four Seasons that was both horribly and magnificently cliché. It was a beautiful, quintessentially French decorated building and the temporary home of many rich and famous visitors who came exactly for the cliché Parisian experience. Despite the triteness of that, the hotel was still a joy to strangers and locals a like. It was an institution in Paris, something that might have been hated once but was now embraced, much like the Eifel Tower.

  I loved that Stefan had chosen to stay there because it spoke to what I already knew about his character. He further delighted me by waiting for me in the lobby in a perfectly tailored, form fitting burnt orange suit that somehow looked utterly fantastic on him.

  I threw myself into his arms because he opened them for me.

  “Giselle,” he said into my hair.

  He smelled amazing, some kind of strong, manly cologne designed to cut women off at the knees.

  “Stefan,” I beamed at him as I stepped away, clutching our hands and swinging them between us. “You look fantastic.”

  “As do you,” he cast a critical eye over my form, encased in black trousers, a Gucci belt that Cosima had given and an amazing pearl-buttoned white blouse. I wasn’t wearing panties and the seam of the denim kept rubbing against my clit. I was mildly concerned about the effects of pussy lubrication on jeans. “Happiness looks good on you. Let me guess, the Frenchman won you over?”

  I laughed at him as I took his arm and he led us into Le Cinq but I didn’t answer until we had been seated at a table by the window.

  “He did,” I confirmed. “The painting you sold him helped that. Thank you, Stefan.”

  He made a face. “I was loathe to part with it but he told me about your upcoming collection and I knew I could replace it with something new and inspired by you.”

  I blushed. “It’s different than my normal work.”

  “I’m counting on it,” he said with a wink. “You are a different woman since Mexico, no?”

  “I am. Sinclair makes me feel strong and sure of myself.”

  “You have many reasons to feel that way outside of your relationship with that man. Your art alone is reason for a considerable about of arrogance,” he offered as the waiter came to fill our water glasses and take our drink orders.

  Stefan ordered us a bottle of Domaine Romanée Conti.

  I didn’t object.

  “You flatter me,” I said when the waiter swept away.

  “I do not. Your art is actually the main reason that I wanted to meet with you.” He eyed me for a long moment before coming to a decision. “First, you fill me in on your life, then I tell you about what I had in mind.”

  I was curious but I hadn’t s
poken to him since the first and only email I sent to him on my return to Mexico letting him know that Sinclair was, in fact, dating my sister. So, I settled in to tell him the entire sordid story and was reward by his occasional bark of laughter and lascivious comments.

  “So, you ran away again?” Stefan concluded, taking a sip from his glass of extraordinary Burgundy wine.

  I frowned, hesitating to bring a morsel of Cod fish, spinach and raisins to my mouth. “We didn’t exactly run away.”

  “Giselle, darling, do not fool yourself. You ran way from Naples, you ran away from Paris and now you have run away from New York. You are a runaway girl.”

  Carefully, I placed my fork back down and propped my chin in my hand to think about the accusation Stefan was making.

  He was right.

  I was a runner. I had just never realized it.

  Was I that cowardly that I couldn’t face the consequences of my actions?

  I felt, momentarily, ill.

  “We’re going back,” I said.

  “I am not criticizing you, Elle. You left behind a steaming pile of merde each time you ran away so the desire to do so was not unwarranted. In fact, I’m looking to enable you.” He dabbed his lips daintily with his napkin before replacing it in his lap and leaning back in his chair to commit himself to staring at me.

  “Yes?” I prompted after several moments of his unnerving contemplation.

  “A friend of mine is one of the senior editors at French Vogue. They need a new art editor and I thought…” he trailed off with a wave of his hand at me. “You would be perfect. Of course, it means that you would have to relocate to Paris but, given the circumstances especially, I do not think that would be so hard.”

  I blinked at him in total shock. Editor at French Vogue? How was this even a remote possibility? I was just a relatively unknown artist from backwater Naples.

  “I don’t deserve an opportunity like that,” I expressed.

  Stefan glared at me. “Bullshit. As we spoke about in Mexico, you have begun and, I would now say finished, the transformation from an ‘ugly’ ducking to a swan. You are a competent, intelligent and talented artist with a degree from one of the most prestigious art schools in the world. You have four successful shows under your belt and another one upcoming in New York that has already generated much talk, even in Paris. You deserve this opportunity and any others that I or anyone else can throw in your path.”

  “Wow, that was very impassioned,” I said stupidly, because I couldn’t believe he was being so kind.

  “I am not saying it to be kind or because I am your friend,” he said, reaching across the table to take hold of my hand. “Though, I am that, your very dear friend, I hope. I am saying this because you deserve the opportunity and I would be doing my other friend a favor by setting up an interview with a promising employee.”

  It was hard to speak through my suddenly parched mouth so I took a long sip of water before saying, “Can I think about it? It just… It seems to good to be true.”

  “Of course, you can. Talk it over with your lover and let me know. Interviews begin the first week of January, so you have time.”

  I nodded, looking out at the rain slicked streets of Paris, feeling the love I had for the city and the awe I had at being presented with such an amazing chance. It would mean giving up the purity of being a full-time artist but it would also give me the ultimate in into the art world of Europe.

  “Thank you, Stefan,” I said, pouring as much gratitude and love into those words as I could.

  Somehow, I had landed more than just the love of a good Frenchman on my trip to Cabo. I had also secured the kind of friendships I had never really had before, with people who would always strive to take care of me. It was awesome to realize that.

  Stefan smiled lovingly at me. “Anything, anytime, Giselle.”

  “I hope you know you can ask the same of me,” I returned.

  His smile turned into a grin. “Excellent, then I call first dibs on that new collection of yours. Send me pictures of the completed paintings and expect me to choose at least three of them for my own collection.”

  I laughed at him. “Deal.”

  Chapter Ten.

  It was easy to forget everything but my love of Sinclair and the City of Lights. We established a schedule of sorts, where Sinclair would wake up early and work until two in the afternoon before meeting me at the tiny café around the corner from the hotel. From there, we would head out on a different adventure, reacquainting ourselves with the city we both loved but had been forced to leave. We ambled through the steep and crooked streets of Montmartre, bought charcuterie and cheese from Marché Place Monge before heading to Jardins des Arenes for a picnic among beautiful Roman ruins, and watched films at the Parc de la Villette open air theatre, tucked up in blankets with steaming cups of drinking chocolate to keep us warm.

  While I waited for Sinclair every morning, I practiced the French art of being a flaneur, a person who walks through the streets with no goal in mind but observation and meditation. Sometimes, I made friends with people as I ducked into patisseries, sharing my beloved Maison Kayser chocolate chunk cookies with a family of German tourists or dancing with a young Australian couple to the music of the violinist who was a permanent fixture in front of the Sacré Coeur.

  Most of the time though, I walked and sketched to my hearts content. Odile let me use her private studio whenever I wanted so I had made progress on my collection even without my usual supplies.

  This included three pieces I was doing on Odile and her three delicious younger men. I was calling the trilogy The Power Of Three and each canvas depicted a different facet of the relationship, from a tangle of bodies that were barely discernable as female or male to three sets of thick male hands on a dainty female form, and finally a subtle depiction of them out on a date, the view of the men’s hands fiddling with her under the table while they dined and chatted casually above.

  Even Madame Claire agreed to pose for me, using the same man who had been her footstool that night at her party to serve as a prop for my pictures. I loved the audacity of French sexuality and found myself discussing it openly in a way I never would have before Sinclair, before we had come to Paris to explore together.

  Before I knew it, we had been there for two and a half weeks, and it was Christmas.

  Paris at Christmas was a revelation. The dark latticework of naked trees lining the narrow streets and broad promenades were ribboned with tiny lights, lampposts boasted large red bows and every storefront was tastefully rearranged according to a different holiday theme. Elegantly dressed Parisians walked leisurely through the city, stopping into lesser-known chocolate shops to seek out chocolat chaud and Christmas confections between last minute gift shopping.

  The lavishly decorated Christmas tree that dominated Notre Dame Cathedral’s main plaza drew tourists and locals alike, especially as they had canceled the installation last Christmas due to the November terrorist attacks. People had placed flowers beneath the tree like presents to those who had passed away but the atmosphere was jovial nonetheless, the air filled with laughter and ample cries of Joyeux Noël.

  It was a gorgeous place to spend Christmas Eve but I couldn’t shake the melancholy that had stalked me the last few days. It made me feel ungrateful to feel this way, especially when the love of my life was beside me, currently holding my gloved hand. He had sensed my mood, of course, and taken the last few days off of work in order to throw himself into entertaining me. We ice skated at the Trocodero, ate at all my favorite haunts, even the cheap café under Place de Madeleine, and now we were simply walking the crowded streets on our way from meeting Candy and Cage for drinks.

  “You are unhappy,” Sinclair noted.

  I bit my lip, unwilling to spoil our beautiful day with my stupid, self-indulgent thoughts. “Just thoughtful.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You know how much your thoughts are worth to me. Please, tell me.”

  “As happy as I
am here with you, I still feel restless. Unresolved.”

  He nodded. “That’s understandable. Even though we are finally together, this a dream world, one where we don’t have to reap the consequences of our actions.”

  I bit my lip. “Well, I am feeling one of them. I miss my family and the worst part is that I know this feeling won’t go away anytime soon because when I see them again I’ll have to tell them about us and then they will deliberately go away.”

  Sinclair pressed my hand between his. The gesture reminded me of the way one preserved a flower between the pages of a book and I knew it meant that he wanted desperately to conserve my relationship with my family, at least with Mama and the twins.

  “You don’t know how they will react. They might be supportive.”

  “Honestly, I think the twins know already. At least, Cosima.”

  “Oh?” Sinclair asked though there was sharpness in his eyes that said he wasn’t that surprised. “She does know both of us well enough to sense something amiss.”

  “Well, I’ve definitely been distracted but I can’t see you giving yourself away. Obviously, I didn’t know you before but you seemed to act the same.”

  “I was happy, Elle, incandescently so. That was a change that everyone noticed.”

  I sucked in a deep breath between my teeth, surprised by his words but more surprised by the impact they had on me. When would I get used to the fact that Sinclair had always wanted me? That maybe he always would?

  “Do you miss her?” I asked. “I’m not trying to trap you, I’m honestly just wondering. It’s only natural after spending so much time with a person that you would miss them.”

  Even though I said the words, and a large part of me meant them, there was still an echo in my chest that urged me to compare myself to Elena. I resisted, drawing on the strength of Sin’s hand in mind in order to do it.