The Consequence

by Giana Darling

  There was a long pause.

  Then, “Seems like a bunch of excuses to me. You want to marry her, then do it. When a man finds a woman like that, he does everything he can to tie himself to her.”

  Fuck yes. I’d know if anyone could understand my primitive need to claim Giselle, it would be my best friend and brother of choice, Cage. Unlike me, he had never tried to civilize himself. He was happy with being a blunt, gluttonous, badass even when people turned their noises up at him. Even when our parents did.

  The guy had balls of steel and finally, I felt like he wasn’t the only one who did.

  “I’ll need you to help me pick out a ring,” I said. “And I have an idea. It’s crazy impulsive but I don’t think I wait to make her mine, legally. I’ll need you to help me organize it.”

  “Done. I’m busy with the new album but any time, man, I’m there.”

  I tipped my head back against the wall and let out a massive breath that I wasn’t aware I’d been holding in. “Merci, mon frère.”

  “She brought you back to you, Sin. There isn’t a hell of a lot I wouldn’t do for her, and you know there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you.”

  I swallowed the stone lodged in my throat just as the nurse appeared in the waiting room again to beckon me forward.

  “I’m about to see my baby for the first time.”

  “Damn,” Cage said. “You’re a lucky man.”

  I got up and followed the woman into the hallway. “Trust me, I know.”

  When I entered the small room, Giselle was reclined with her legs propped up and open over stirrups, and covered modestly in a blue blanket. Her eyes were wide with nerves and excitement as they caught on mine. Wordlessly and instantaneously, she reached out her hand to me.

  I tried once again to force that stone out of my throat and made my way to her side, linking our fingers.

  “Mr. Sinclair, I’m Dr. Madison Adams,” the older woman situated between Elle’s legs smiled kindly at me after I sat down. “The physical examination showed that Giselle is approximately eleven weeks along but we will be better able to determine the exact date of conception with the ultrasound.”

  “Excellent,” I said, giving Elle’s hand a squeeze.

  She was fidgeting in her seat, uncomfortable with her exposed position and very nervous. It was her nerves that concerned me. I’d been fairly certain that she was happy about the pregnancy, despite the shock of it, but seeing her now seemed to contradict that.

  Before I could ask her, the doctor was gently telling us about how she was going to proceed. She lubricated the end of a vaginal ultrasound and disappeared under the blanket. Giselle squirmed against the intrusion, her fingers cold between my own.

  I leaned forward to press a kiss against her hair and she immediately turned her face into it, searching for more comfort.

  Two seconds later there a percussion noise filtered throughout the room. I watched Giselle look at the monitor beside the doctor, wanting to see her reaction before I looked myself. I was thrilled that I did. Softness descended over her features, smoothing the frown from her brow and setting her lips into a trembling smile.

  “Sin,” she breathed. “Look at our baby.”

  My heart was beating so hard that I thought I might die, but I did what she asked and looked at our baby.

  It was just a little thing, etched like a pencil drawing in black and white. I had been expecting it to look like a little peanut, not really human, but there was a little head, tiny fisted hands and two little feet curled up underneath it.

  “It looks just like you,” Giselle decided firmly.

  I blinked then threw my head back to laugh.

  When I settled down a bit, my siren was smiling softly at me, awe in her eyes and love tucked into every curve of her beautiful face.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  “Okay,” I agreed, because she was being ridiculous but I was ridiculously happy so it seemed fitting.

  “It looks like you are eleven weeks and four days, which puts the date of conception at November 26th.” She smiled kindly at us. “Any special significance for you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  The good doctor frowned at me and I realized I may have snapped at her. Giselle gave me a squeeze because she understood my gruffness was a product of emotion, fucking great emotion, and not anger.

  “It was the first night we officially got together,” she explained softly.

  Dr. Adams beamed at us.

  She was a nice enough woman and the best damn woman’s doctor in the city, but I was done sharing the moment with her.

  “Is it possible to have a moment alone?” I asked, even though it was stated more as a demand.

  I’d found people reacted positively to thinly veiled orders. The trick was to underlay the suggestion with casual authority so that they responded automatically, before ego kicked in and they remembered to argue with you.

  It worked beautifully on Dr. Adams who smiled again at Giselle before moving swiftly out the door with a murmur that she would be back in a moment.

  As soon as the door was closed, I moved into Elle. I pressed my forehead to hers, sinking one hand in all that red hair at the back of her neck so that I was cupping her to me. The other hand, I pressed gently but firmly on the minuscule swell of her abdomen.

  “I never wanted my own family,” I began, working the words through my irritatingly tight throat. “After my parents died and I went to the orphanage, I met Cage, we become brothers, but I knew in my heart that I would never have a real family again. Not even for an instant when Willa and Mortimer adopted me, did I think we were a family. They were good to me, they liked my looks, my intelligence, but they eschewed Cage, fostering him for years with their housekeeper in Paris instead of keeping him with us.”

  They had been lonely years, that handful of years I had spent studying hard at St. Trinity’s to make up for my deplorable lack of early education, trying so hard to impress my new guardians. I’d always been a fairly serious child but Cage had brought levity to my world, reminded me to relax and smile. With him gone, I realized now, I’d begun the slow but sure process of becoming the man Elena had met and loved, an automaton replica of the man I wanted to be.

  “When Cosima came into my life she settled herself in it, dragged the rest of your family into my life in a way that was intimate and permanent. I met Elena but by that time, the idea of family had disappeared and in its place was obligation. We were suited; we shared the same interested, enjoyed each other’s conversation and I found her attractive. But my heart wasn’t truly in it because I had stopped using that muscle when my parents died. Honestly, I was happy never to use it again.”

  I watched Giselle’s lips tighten. It could have been discomfort at the thought of my feelings for Elena or, more likely, it could have been because those very feelings made her soft heart sad, that I had thought love was made like that and that Elena had too.

  “So, still, no family.”

  Elle’s silver eyes were wet with tears.

  “Then you.” I paused, because how could I properly explain how profound her entry into my life had been? This was why people recited poetry. It was easier to steal words than come up with my own. “I fought it. We both know, I fought it. But I knew from the moment I said goodbye to you on the plane that even if I never saw you again, my life was no longer enough. I needed family, a needed love and a woman who was wholly mine. Now, in the span of five months, against so pretty impossible odds, I have one. You gave that to me, Elle, and I cannot express how fucking grateful I am of that.”

  I smoothed a thumb over the tears that slid down her cheeks and into her hair, watching as her lips trembled and her eyes shone. She was so pretty I felt it in my chest.

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” she admitted. “It was so beautiful, anything I saywill just sound stupid.”

  I grinned at her. “Don’t say anything. I just wanted you to know. This baby you’re giving me me
ans the world to me.”

  “Me too. And obviously, I will love him or her no matter what, but I really hope we have a Sinclair lookalike on our hands.”

  Then I kissed her, because there was no other thing I could do.

  Chapter Twenty.

  Sinclair

  Things were moving quickly.

  Thank God.

  I was tired of the subterfuge, of the games and the back and forth over something I knew in my fucking bones was eternal. Everything was falling into place, Giselle was pregnant and her showing at my own art gallery was just around the corner. The nonsense over the Paulsons sexual proclivities and my affair with Giselle had ceased to matter to the crème de le crème of New York City society (not that I cared when it had). There were only three things that needed to get in line in order for me to deliver Giselle her happily ever after.

  One of them, the question of our legal union, I was already orchestrating with the help of Cage and Candy. I hoped I wasn’t overstepping by essentially planning everything about our wedding. Most girls dreamed their entire lives of their wedding day and all of its details but I figured my woman wasn’t one of those girls, she was too busy surviving to think about her future, to busy dreaming of the fantastical to focus on her own desires. So, I was a man planning his own elopement. As unconventional as it was, it was also surprisingly fun. Especially picking out her wedding dress, a creamy collection of lace and weave that would look astounding on her generous curves, against all that flaming hair.

  I had called Sebastian, who was on location somewhere in the California desert to film a movie about outlaws, to ask his permission. It was an outdated practice and one that I personally found fairly misogynistic but I knew the Lombardi clan was close knit and old-school enough to find my gesture both charming and necessary.

  Our conversation went something like this.

  “Hello?”

  “Sebastian, I hope you are well. I’m calling to ask you a rather serious question, if you have a moment.”

  Pause.

  “I have a moment.”

  “Good. I would like to ask for your blessing to marry Giselle.”

  Another pause. This one longer.

  Then, quietly, “Are you sure you have the right sister now?”

  It could have been a passive aggressive statement but the way he spoke softly, carefully, let me know that he was just acknowledging the differences here; between Elena and Giselle, and between me with each of them. I didn’t blame him. Elena’s Daniel had delayed marrying her for four years and now there I was asking to marry her sister after only six months of knowing her.

  “I have the right woman now.”

  “She would be happy to live with you in sin forever. She doesn’t need marriage,” he said, because I am sure he felt that he had to.

  “I wouldn’t be.”

  Another dramatic pause. I was used to them. Sebastian was an actor both on and off the screen.

  “I’ll walk her down the aisle.”

  She would love that so I said, “Thank you.”

  It was a much easier conversation than I had planned for but I had always liked the only male Lombardi and I found that he was often surprising.

  So, one thing down and two more to go before I could rest easy in my new life.

  Those two things were Caprice and Elena Lombardi.

  I started with the easier of the two.

  Osteria Lombardi was only two blocks away from my office so I stopped by after work to duck into the kitchen. They were used to me there, the staff new that I was dating one of the Lombardi women, probably the wrong one, but they let me back without protest so I didn’t care to check.

  Caprice was arguing with her Head Chef over something on the menu but it wasn’t yet busy with the dinner rush. She caught my eye immediately and continued to look at me as she finished her conversation. Without a word, she flicked her finger at me to follow her out the swinging doors and into her cramped office.

  She sat down and gestured for me to do the same. Her face was set in a fierce scowl that rivaled Cosima’s, and that girl could level a grown man twice her size with one of her looks. I reminded myself that Gisele had gone to bat for me twice now, with Paulson and my parents, and it was my turn to do the same.

  “I’m marrying her, Caprice,” I started, because I wasn’t one to beat around the bush and because I knew she would flinch the way she did. I was angry with her for causing Giselle pain so I enjoyed it.

  “You refuse to marry my Elena for years and now you want a union with my baby?” She snorted. “I do not think she will have you.”

  “You are wrong. Giselle loves me more than anything,” I said, never confident of anything more in my life. “I know this because I feel the same, if not more, towards her. She is it for me, Caprice. I am sorry that Elena was only a step, a necessary one, alone the way. I am sorry she was hurt because I found my soul mate through her but a man doesn’t throw away a gift like that just because it causes someone else, of frankly even himself, pain.”

  She blinked slowly at me. “So, you don’t throw her away. You marry her before she can release what a stronzo you are?”

  I smiled slightly but it was sharp, mean. “I am certain that Elle already knows how stupid I can be, she had stood by me through some of my worst decisions yet and I know she would stand by me still. I am going to marry her, Caprice, and treat her like the queen of my fucking heart for the rest of our lives because that is what she is to me. I am not here to ask your permission. I am not even here to ask your forgiveness. I am here to tell you that I unequivocally love your daughter, Giselle, and I am going to make her my wife.”

  I wanted to tell her about the baby so badly that the words burned in my voice box, made it hard to swallow and breath without uttering the words. I resisted. That news was for my siren to share with her mother if she chose and I knew that at the moment, she was sacrificing her mother’s comfort in order to give it to Elena.

  God, my girl was selfless. It was both beautiful and hard for me to bear.

  Caprice’s lips were thin with strain as she stared at me. “I have known you long time now, Daniel Sinclair. I was happy to meet you and give you one of my daughters. You chose wrong it seems. I know that happens because once upon a long time ago, I chose wrong too and I hurt my children in doing that. I do not like to see them hurt more.”

  “I understand that,” I said slowly. “But you are hurting Giselle by blinding siding with Elena on this. I get that Elena needs you and I still care for her, still want her family for her. But Giselle loves her Mama and you’ve taken that from her. I just wanted to let you know that we are creating our own family. If you stay way too long, you might find that she doesn’t need you when you deem her worthy again.”

  I stood up and buttoned up my blazer again as I tilted my head to her. “Despite your bad choice, you made beautiful babies, Caprice. Thank you that.”

  Then I left, leaving the matriarch of the Lombardi clan feeling as if she had lost her daughter and I was glad for it, because if she continued to hurt Giselle, I wasn’t going to let her have her back.

  It was strange to walk up to the apartment I had shared with a woman for years and have it not be my own, have no desire for it to ever be again. Giselle thought that I was unnecessarily cruel to Elena when we had interacted since the break up, but I didn’t have it in me to fabricate kindness when she treated the woman I loved like dirt and me not much better. It killed me to draw the parallels between Willa and Elena but as soon as I did, it was impossible to stop. They both loved me but the way one loved their show pony or Best In Show breed. They loved me for what I could give them.

  The world would have to forgive me if I was tired of that shit.

  Still, when I knocked on the door I did it without anger. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted out of the exchange but I hoped it would bring Elena some closure.

  She answered the door in her lounge clothes, a long cashmere cardigan over a matching silk sho
rt and camisole set. Her hair was pushed back from her face with a velvet head band and she had her black framed reading glasses on her nose. She looked absolutely beautiful and not a part of me wanted her.

  Good to confirm.

  “Elena,” I greeted, holding up a bag of Sushi Yasaka take out and a bottle of her favorite sake. “May I come in?”

  She hesitated sweetly for a moment before opening the door further. I swept in, went to the kitchen to gather plates, a cork screw and utensils and met her at the coffee table where she had her papers laid out.

  “Put those away and let’s eat,” I ordered as I pulled out her favorite rolls and set them in front of her before pouring out the sake into the little ceramic glass we had bought together a few years ago.

  “Why are you here, Daniel?” she asked in an aberrantly soft voice. “To yell at me again?”

  “No, darling,” I said, softening towards her when she curled up into a ball on her side of the couch in her tray of sushi propped up on her knees. “I’m here because we haven’t really talked since the break up and I wanted to give that to you.”

  Her lips twisted. “I can’t decide if that’s really nice of you or kind of douchey.”

  “Probably both,” I said before popping a spicy tuna roll into my mouth.

  We ate in silence for a while because I didn’t really have anything to say, I just wanted to be there for her one last time in case she had something she wanted to say.

  Finally, she spoke, “You really love her, I guess.”

  “I do,” I said, firmly even though I felt a brief flare of guilt.

  I loved Elle so much more than I had ever loved anything.

  As if I had said those words out loud, Elena flinched then sighed. “Yes, I guess I could tell that.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “You were so weird when you got back from Mexico. Moody. Happy one day and so sad the next. It was so out of character that I should have known it was someone else making you feel that way. You were never moody with me.”