The Secret (The Evolution Of Sin Book 2) Read online

  “It’s art, Elena, not porn for fuck’s sake,” Sebastian snapped at her before turning to me with an arrogant grin. “How do you want me? I can give you a few phone numbers if you’d like a woman’s opinion.”

  His wink made me snort but Elena shook her head. “You are so crass.”

  “Which one of us is the more American, then, Elena? The crass one or the prude?”

  He had a good point, but I covered my smile behind my hand.

  “I’d be happy to do it,” Cosima said softly. “But you might not like what you get.”

  I frowned at her. “You model swimsuits and lingerie, Cosi. Honestly, I didn’t think this would be a tough sell for you.”

  She lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “It is still enough clothing to cover secrets, no?”

  “You don’t want me. This body is old.”

  I turned sideways to face my beautiful Mama. Caprice Lombardi was the kind of woman you dreamed up for an Italian centerfold; lushly curved under swathes of silky olive toned skin gently creased like pleats at the corners of her light brown eyes, with hair too long for a woman her age in America but exactly right for an Italian, older but everlastingly sexy. She tugged at the end of her thick black braid now and stared at me with worried eyes, as if she was letting me down for not being younger or prettier.

  “You’ve been in America too long, Mama,” Sebastian scolded, reaching across the table to take her hands. “A beautiful older woman is a delicacy.”

  Elena snorted softly and received a glare from both of the twins but otherwise the remark went uncontested. It reminded me what Elena had said when I had first arrived, about Sebastian’s affair with an older married woman. I resolved to ask him more about it but he had been so busy since I’d arrived that I had barely seen him.

  “He’s right. You are gorgeous, Mama,” I said and watched her beam at me.

  She turned to Elena and pursed her lips, an indication that she was going to scold our eldest sister. Elena squirmed under the look.

  “Of course, you will do this for Giselle too?”

  It wasn’t really a question and I could see the darkness descend across Elena’s features like a coming tempest.

  “Really, Elena, if you don’t want to do it –“ I began.

  “Of course she does!” Mama cried, her hands wildly punctuating the words. “We are a family, we do things, always, for each other, si?”

  “Si, Mama,” we chorused diligently.

  The twins shared a look and Elena glared at me.

  I sighed and played with the stem of my glass. Despite a few hiccoughs in our past, I still wasn’t exactly sure why Elena hated me so much. It would have been awesome to have her on my side. We could have been a team of two like the twins, who were so close that it was easy to feel ostracized from them despite the wealth of their love for the rest of the family.

  It had become impossible to think about Elena without Sinclair and I wondered, in a growing series of what-ifs, whether I would still lust after, love after, Sinclair if Elena and I were closer.

  “I’m sorry that I’m late.” As if my thoughts had conjured him, Sinclair appeared beside Elena, bending down to paste a kiss on her cheek.

  He was wearing a perfectly tailored grey herringbone suit jacket with silvery grey flannel pants and a matching vest over a black button up. His chestnut hair had been cut in the hours since I had last seen him and it was now stylishly cropped short at the sides and longer at the top, softly waving back from his strong features. It softened and refined him but I missed the length, it spoke of the slice of rebellion in his soul.

  “It was my fault,” Cage explained, coming up behind him with a wide grin. He took off his mirrored aviator sunglasses with a flourish and tossed them on the table. “The ladies couldn’t get enough of me out front.”

  “I think it was Ryan Gosling they were after,” Sinclair corrected dryly as he finished kissing Mama and Cosima’s cheek, shaking Sebastian’s hand.

  He was before me now and I held my breath to see what he would do. Would he kiss me on both cheeks or could we get away with a casual hello? He leaned down without hesitation, barely brushing his cool lips against my overheated skin.

  “Hello, Giselle,” he said, and I wondered if anyone else could hear the husky timber in his voice.

  “Ah, ma belle cherie.” Cage swooped in to give me a slightly too long kiss on the mouth. His delicious scent, something like leather and pure masculine sex, wafted over me and my lips softened under his firm pressure.

  Sinclair cleared his throat loudly and thumped Cage on the back. “Sit down, Casanova.”

  Cage winked at me and sat down in the empty chair to my right, tugging my seat closer to his with a broad grin. He leaned over me to say to Mama, “You make gorgeous children, Caprice.”

  To my delight, Mama blushed. “You are very dangerous.”

  He barked with laughter, jutting his chin at Elena, the only person at the table not delighted with his presence. “Me? I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Pfft, a fly, maybe no, but a woman’s heart?” Mama shook her head somberly. “No chance.”

  We laughed at their banter and everyone settled in to order their meals and catch up on small talk. I was glad for the reprieve. Being in Sinclair’s presence after my embarrassing display of wantonness last night was awkward, to say the least, and I couldn’t stop tugging anxiously on a lock of hair.

  “Relax, Elle,” Cage spoke with his head angled down at his menu, his full red lips unmoving. “You are acting like a thief in the police station.”

  I consciously slowed my darting gaze and looked over at him again to find his generous smile beaming back at me.

  “I’m hopeless.”

  “Yes, but those in love normally are.”

  I sighed and rolled my shoulders back, determined to get over my own self-imposed discomfort.

  “Much better,” Cage murmured.

  “You shouldn’t have left me with him last night.”

  It wasn’t his fault, not really. If Sinclair had wanted me, he would have succeeded with or without Cage’s protests. In fact, I was about eighty-five percent sure that he had paid that guy to start a fight with my cute dance partner just to get him off me.

  “You shouldn’t have left him that last night.”

  My head jerked sharply over to him, my mouth slack.

  Was he really bringing up Mexico in front of my entire family?

  A quick look of the table confirmed that no one was listening, and that Elena was affectionately fixing Sinclair’s tie, but I still lowered my voice when I hissed, “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

  Cage ceased pretending to care about the menu and looked me straight in the eye. “It is you who has no idea what you could have had.”

  Before I could question him further, the waiter arrived to take our orders.

  “Giselle wants to paint the family nude,” Elena said before the server was even out of earshot.

  My eyes were hot with embarrassment but I tilted my chin up and tried to pretend she didn’t make me feel like some kind of pervert.

  “Oh?”

  Oh? I glared at Sinclair. Really? All I get from the art connoisseur and ex-lover is a stupid, oh?

  “Can I preorder those?” Cage asked innocently, speaking to me but looking at my older sister.

  “Well, at least you know Cage will pose for you,” she sneered.

  “Yes, you might not believe it, but I look even better naked.”

  Sebastian leaned forward to pound fists with him, the movie star and the rock star bonding over their mutual self-love. It was almost adorable.

  “I want to showcase sexuality,” I tried to explain the idea that had come to me, fully formed, last night in the dirty wake of passion I had wallowed in after Sinclair left. “Those stolen, private moments that people are the most afraid to share.”

  “Interesting,” Sinclair said. “Could you give us some examples?”

  Elena
frowned at him but I continued on, “Okay. An older woman propping her breasts up nostalgically, the press of a foot against an erection and the fetishism of it, or maybe a woman alone in a bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she masturbates.”

  Sinclair’s eyes were on me. I could feel them roll off my face to the flushed skin of my chest like cold marbles.

  “It will be tasteful, obviously,” I hastened to add. “The point isn’t the nudity or the sex, it’s the vulnerability and the shame that stems from a person’s most private desires.”

  I knew all too well the shame of desire. I could feel it like a punching glove to the heart every time I looked at Sinclair.

  Everyone waited, looking at Sinclair, the man who owned a prestigious art gallery, a man whose opinion they would trust implicitly. I realized for the first time that I should have been anxious about impressing him because he was, in a sense, my boss in addition to my clandestine paramour.

  I looked up, ready to face judgment, and our eyes locked with an audible click.

  “Have you heard of Aleah Chapin? We hosted her at the gallery and her work explores mature women in the nude. It’s an interesting take, definitely a feminist one, and it has stirred a lot of interest in the art world.” He paused and a flicker of something like a smile teased the corners of his mouth. “I believe your show would stir a lot more than ‘interest’. In fact, I believe you will have people lusting after your paintings faster than you can possibly produce them.”

  I smiled so hard that my cheeks hurt. “You really think so?”

  He nodded curtly. “Without doubt.”

  Cosima clapped her hands together. “Of course, they will! Our bambina is beautiful and talented.”

  Sebastian nodded thoughtfully. “You know, if you want to paint the family, would you be interested in including other famous people? I know a few actors who would be interested in posing for something like this.”

  My mouth dropped open in shock and he laughed at me. “Close your mouth, bambina, it is no sure thing.”

  “I think we need a bottle of Prosecco, si?” Mama smiled at the server and called him over. “We must have Prosecco, please.”

  “I’m afraid we only have champagne,” he began to apologize but Sinclair interrupted him.

  “A bottle of Dom 2007, if you have it.”

  The young man nodded gratefully. “Excellent, sir. May I ask what the special occasion is?”

  Mama beamed up at him. “My daughter is going to paint the naked people.”

  He blinked down owlishly at her before stuttering a nonsensical reply and scurrying off to get the champagne.

  As soon as he was gone, we all dissolved into laughter. I giggled so hard that my belly ached and Cosima was in tears. I caught Sinclair’s eyes mid-laugh and saw him smiling at me, the rare soft and wide smile that I loved so much. We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time, safe amid the raucous laughter to indulge for a second. I tried to convey my thanks for his approval, my guilty apology for my behavior the previous night and the bitter sweetness of sitting at my family table with him sharing a laugh with the people I loved most.

  After a moment, he nodded at me as if he had understood every word in my gaze. Then he slowly dismantled the smile on his face so that when the others finally tuned back in, his features were once again perfect and impassive.

  Cosima shed her clothes almost the moment we were in the door from lunch. Without a word, she had undone the knot at the back of her elaborately wrapped dress and let it fall to the ground.

  “Where do you want me?”

  My mouth opened and closed as I took in her scantily clad form, her breasts and lower half covered only in tiny scraps of web-like lace.

  “You don’t have to do this right now,” I said even though my fingers itched to sketch her form, to imprint the beauty of her body and those tragic eyes Sinclair had spoken of onto canvas.

  One slim shoulder rose and fell. “Why not?”

  “It’s just not really how it works, Cosi. I need to know more about your, well, your sexual history and what, well,” I blushed, “turns you on and stuff.”

  She stared at me with one eyebrow raised, amused and slightly condescending. “And stuff? Jeez, I hope you pitch this series better to the galleries.”

  I laughed and relaxed slightly. “You and me both.”

  “What shall I tell you, then?” She moved into the kitchen, all grace and utter ease and pulled out a chilled carafe of iced tea.

  I took a seat at the island and watched her prepare me a drink, much like I had the night before with Sinclair. In a strange way, I wanted to ask Cosima many of the same questions I wished I could ask him.

  “Do you have any sexual fetishes?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Sex is kinky by nature, no?”

  “Well, sure, I guess. But I’m referring to specific things, terms maybe.”

  She was already shaking her head. “I’ve done a lot of things, and rarely disliked any of them. American women might call me a slut.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but her wink made me smile. “You’re teasing me.”

  “A little.”

  I pouted.

  “Alright, bambina, I will tell you a little something about sex.” The word hissed out of her mouth and billowed into the air like steam from some fierce engine. “I’ve been nothing but this body for almost my entire life. It can be a powerful thing to be beautiful.” She shrugged. “But if you don’t have a reason to build strong bones beneath it, it is easy to become many very ugly things. Sad, used, dumb or dead.”

  “You’re strong.”

  Her slashing brows rose. “Maybe now, but let me tell you, I’ve also been sad, used, dumb and very nearly dead.”

  We stared at each other. My heart was beating too fast and I felt nauseous as my imagination went to work. What exactly had my little sister done to get us out of our poverty?

  “The door was open.”

  Elena stood on the step below the kitchen holding her pretty Prada purse in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She brandished it now and tried to smile. “I brought a peace offering. Daniel told me I was a bit… rude at lunch.”

  “You were a straight up bitch, my darling Lena,” Cosima corrected with a smile as she swooped down to hug her, uncaring of her unrobed state. “But I’m still glad you brought us wine.”

  I smiled slightly at Elena as she was ushered into the kitchen to the seat beside me but I didn’t acknowledge her quasi apology because there was a much bigger one on the back of my tongue.

  “Where are your clothes, Cosima?” Elena asked.

  She grinned. “Giselle is going to paint me.”

  “What, now?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We were just getting started.”

  “Where would you like me?” Cosima asked.

  I bit my lip as I contemplated what she had told me and gave her a brisk nod when an idea came to me. “I’ll start with some sketches so you can keep your underwear on if you’d like. Stand over by the door.”

  She captured the pose I wanted in less than thirty seconds, her years of modeling experience making her the perfect visual muse. I had her standing astride, facing me like a proud warrior, naked and daring. Her body was lush in all the right places and defied gravity just as Cosima had defied the weight of poverty and then, of expectation. I wanted her body in the sun, lit up under the brassy warmth like a trophy while her face, tucked slightly to the side, seeking the shadow, remained in the dark. I’d need to figure out how to catch the glimmer of gold in her eyes, the velvety softness of the color like worn cloth. The challenge excited me and I trapped my tongue between my teeth as I littered the floor with page after page of sketches.

  Every woman in the world wished they looked like that, golden unblemished skin glistening over long muscles and delicate bones. The midday sun was not kind to a body but the harsh light shone like gilt on the inky waves rippling over her heavy breasts and tickling the bare
skin above her pubis. There were only three things disrupting her natural beauty; twin gold bars through her dark nipples, visible through the transparent lace bra, and a raised, bizarrely symmetrical scar three inches in diameter on her left butt cheek that she wouldn’t really let me look at.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Cosima had said, dismissively gesturing at the nipple piercings. “Misspent youth in America and all that.”

  I wanted to see more of the brand, pepper her with questions until she couldn’t help but sneeze out the answers.

  Elena, for her part, kept curiously silent and empty of censure. I was pretty sure the nipple piercings had surprised her, that Cosima’s comfortable nudity offended her sensibilities, but she only sat perched on the stool with her legs crossed and her arms folded like a debutant at tea.

  “You are so untroubled,” she breathed after a long stretch of pencil scraping and silence.

  “I’ve never had a hard time with nudity.”

  “How?”

  I tried not to look at Elena but I desperately wanted to see if her expression matched the quiet despair in her tone.

  “We were all meant to be naked.”

  “Maybe women who look like you.”

  “No.” Cosima’s arched brows slammed down. “Every person is beautiful naked.”

  “Even without those curves?”

  “Even with them?” I countered softly.

  Elena and I looked at each other then and smiled.

  “You don’t believe me because I look like this but that is why I like Giselle’s idea so much. Everyone is naked under his or her clothes, vulnerable under their masks and a person’s sexuality is an extension of their human need and their primitive desires. It is not a shameful thing.”

  “Who knew the swimsuit model was so wise?” I teased, my strokes on the thick paper looser now to accommodate Cosima’s fluid expressions.

  “You would be surprised by what standing in front of a camera every day will do to you.” Cosima winked but both Elena and I remained quiet because, I think, we had both wondered the exact same thing.

  Elena sighed and propped her delicate face in her hands. “Listen, Giselle, I am sorry I was so negative earlier about your collection. I really would like to pose for you.” She hesitated. “It will be hard for me though so maybe I could go last? By then, you might not even want me.” She laughed awkwardly.