“They’ll hate me,” I whispered brokenly as tears slipped over my cheeks and seeped into his fingers.
He pressed his forehead to mine, so hard it almost hurt. “They might.”
I was both furious and relieved that he agreed so easily.
“How can you know it’s worth it?”
His face spasmed with hurt but he recovered quickly. “I’ve never been so certain of anything. Mon amour pour toi est aussi plus grand que le monde.”
My love for you is bigger than the world.
I sucked in a breath and choked as it fractured in my lungs.
“I just got them
back, Sin,” I tried to explain.
He lifted his head and stared down at me with eyes that were half-shuttered. He was beginning to understand that I could seriously be rebuffing him.
“They will forgive you. They are your family and they also understand ways of the heart. I think they will know that we tried to stay away but…” He shrugged in that Gallic way that made huge issues seem ridiculously easy.
“They won’t.”
He stared at me for a long time. I watched his eyes shift through ten different shades of blue. I watched as his heart calcified and I felt mine crumble in my chest.
“So, you will not,” he finally said.
I bit my lip but it was answer enough for him.
With a suddenness that made me gasp, he grabbed my shoulders between his hands and shook me slightly. His beautiful face was twisted into a snarl, his habitually cool mask shattered.
“Why are you choosing heartbreak? It will not stop when you wake up tomorrow, Giselle, it will not stop in a week or a month. This pain will haunt you until it devours you whole. You are saving your sister, you think? You are wrong. I had to choose between you and Elena, and I have. I made the right choice. But you had the same choice and now,” he snarled and took an abrupt step away from me, “you are choosing wrong.”
He turned on his heel without giving me a chance to speak and disappeared into the darkness of the unlit building behind me.
Chapter Eighteen.
I woke up hollow as a dried reed, my brittle limbs creaking in protest as I awkwardly swung myself out of bed. The light slanting in through the gap in the curtains was winter white and dim in the gloom of early afternoon. I’d slept the day away. Recovering from a crying jag was the worst kind of hangover. The throbbing pulse in my head was stronger than the weak one of my fractured heart.
I tried not to think about him but everything – from the way the scalding shower water pounded against my skin in a parade of pained and pleasurable sensation to the leftover crepes I ate for breakfast – reminded me of my Frenchman. Finally, after I absent-mindedly put dish soap into my coffee for the second time, I succumbed to the cyclone of Sinclair-related thoughts that threatened to dominate my psyche.
I remembered all the beautiful things he said to me that I hadn’t been aware of at the time, the many moments he might as well have declared himself to me that I was too stupid to see. I cut myself with memories, strangulated myself with the recollection of his touch. It was easier to wallow in the pain than to conquer it.
When I finally emerged from my bedroom, I was perfectly turned out. I had even painted my nails, something I never did because the chemicals from my paint solutions always dissolved the polish.
I didn’t want anyone to have a reason to point out my heartbreak.
Even though it hit me like a punch to the kidneys, I wasn’t surprised to see Elena in the living room drinking tea with Cosima.
She looked up at me when I entered and smiled sadly, as if I could understand what she was going through. It disgusted me that I did.
“He’s done it. He broke up with me,” she said.
Cosima didn’t say anything and I had the feeling she hadn’t in quite a while. She was perched on the edge of the deep leather chair, her arms braced on her legs as she leaned forward to stare into the bottom of her mug. She looked like she was trying to read her future in the tealeaves.
“I’m so sorry,” I said because I was.
She nodded again, her movements heavy with weariness. Despite that though, she looked even more put together than I in a gorgeous coal grey peplum blazer and matching skirt with every curl perfectly held in place. I noticed the suitcase leaning against the couch and frowned at it.