Free The Secret (The Evolution Of Sin Book 2) by Giana Darling Page B

information so badly. I watched his lean form from the corner of my eye, the colored lights flashing against him like the light of a camera. I released the enormous breath and dragged in another to fill myself with my new mantra, just friends . 
     
    I knew the minute we opened the door that Cosima wasn’t home, the air was cool and dark, unpunctuated by the habitual fire and music crooning from the surround sound speakers. I wasn’t sure if her absence was a blessing or a curse because the current of electricity that crackled constantly between Sinclair and me snapped with ferocity as soon as we understood our aloneness.
    “Drink?” I murmured as we moved towards the kitchen at the back of the apartment.
    Without waiting for an answer, I started to rifle through the fully stocked cupboards. I had no idea where Cosima kept the liquor and I was too frazzled to properly guess at where she may have placed it.
    “You sit,” he demanded in that quiet, stern voice that made my bones shake with desire. “I’ll fix us both a drink.”
    I nodded gratefully and slipped onto one of the stools at the large wooden island. I watched him maneuver about the kitchen gracefully, locating the ice, tumblers and whiskey as if he himself had placed them there.
    “You come here a lot.”
    “Yes.” He poured a perfect two fingers into each glass, one with ice and one without. “It is one of the reasons that we are able to have a friendship. Cosima was my friend before I even met Elena.”
    An arrow of hatred painted with the name of my eldest sister found its home in the center of my heart. I cemented it there with guilt and shame and felt it throb.
    “You know, I would say that I can’t see you and Cosima being friends but,” I laughed lightly, “she is infectious, isn’t she?”
    “Yes.”
    He handed me the glass with ice and watched me intently as I lifted it to my lips and touched the burning liquid to my tongue. I watched his eyes but he was either unaffected or being very careful.
    “How did you meet her?” Talking about Cosima seemed as good a topic as any. In fact, it seemed to be one of the only topics I could even begin to feel comfortable talking about with Sinclair.
    He stepped back to lean against the counter across from the island, giving me a full view of his beautiful suit clad physique.
    “Willa signed her.” I recognized his adopted mother’s name and noted that he didn’t call her something affectionate like mom. “When she was nineteen. I was in Italy with Willa when she discovered her, standing in the rain wearing a long black dress. You couldn’t tell where her hair ended and the dress began. She looked like something from Dante’s Inferno .”
    He shook his head and stared into his glass as if divining a memory. I waited for him to continue but he remained silent. Cosima never spoke about her time away from home and honestly, I think the rest of us were too afraid to press her into confessing. What exactly did an eighteen-year-old girl have to do to pull her family out of destitution?
    I shivered, pulling Sinclair from his reverie. His lips compressed into a flat line. “She was too young to have such sad eyes. I didn’t want her living with my parents – she had obviously already been through a lot – so I offered to host her here in New York.”
    “Wow,” I blinked a few times as I tried to process the picture of my vivacious sister inhabiting the same space as the fiercely private and enigmatic Frenchman.
    A tiny smile twitched his lips. “It was an interesting experience to say the least. It was just for a short time; within the year, she had enough money to bring over Elena and Mama. Sebastian arrived from Los Angeles soon after.”
    And you met her.
    What would have happened if I had stayed in Italy? If I had moved to New York with my family and Sinclair had met both Elena and I at the same time?
    The hypothetical made my teeth ache.
    “You know,” I said, to distract myself from that