Page 141 of Sinister

I’m enthralled by the dark, muted colors of the girl’s velvet-green dress and her long brown hair and the windblown trees in the background—all of it so deliciously stormy, brimming over with savage intensity.

“No, really,” I exclaim aloud as the light from the windows falls on the painting and makes me see details that had previously escaped me. “Where did you find this piece? Tell me you didn’t just rob a museum or something!”

“Relax,” Sin replies with a wry laugh. “We have all sorts of collectors in my family: Edwardian furniture, Fabergé eggs, antique Chippendales, someone or the other is always pawning or circulating stuff around.”

I don’t look very convinced, so he sighs.

“Look, that’s part of the reason I even knew of Ms. Matthews’s class. What, did you think a handsome jock such as myself just happened to have a head for art as well?”

Now he is teasing me using the same wits he had displayed the first night we had met.

“I don’t know . . .” I begin uncertainly but without much conviction, as my attention returns to the marvelous painting in my hands.

“Trust me, Petra. I have connections.” Sin waggles his eyebrows theatrically at the last word and plonks down at the dining table.

“Connections? Like, what kind of connections?” I press gently, perhaps because some part of me was still unimpressed by this grand gesture. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s complicated, Petra,” Sin replies in a voice that is starting to get testy. As if sensing this ominous inflection, he rubs the back of his neck, his smile strained. “Look, I just wanted to find something special for you. To show you how sorry I was and . . . and how badly I want to set things right. Can you just accept that?”

A knot tightens in my stomach, and the unease from last night resurfaces.

“Sin, I appreciate the gesture, I really do,” I begin cautiously, putting away the painting on the table. “But given everything that’s—that’s been happening, you can understand why I’d want to know more.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, so I say, “Right?” to jolt him into responding.

“I guess,” he responds in a slightly petulant tone.

“You’re right. Maybe I’m overthinking it,” I say quietly.

And suddenly he’s standing very close to me, his hands cupping my face and his cologne—lemon groves and pine—scenting the private space between our bodies.

“I promise, Petra, I’m not hiding anything that would hurt you,” he says in a gentle whisper, like one would adopt while talking to a newborn lamb. “I would never let anyone else hurt you either. Trust me on that.”

His palms are warm and slightly calloused against my face; his face is hovering inches away from mine. I try and fail to control my breathing and with it, my errant thoughts.

“I’ll try, Sin.” I’m weighing out my words as carefully as I can, because by now, I’m weathered enough to be wary of this guy’s unpredictable moods. “It’s just . . . hard right now. Given all that’s happened recently, you know.”

Like my friend’s head detaching from his body and rolling onto the hem of my dress, my inner voice pipes up, and I try my hardest not to wince at the cynical casualness of her tone.

“Of course, Petra, I understand,” Sin says in an amiable enough tone before quickly pecking my forehead and sliding back into the chair he had been sitting on.

I sit down at the table, too, and return my attention to the painting.

The old master has used a peculiar shade of Prussian blue, almost greyish, to outline the woods in the distance, and I love how the girl is positioned in the frame, with just a slim sliver of her side profile turned toward the viewer.

But before I can linger on the deft lines with which the folds of her cape have been sketched, another urgent thought tugs at my attention.

“Sin, can I ask you something?” I try my hardest to keep my tone subtle and noncommittal.

“Of course, anything,” he replies, gently patting my arm.

“Did you come by my house last night?” I ask without further dilly-dallying; at the same time, I’m watching his reaction carefully. “Were you here?”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was certainly not this: Sin’s brows furrow with confusion, and he shakes his head. “No, I didn’t. Why, what happened?”

“I . . . I thought you might have come around,” I respond, thinking fast. “I thought I heard someone call my name . . . I guess it was just the wind.” I drop my gaze back at the painting, straining to keep my face neutral.

“Petra, you’ve been through a lot,” Sin says in a kind tone, stroking faint circles on my arm—a gesture that is so familiar to me by now that it makes my throat close up with emotion. “And given your pregnancy . . . it’s normal to feel overwhelmed is all I’m saying. I’m just sorry that I added to your stress.”