The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2)

by Nicole French

  I took my family back to the olive farm for my sabbatical this fall. Do you remember it? As soon as we arrived, I knew I never should have brought them. You are a golden ghost in the air, a beautiful dream that will haunt me in the grass until I die. This is our place. You are everywhere. In the trees. By the fire. Dancing in the vineyard. In every corner, I see you and all the things I should have said before you went away.

  I miss you, principessa. This life is wrong without you. But it is a life I must have. After Christmas, I will return to Firenze, and I will sell the farm like my wife has always wanted. I will be a good father to my girls and try to remember the life I am supposed to live for them, not for myself. I will let the dreams of what might have been sleep, for that is the only place they may be real.

  For this reason, I must ask that you do not follow me back to the city. Stay in America and live your own life. You gave me such beautiful dreams, principessa, but they can never be real. And I cannot allow a dream to ruin my family’s real life.

  But tonight, one last time, I will drink this wine and eat these olives and think of the way you looked with the firelight in your face and hair. My own perfect Venus, alive in the night.

  Con tutto il mio cuore,

  Peppe

  Nina read the letter once, twice over before she truly understood what it said. Then she looked back at the baby, who slept soundly in her seat, another firelight flickering over her chubby cheeks.

  “You look like him,” Nina told her in a low voice.

  It was true. The baby had blonde hair, but her eyes were as dark as the Arno, and her lips were as full as a ripe Italian plum. She was tiny and beautiful and would probably always be a slight, perfect thing.

  “He has to see you,” Nina whispered fiercely as she rocked the seat with her toe. “He must!”

  “I see you’ve nearly gotten your figure back already.”

  Nina started, then turned to find her grandmother entering the room, the normally crisp click of her heels masked by the thick Oriental carpets. Celeste de Vries was clad in her typical Chanel suit—this one a lush winter cream with gold buttons, appropriate for the holidays. Her silver hair was pinned in its perennial elegant twist, and her fingers, wrists, and ears were tipped with their ever-present glints of diamonds and gold.

  As priceless and classic as ever. And as rich.

  “I—thank you. It’s good to see you, Grandmother.” Nina stood to deliver kisses to her cheeks.

  “I’m very glad to see you haven’t allowed yourself to let go completely after the birth,” Celeste replied as she took the other seat by the fire, then crossed one ankle over the other. Unlike most women of her station, Celeste de Vries had chosen to age gracefully without the aid of needles or scalpels, but she was still remarkably well preserved for a woman of her age. Most people thought she was Nina’s mother, not her grandmother.

  “So many do now,” she continued. “I didn’t even allow your grandfather into the hospital room until we could find a stylist to reset my hair, you know. Nowadays they let everyone roam the halls like a pack of wild chickens. It’s why we didn’t come to see you there. We wanted to allow you a bit of dignity.”

  Nina bit her lip to keep from sniping at her. She honestly wasn’t sure what was worse: that Celeste thought she was actually doing Nina a favor by giving her time to look the part of a de Vries woman, or that she was lying to cover up the family’s general apathy.

  “We’ll take you shopping to celebrate,” Celeste proclaimed as she looked Nina over. “Your hair is quite overgrown, and it’s time for you to get out of your maternity clothes. You can’t be a new mother and look like a ragamuffin student.”

  Nina looked down at her dress—a white silk thing that, yes, she had worn while pregnant, but only because its flowing silhouette had been forgiving, even during the last trimester, when she had gained a bit more weight. She had purchased it in Florence last February. Giuseppe had said it made her look like a goddess. And then he had slowly unwrapped it from her body until she was undressed before him.

  Peppe.

  Nina clutched the note tightly.

  “Your professor certainly has some gumption, sending that here.”

  This time, Nina actually did start as she looked up again. Her hand uncurled, leaving the note crumpled in her palm. “Y-you read this.”

  It wasn’t a question, and that was because she wasn’t completely surprised. Peppe’s note hadn’t been sealed, having obviously been sent in another protective layer and opened before it was given to her. And this was Celeste de Vries, after all—someone who took what she wanted, when she wanted. And no one said any different.

  “It was my right. It did bear my address.”

  “But my name, Grandmother.”

  “Not anymore.” Grandmother tipped her head. “Why, might I ask, must I keep reminding you of that? Your husband says you never filed the name change with social security. He’s not particularly happy about it either.”

  Because you wanted the wedding, Nina wanted to insist. You said it would maintain respectability. Keep me from being a laughingstock, save the family from social ruin…

  Had Celeste actually said those things? Or had it been Calvin, while Celeste nodded? At this point, Nina didn’t even know anymore. So she just fingered the paper, gazing at the insignia at the top—a curling, crimson and gold G—before folding and refolding it back into a tiny square.

  “Nina.”

  Nina looked up to find Celeste holding out her hand, palm up. She pressed the letter into her skirt and looked down at the baby, whose lashes, so unusually lush and dark, fluttered on her cheeks. “What?” she mumbled.

  Celeste’s fingers beckoned. “It was generous of me to let you have it in the first place. But like he said, it’s time for you both to return to your families. You can’t bring him with you any more than he can bring you back.”

  Nina stared at the note. It wasn’t like it was the only one she had. Even if it couldn’t join the others, she could still hide it with her other things from Florence—cashmere scarves, bottles of wine and olive oil, pieces of art she wanted to hang but didn’t want to spoil with the lie of her new life. Things she was saving for after. When she was free. Maybe when she would see him again.

  He had to know about the baby.

  “Was this…Peppe…before or after you met your husband in Florence?”

  Celeste, Nina realized, had never said Calvin’s name out loud. Not once in seven months. He was always a thing that Nina was responsible for, like a dog or a houseplant. “Your fiancé” or “your husband.” An object. Something that could be thrown out.

  The two women stared at each other, and for a moment, Nina wondered if Celeste knew her secret. If underneath her barely masked contempt for Calvin, Celeste had allowed her only granddaughter to marry a scab of a man, had been willing to sacrifice Nina’s happiness and her great-granddaughter’s paternity simply to save face. It would have been one thing for Nina to protect the family from her shame. It would have been another completely if they had actively been a part of the deception.

  What would that say about Celeste?

  What would it say about Nina?

  “Nina.” Celeste’s tone sharpened. Her hand stretched out farther. She wouldn’t ask again.

  Nina swallowed and pressed the note to her heart. But eventually, inevitably, she handed it to her grandmother. And, like the parchment was an errant piece of kindling, Celeste immediately tossed it into the fire, ignoring the way her granddaughter fought sudden tears as she watched the paper singe and curl as it caught aflame.

  “Now,” Celeste said. “I want to meet my namesake.”

  She leaned over the carrier, and Nina fought the urge to yank the baby away from this family’s inspection. Suddenly, she wanted to run her back to the elevator and into the Escalade, away from anyone who might and probably would find her wanting. She was perfect and always would be. In all her imperfections.

  “Oh, God, finally. T
here you are, princess.”

  Celeste and Nina straightened at the sound of Calvin’s voice. Was that irritation on Celeste’s face, or just her normal dissatisfaction with most people? It had been a long time. Nina found she couldn’t quite tell.

  “Where have you been?” Calvin hissed as he hurried to stand beside Celeste—beside her, not his supposed new family. He was overdressed in white tie, while Nina knew most of the men in the salon would probably be in suits appropriate for a cocktail party. Was he taking his cues from Upstairs, Downstairs? Did he think the New York upper class changed into formalwear before every meal?

  Nina forced her face to remain blank. Calvin had appeared in the hospital exactly once after the baby was born, wondered aloud why she looked like a “wimpy little slug,” and then promptly left for another “business trip” that had taken him to God-knows-where for the rest of the time the baby was in the NICU and Nina was praying for her life.

  “Did you expect me to do this alone?” he asked her. “Your entire family is in there wondering where you are.”

  “Calm yourself,” Grandmother ordered, leaning away from him slightly, as if he exuded some kind of stench she wanted to escape. “She has a new child. And it’s Christmas. We can be a bit more forgiving, can we not?”

  Nina simply ignored him as well as the idea that anyone in her family could be the slightest bit forgiving. She hadn’t forgotten what had happened three nights earlier. The way he had stumbled into her room sometime past two, swimming in bourbon. The way he had collapsed onto her bed and fumbled around the duvet, grasping for her bare limbs while mumbling something about “doctors” and “more than six weeks” and “done waiting.” And then he had promptly passed out.

  Nina had spent every night since in the nursery.

  “It seemed easier to make our entrance once she was already asleep,” Nina said. And then, because she couldn’t help it: “She is precious, isn’t she?”

  “She is,” Celeste admitted as she bent over the tiny bundle. “Quite beautiful, really.”

  “Just like her great-grandmother,” Calvin ventured, wet-mouthed.

  Celeste did not look impressed. Nina could have told her idiot husband that naked compliment wouldn’t curry her grandmother’s favor any better than hopping around her shoulder like a pigeon would, but she doubted it would do any good. Celeste valued acumen and competency in her men. Calvin seemed to have neither.

  Nina reached down and picked her daughter up. The baby cooed slightly in her arms and smacked her tiny lips before sinking into a deeper sleep. Just the act of holding her calmed Nina’s racing heart. Suddenly, it was as though her pretentious family or foolish husband didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was this tiny person. And doing whatever was needed to protect her from this world.

  “But we can’t call her Celeste, of course,” Calvin put in as he squatted next to Nina, causing his pants to pull around his thick thighs. “After all, we’ve already got one of those, and she’s irreplaceable.”

  He looked up at Grandmother exuberantly, reminding Nina of a soft-headed golden retriever looking to be pet for returning a ball. Instead, Celeste examined him as if he were gum on the bottom of one of her Stuart Weitzmans, then turned back to the baby.

  “There is nothing wrong with honoring family with namesakes,” she said. “Many of the men in this family have borne variants of Jacob and Jonathan for four hundred years. No reason the women shouldn’t have their own traditions.”

  Her thin, painted lips quirked at one side with satisfaction. It had actually been a last-minute decision to name the baby after Celeste. A sort of insurance, Nina supposed, done in a fit of panic at the hospital. But she could already see that might pay off one day.

  Sometimes flattery did work with Celeste de Vries. If it was the right kind.

  “Has she a middle name?” Grandmother asked as she hovered a finger over the baby’s angelic face. “We’ll call her by that. And for God’s sake, Nina, don’t tell me it’s Violet.”

  Nina shook her head and peered down at her daughter. Warmth burned in her chest as the baby’s tiny hands curled into the bodice of her dress. The silk would wrinkle, but Nina couldn’t care less.

  Nina could think of only one other place where she had ever felt such peace. A place with sunshine. Fields and fields of olive trees, as far as the eye could see. If she closed her eyes, she could bring herself back there. Grandmother could burn a note, but she couldn’t torch those memories.

  “Yes,” Nina said, remembering the hue of the oil before Peppe would serve it to her on a drenched piece of focaccia. Golden. Warm. Just like this baby’s face in the firelight. “She does. It’s Olivia.”

  Calvin frowned, clearly confused.

  But Celeste didn’t look the slightest bit surprised.

  “Olivia,” she said as her sharp eyes flashed with recognition. “Yes, Olivia. I see.”

  Now

  Chapter Thirteen

  August 2018

  Nina

  “What time is it?” I asked Moira for the third time in the last ten minutes. “They should have landed by now.”

  My assistant tapped her sturdy brown pump on the vinyl floors of the Thirty-Fourth Street Heliport lounge, then dutifully checked the Cartier watch I had given her as a Christmas gift two years ago. “Two oh three p.m., Mrs. Gardner. She’s a few minutes late, but they should be here any—oh, look, I think that’s them.”

  I followed her finger toward the southeast horizon, where an aircraft had just appeared through the haze of the afternoon sun and smog over the crest of the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Moira and I watched as the helicopter carrying Olivia, plus Jane and Eric, slowly landed. Once the heavy rotors started to slow, I pushed through the glass double doors and went out to meet my daughter.

  “Mama!”

  Olivia’s small voice still managed to carry over the remaining hum of the engine as she sprinted across the tarmac, small blonde braids flying in the wind. She looked like most children did after a summer spent outside—a bit windswept. I just managed to catch her as she flew into my arms and allowed me to fold her into a tight embrace.

  “Hello, my love.”

  I rocked her back and forth. It was the only time we were like this—after a long separation or when she was about to leave (which often happened at the same time). The rest of the time, we both struggled with open affection. But right now, we couldn’t bear to be apart.

  “I missed you,” I whispered in her ear.

  “Me too.”

  She hugged me tighter for several more seconds before finally, to maybe both our regrets, she seemed to remember whom she was again. Or at least whom she was supposed to be. A member of the de Vries family, even if a Gardner by name.

  “Is Daddy here?” she asked as she released me and looked around curiously, straightening her back.

  “Oh, no, darling. He’s at his office. But I think he’ll be home tonight to see you.”

  Was it my imagination, or did she relax more at the news?

  “That’s good,” she said. “He wasn’t there last time.”

  It wasn’t that Calvin was a particularly good father. Really, he wasn’t a father at all except in name. But Olivia’s eagerness to see him, despite his demonstrable apathy reminded me of the universal truth that had bound me to my own dysfunctional family: all children love their parents. And all children want their parents to love them.

  “Did you have a nice time at camp?” I asked, turning back toward the lounge as porters unloaded her bags from the back of the helicopter.

  She nodded. “I did. The horses were really splendid this year. I was really mad about this one Andalusian named Lucy.”

  I smiled at her casual use of British slang, the same sort I had picked up as a girl from similar experiences. She was becoming quite the rider, so I had sent her to an English equestrian camp this year, hoping all the time outdoors with horses would give her the same pleasure it had given me at this age. Olivia would h
ave plenty of time to learn the rigid rules of society, and God knew she got enough of them at her regular boarding school. During the summer, I wanted to give her space to play. To be a child. To get a little bit dirty.

  Everyone deserves to get dirty sometimes, doll. Not just kids.

  I blinked and shook the voice away. Over two months since I’d last seen him, his distractingly velvety voice was still there, popping up at the most inopportune times.

  You love my voice, baby.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as Olivia and I reentered the lounge. Stop it, stop it, stop it. I just wanted peace. That was all. Just a little vacation from this eternal emptiness. This strange longing that never seemed to abate.

  “Hello, Ms. Olivia.” Moira crouched down when we reached her. “Have a nice summer, honey?”

  Olivia nodded shyly, despite the fact that she had known Moira for most of her life.

  My assistant smiled kindly. “Marguerite asked me to bring you this from the kitchen.”

  Olivia’s eyes popped as Moira offered her a small piece of chocolate wrapped in wax paper. “Marguerite made caramels?”

  Moira smiled as she stood back up. Olivia popped the candy into her mouth and chewed blissfully.

  “It’s so good,” she confirmed through a full mouth. But then, as she caught me watching with interest, her expression shuttered. She swallowed and covered her mouth with one hand. “Sorry, Mama.”

  I blinked. Sorry? For what? It took me a few seconds to realize she had expected to be reprimanded for talking with her mouth open. “Oh, it’s all right. You’re excited. And Marguerite’s caramels are really good.”

  Olivia nodded shyly.

  “Please tell me someone brought that kid some candy.”

  Jane’s sardonic voice broke through our little staring match as she and Eric strode over, followed by the porters. They had been visiting friends in Boston for the week. When they discovered that her return flight from London went through Boston, Eric had offered to bring her the final leg with them on the company helicopter rather than forcing the girl to sit through another flight alone to Teterboro.