The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2)

by Nicole French

  “Done.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Nina stayed in her bedroom with the baby for over a week while the cuts and bruises on her face healed. The others on her back would be there much longer, and given how painful it was to breathe, she was fairly sure she had a few cracked ribs that might take even longer.

  The staff left her food by the door—Calvin had told them she and the baby had some terrible virus and were contagious. No one argued, because no one argued in houses like theirs. All staff employed by de Vrieses signed NDAs, and even then, their generous salaries would have ensured their loyalty regardless.

  Loyalty to whom, though?

  She spent the days watching Olivia with a fascination that now bordered on obsession. She had never noticed, for instance, the exact length of the shadow cast by her daughter’s eyelashes when she slept. Or the perfect, tiny dimple at the end of her perfect nose.

  She was still small for her age, and slightly behind developmentally, though the doctors assured her that was normal for a preemie. She still spent most of her time on her back and tummy, only just able to roll herself over and back.

  She fed her formula, which she seemed to like, since what little milk Nina had left could not possibly sustain the child. It was just after each feeding, though, that Nina fell most in love with her daughter, when they would lie on the big bed together as the sun dipped beyond the New York City skyline, and Nina watched sweet baby dreams play across Olivia’s face as she drifted off to sleep.

  And then, when Olivia slept, Nina would lie on her bed, cradling her face and arms as she stared up at the box beam ceiling of the hat box of a room. Once she’d had so many plans for the place, but now she couldn’t care less. A prison was a prison, whether it was covered in chintz or bars. She waited for the throbbing pain under her shoulder to subside a bit more. For the knot on the back of her head to ache a little less.

  And while she waited, she forced herself to let go of the life she thought she might have. And another started to take shape in its place.

  She saw that she would no longer dedicate her time to school, but to social events. That she would return to the fold of parties and luncheons with her husband on her arm, his ticket into navigating the world of New York high society.

  She saw that she would have to hire round-the-clock help for Olivia until the time came when she could safely send the girl to boarding school, away from this madness. Away from the farce.

  She saw that like her parents, she would barely know her daughter. And that it was in Olivia’s best interest for that to be the case.

  She saw that she would never be free unless she could become as much of a monster as her husband was to get rid of him.

  And where, really, was the freedom in that?

  On the eighth day, sometime in the early morning hours, Nina rose from the bed and found her face was clear in the mirror over her vanity. In the mirror’s reflection, Olivia still lay sleeping on the bed. Nina stared at her limp, bedraggled hair, at the shadows under her eyes, and could hardly recognize the woman she saw. Even when she was pregnant, she had looked more like herself. Now she was a battered ghost. Fitting, considering she was having a hard time figuring out what to live for.

  She trudged into her closet to find some clothes that weren’t grubby loungewear, but stopped when her eyes fell on the shoebox shoved on a shelf in the far corner. She stood up on her tiptoes to pull it down, then sank to the floor of the closet and began sifting through the dozens of love letters Giuseppe had passed her over the months of their affair. Letters full of praise, adoration, love. Emotions she’d never received from anyone before him—not friends, not family. No one.

  When she had read through them all and shed more than a few tears, she was surrounded by crumpled pieces of cardstock, but the horrific weight in her chest had lifted slightly. Maybe there was one person in the world who would care enough to help in this dire situation. Maybe there was one last refuge to seek.

  She padded out of the closet and checked the clock on her nightstand. It would be only one o’clock in Florence now. Giuseppe would be coming home for lunch before teaching an evening class with the summer term students. She could see him now, sitting on the balcony of his apartment, enjoying a panino, perhaps, or a bowl of leftover pasta reheated with a splash of cream and ribbons of fresh basil, followed by an espresso.

  Without thinking twice, she grabbed her cell phone from the vanity and sank into the seat as she dialed the number she had memorized long ago. The call went to an automated Italian message indicating the box was full. Nina drew up her contacts and found the number he had told her never to use unless it was a true emergency.

  She believed this qualified.

  “Pronto.” The female voice that answered sounded old, tired. A little bit clogged, like a sink.

  The housekeeper, Nina guessed. Or perhaps his mother, whom she knew lived with him and his family.

  “Excuse me,” Nina said in her awkward Italian. “Is Professor Bianchi available? I’m…” She paused for a moment, searching for a reason she might be calling. “I’m from the university. We need—”

  “Lord, you people can’t stop!” the woman interjected. “My poor son has been dead two days, and all you can think about is clearing his office!” The woman’s voice descended into a babble of tears and coarse language.

  Nina, however, couldn’t concentrate long enough to decipher any of it. The only word that lingered rang like a bell inside her head.

  Morto.

  Dead.

  Giuseppe was…dead?

  “Scusi, scusi, signora,” she finally managed in a voice that sounded as hollow as she felt. “I am so sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t know. Please give my condolences to the family.”

  She hung up before the woman could reply, then sank to the blush-colored carpet, hugging her knees to her chest, and suddenly rocking back and forth like a child in the middle of her room.

  Peppe was dead. Dead. How could this have happened?

  How do you think, princess? This time it was Calvin’s sneer that filled her mind.

  She took her phone and frantically punched in a search. A death notice appeared immediately—Giuseppe was a respected member of the art intelligentsia in Florence. His death would have been reported immediately, and it was.

  Heart failure, said the papers. Suddenly in his home. Services to be announced.

  She stared at the words, feeling somehow they too weren’t real. Peppe ran three miles every day. His health was better than most people her age, let alone a man in his early forties. And yet, he was dead…

  What did you really think was going to happen, princess?

  Again, Penny’s tragic death passed through her mind.

  No. It couldn’t have been.

  And yet…Grandmother had known about Peppe. She had made that clear at Christmas, hadn’t she? And then there was the way her eyes had drifted over the Italian feast Nina had requested. The veiled disappointment when she glanced at Olivia.

  It wouldn’t have taken much for her to learn that Nina was planning to visit Florence. Just like it wouldn’t have taken much for her to do the unthinkable…again.

  Fear skittered up Nina’s arms and legs in a way it hadn’t in days. Her bones felt heavy, as if the knowledge of her family’s cold-blooded tendencies, along with her husband’s, were sinking into her, all the way through. She felt drowned by the sudden knowledge.

  Calvin was right. Nothing. She was nothing. She had nothing. And she never, ever would.

  A gurgle sounded behind her. An absolutely unadulterated sound of joy, a tiny baby’s giggle.

  Feeling like a ghost, Nina got up and walked to the bed.

  Olivia was sitting up. In the middle of the bed, she was sitting straight, having pushed herself up at last, chest forward. Wobbling slightly, but proud nonetheless. Her dark eyes met her mother’s and twinkled with utter possibility. So full of her father’s light.

  Nina choked back a sob.


  Olivia held out her hands.

  Nina rushed across the mattress and rained kisses over Olivia’s downy head.

  “Oh, my sweet girl, my love, my darling,” she murmured nothings while Olivia squealed with joy. “You sat up! You did it, lovey, you did it!”

  The two rocked together on the bed for several minutes, maybe an hour before Olivia made it clear it was time for something to eat. After that, they would have a bath. Cleanse the week of sadness and filth off themselves. Find a way to figure the rest of their lives out together.

  When Nina finally left her bedroom, daughter in her arms, it was with the resigned awareness that she was beginning a new life, but also sustaining another. Maybe she would have nothing, but she would make damn sure her daughter had everything.

  She straightened her back. She opened the door. And she didn’t look back.

  Now

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  September 2018

  Nina

  “Mama? When are we going to go?”

  I checked my watch, then peered down Tenth Avenue, looking for any sign of my late cousin-in-law. It was eight o’clock in the morning, the sun was shining steadily on us from the East River, and the city seemed to be buzzing with the same energy I’d felt for the last week and a half.

  “Soon,” I told Olivia, though I felt jittery myself.

  The last time I had felt this excited was when I was nineteen and about to board a plane to Italy for the year. It wasn’t the first time I had left New York anymore than this was. It wasn’t even the first time I had been to Europe, or even Italy. But it was the first time I had gone there for myself, and that made all the difference.

  This time I was only traveling four hours north to Boston, but it might as well have been across the ocean for how it made me feel. After three sleepless nights on Long Island—I could never sleep when I had to share a suite with my husband—we had all three returned to New York, and Olivia and I had prepared not just one but two sets of belongings for the school year in Massachusetts.

  Calvin, of course, hadn’t been particularly happy with my decision to leave—or at least, he hadn’t been very happy with my decision to surprise him with it in front of all those people, which I’d paid for that night behind our bedroom doors. The bruise on my back was only just starting to fade, and there still was a knot on the back of my head. I didn’t care. It was worth it.

  More surprising, however, was the fact that once he had rid himself of that aggression, Calvin didn’t argue anymore with the proposal. Unlike the last time I suggested returning to school, he actually seemed a bit relieved I wouldn’t be around. It was one thing to force a marriage when he was traveling nearly all the time. It was another completely when we essentially had a court order to cohabitate.

  I fingered the list of addresses I needed to inspect before term started. I still didn’t understand why a property manager couldn’t take care of it, but I supposed stranger still were the three envelopes in my purse from Calvin to the tenants. Notices of eviction, he said, upon termination of their leases. He was getting out of the hospitality game for good, before anyone could freeze all our assets.

  “Do you think Auntie Jane is going to get here soon?”

  I smiled at the familiar moniker. Olivia was fairly in love with Jane these days, and I couldn’t fault her for it. I quite liked her myself.

  Except, of course, when she was late.

  “Hopefully,” I said, checking my watch again. “I did tell her eight. I don’t particularly want to get stuck in traffic getting into Boston.”

  “Hey! I’m here, I’m here! I’m so sorry I’m late!”

  Olivia and I turned around to find Jane scurrying down the street, a small, bespectacled tornado of black. She was dressed in a simple black jumpsuit fitting for the hot weather, but between her red cat-eyed glasses, the teal and purple streaks in the back of her hair, and the studded leather bracelets around one wrist, she looked a far cry from the wife of one of New York’s wealthiest businessmen.

  As it did whenever I saw her, envy struck into my stomach. Not at her clothes, per se, but at her unabashed sense of self. Jane was never anything but exactly who she wanted to be.

  “Hey, kiddo!” She leaned down and kissed Olivia on the top of the head before moving to kiss my cheek as well. Real kisses, not the ones that only touched the air. “I’m sorry, but did you grow since Saturday?”

  Olivia giggled shyly. “You’re silly, Auntie Jane.”

  “You can ask her to stop calling you that if you like,” I said. “If it’s too familiar, I mean.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jane grinned at Olivia. “I have a million aunties back in Chicago. I’m psyched I finally get to be one too.” She shrugged. “I was tailor-made for the weirdo aunt role anyway. I will own the auntie business.”

  Again, Olivia giggled. Even I couldn’t manage to hide my smile. Jane wasn’t exactly wrong about her eccentricities.

  “Is this your car?” Jane asked, turning to face the sensible car parked in front of us on the curb.

  All three of us turned to face the sage green Volvo I’d purchased earlier this week. Calvin had ridiculed me endlessly for choosing what he called the most boring car on the planet. But I quite liked the little coupe. It was small and practical and safe, with the added benefit of not drawing every eye within a hundred feet the way the rest of my family’s vehicles always did. No gleaming chrome mascot leaping off the nose or ridiculously tinted windows that made everyone stare when you passed anyway. And best of all, no driver.

  “Don’t you like it?” I asked, suddenly uncertain. “I thought it was sweet. Not too flashy.”

  Jane just blinked back at me with something resembling pride, I thought. “I think you might be the real black sheep in your family, Nina.”

  I snorted before I could help myself. “I think you have me confused with your husband, Jane. I’m not the one who ran off for ten years.”

  “Before coming right back to the fold and accepting his wads of cash? Please. Eric’s about as rebellious now as a minivan, in his custom suits and board meetings.” She shook her head. “He was a square in law school, and he’s a square now. It’s just that your family’s square happens to be a couture one.”

  “Is he a square everywhere?”

  I wasn’t trying to be suggestive, but it just came out. I didn’t miss the way Jane and Eric looked at each other when they thought no one was watching. And I had a feeling it took a bit more than our family’s money to keep someone like Jane happy.

  “Well. maybe not everywhere.” She shrugged happily, like she was recounting some secret to herself. “He may or may not join us next week if he can get out of some meetings. What can I say? The man is obsessed with me.”

  Jane’s eyes danced mischievously as she reached one hand behind her ear to flip her glasses suggestively off her nose several times, making Olivia giggle again.

  “As I was saying,” she continued. “I may be relatively new in town, but in the de Vries family, I’d wager a Volvo definitely qualifies as a solid rebellion. You’re the only one of those goobers, my dear husband included, who doesn’t want a bit of flash in their lives. And I freaking love it.”

  “Hurray!” Olivia cheered. “Mama’s a rebel!”

  “Well, whatever I am, it’s settled now.”

  My cheeks pink as I unlocked the trunk of the car to reveal the small bags for Olivia and me while we stayed the few days with Jane’s friends before school began. The rest of Olivia’s things were being sent directly to her school. But I found I wasn’t attached enough to mine to bring anything beyond the few necessities I had packed. What use would I have for yards of couture when I was sitting in a crowded classroom?

  “Just put your bag in the back here, and we’ll be on our—”

  “Hey, Jane! Nina! Elefantessa!”

  The three of us turned to see the last figure I expected to see striding down Fifty-Eighth Street: Matthew looked as fine as this late summer day
in a pair of slim blue pants, a white shirt with the shirtsleeves rolled up in the heat, and a matching blue jacket draped over a small duffel bag and a briefcase. His black tie flapped over his shoulder as he walked, and he had to clap his fedora to his head to keep it from blowing away in the wind. But the sun gleamed off his aviators and bright smile alike.

  It honestly felt like my heart stopped right there on the street. What in God’s name was he doing?

  “Well, this is a sight for sore eyes,” he greeted us as he came close enough to deliver a warm kiss to Jane’s cheek. “The three most beautiful women in New York, waiting on a sidewalk just for me.”

  “Hey, Zola,” Jane replied as she returned his kiss.

  Like always, a brief arrow of jealousy skewered me at their intimacy, even though I knew Jane was entirely devoted to Eric. But when Matthew took off his hat and darted a kiss to my cheek in the same, casual way, the jealousy turned to something else entirely and sent shivers to my toes despite the heat. It sizzled in my belly long after he had offered the same to Olivia.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me without the pool.”

  Olivia shook her head shyly and nudged against my hip. Matthew winked at her and grinned again.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded, unable to stop myself again.

  He looked up and removed his sunglasses so that his dark green eyes could sparkle along with the rest of him. I bristled, even as my heart beat a bit faster. Good lord, would he always have this effect on me? I didn’t even have to pretend to be annoyed with him—his cocky presence made that easy enough.

  “Hello to you too, duchess,” Matthew said mildly. “I’m sorry to crash the party, but Jane said I could hitch a ride with you all to Boston.”

  I turned to Jane, who shrugged, as if she hadn’t just last week been asking me about a connection between me and Matthew.

  “I told Zola he could avoid the bus,” she confirmed. “Turns out Brandon got tickets to the Sox-Yankees game this weekend.”