The Honest Affair (Rose Gold Book 3)

by Nicole French

  Eventually we turned off the main thoroughfare and came to a stop outside a nondescript apartment building a few blocks south of the river. The quaint restaurants and artisan shops of the central part of Florence had long turned into more practical places like hardware stores and supermarkets. Fewer of the charmingly crowded and semi-ancient Renaissance and neoclassical buildings; more newer structures made of brick or concrete that had more in common with my family’s house back home than the churches and converted palazzi that comprised so much of Florence’s older district.

  “She’s on the third floor,” Nina murmured as we stared up at the U-shaped apartment building on Via delle Nazioni Unite.

  I grabbed Nina’s hand, squeezed, then let it go. She needed to do this herself, not with me forcing her.

  “I’m here,” I said. “You lead the way.”

  We climbed the stairs at the far end of the courtyard to the apartment number scribbled on the scrap of paper Nina had been clutching for the last thirty minutes.

  “You can do this,” she murmured to herself as she stared at the plain white door. Then she stood to her full height, straightened her chin, and knocked.

  Footsteps shuffled immediately on the other side, and then the door opened. A pretty, slight woman with deep-set eyes and dark hair threaded with silver at the temples appeared, dressed casually but nicely in a pair of tailored brown pants and a simple blue sweater. She was holding a small orange dishtowel, as if she had come from cleaning the kitchen.

  I swallowed. She could have been anyone from back home, any of the village who had raised me or my sisters in Belmont, who had shouted familiarly from across the street or shared Mass with us on Sundays. She could have been anyone in my family.

  “Salve. Chi siete?” she asked, her sharp eyes flickering with inquiry as she looked us over.

  Nina took a deep breath, her brow furrowed. “Um, hello. I mean, ciao, um, pronto. Siete Vilma Ros-Ross—”

  I cringed at her poor, stuttering Italian. I wasn’t a perfectly native speaker by any means, but it was still painful to hear Nina crippled so badly out of nerves. She could manage a few phrases better than this.

  “Buongiorno, signora,” I inserted myself quickly, continuing in Italian. “My name is Matthew Zola. We’re visitors from the United States. My friend would like to speak with you, please. Is there any chance you speak English?”

  The woman nodded. “Yes, I speak English.” Her eyes darted suspiciously between us before settling back on Nina. “Who are you?”

  I turned to Nina and tipped my head. She inhaled once more. Come on, baby, I thought. You can do this.

  “Hello, Signora Bianchi—”

  “Marradi,” the woman interrupted curtly. “Dr. Bianchi, he died almost ten years past. I remarried.”

  Nina swallowed, then nodded, almost looking like she was in pain at the mention of her former lover. I did my best to ignore the twinge of jealousy in my gut—it had to be a sin to be envious of a dead guy, but here I was. I would probably always envy anyone who got those parts of Nina’s heart before I did. Especially when he didn’t deserve her.

  “I apologize. Signora Marradi,” Nina corrected herself awkwardly. “My name is Nina de Vries. I knew your late husband, Dr. Bianchi. He—he was my professor when I was a student here. I, um, I wondered if you might have a moment to talk. About…about him.”

  Something in Signora Marradi’s face stiffened when Nina said her name, and by the time she was done speaking, the woman’s entire body was straight as a board. It was obvious she had at least some idea of who Nina was to her deceased husband. I wondered how many other “students” of his had shown up at her door over the years.

  “E tu?” She turned to me suddenly. “Anche tu conoscevi mio marito? O solo questa ragazza americana?”

  So, she was back to Italian, clearly to alienate Nina. Well, I wasn’t having that.

  “No, I didn’t know your husband, Signora Marradi,” I said in English. “I’m just a friend of Nina’s. But I promise you, what she has to say is important. Will you listen, please? We’ll only take a moment, or else we can return another time that is better for you.”

  Signora Marradi’s jaw tightened visibly, and she looked like she wanted to tell us to leave. But finally, she stepped aside for us to enter her flat.

  “Please come in,” she said, gesturing toward the small sitting area just inside the front door. “I will make us a coffee. And then we can…”—she trailed off as her gaze raked up and down Nina’s trembling form—“talk.”

  “So that’s it,” Nina said sometime later as she finished the story of her involvement with Giuseppe Bianchi. “Olivia is ten now.”

  Signora Marradi sat thin-lipped in a Victorian-style chair, holding her cup of now-cold espresso following Nina’s description of how she had met Giuseppe Bianchi, had an affair with him over the course of several months, and then departed home only to find she was pregnant shortly after.

  Yet again, I was struggling with déjà vu. Like the hard-eyed expression on Signora Marradi’s face, this place was all too familiar. The crucifix hanging near the door, the thin lace doily covering the coffee table, the dark, old-fashioned furniture scattered around the apartment. It was different than home, yeah, but there was enough in common with this place, between this woman and the one who raised me, that I was having a hard time feeling anything but sympathy for her. I couldn’t help wondering how it would be if this were Nonna and some broad showed up telling her that her husband had fathered another kid with someone else before he died. I’d probably show her the door before she could say another word.

  But this wasn’t some broad. This was Nina. And unlike some stranger, I knew her side of the story. I knew she wanted only the best for Olivia. I knew she wanted to free herself from the chains of the past, not bind them. And that she had more than made up for her mistakes.

  Nina picked up her cup and saucer, finally able to take a drink herself. I’d been the only one making use of the refreshments Signora Marradi had prepared. But there was still no response by the time Nina had replaced her espresso, recrossed her ankles primly under the chair, and placed her hands in her lap.

  For the first time, she was more patient than I was. I was used to interrogating witnesses, to waiting out the answers I knew were coming. But right now, the tension was just about killing me.

  “Signora Marradi,” I said finally. “I know it’s a lot to take. Perhaps we should come back—”

  “No,” she replied curtly, then set down her cup hard enough that some of the coffee splashed over the side to the saucer. “No, not yet.” She sighed. “You are…well, you are not the only woman”—disdain dripped from the word, making it clear she might have preferred another word completely—“Giuseppe had when he was a professor.”

  Nina’s face didn’t move, but she couldn’t manage to look up either. “Oh,” she said quietly. “Yes, I…I see.”

  “And you all think it is okay? Taking up with another woman’s husband?”

  Signora Marradi’s voice was openly bitter, but I didn’t think it was just to do with us. We all knew the stereotypes, of course—that men called their girlfriends and wives names like “sweetheart” and “doll” so they could avoid mixing up names in the heat of the moment. Somehow, my grandfather made it something different when he called every other woman by their Christian names and turned the endearment into something special for his one and only. Nonna would flush because she knew she was the only doll he had. He took something crass and made it a gift.

  Nina, to her credit, just shook her head solemnly. “No, Signora Marradi, I do not think it’s okay. I’m not asking for your forgiveness, because I know I don’t deserve it.”

  “So, what do you want?” asked the woman. “Money? We are not rich. I work in an office only a few days each week, and my husband, he only owns a, how do you call it, negozio di ferramenta.”

  “Hardware store,” I supplied, finally feeling useful. “He runs a hardware store,
doll.”

  Nina blinked back at Signora Marradi. “Oh, no, no, you misunderstand. I don’t need money. But if you—”

  She cut herself off as she caught the quick jerk of my head. I didn’t know Signora Marradi well, but something told me she wouldn’t take kindly to her husband’s former mistress offering charity. I knew it was coming from a good place, but now wasn’t the time.

  “No,” Nina said, this time more firmly. “No, I don’t want money or anything like that, Signora Marradi. I only wanted to come because, well, my daughter. She doesn’t know, you see. She couldn’t, until now, for reasons I won’t bore you with. But I plan to tell her soon about her father because, well, I think she deserves to know. For a long time, especially after Giuseppe passed, I believed it was in her best interests not to. But now…”

  She shuddered, clearly thinking of Calvin. I reached over and took her hand. She squeezed lightly and let it go, letting me know she was all right.

  “Now, I know that was another terrible mistake,” Nina continued. “My daughter needs to know where she comes from. And if you’re willing, I would like her to know her family too. You and Giuseppe had two daughters, is that correct?”

  Signora Marradi’s eyes flashed. She had just been about to take another sip of espresso, but Nina’s question stopped her again. “Yes.”

  She did not elaborate. Nina waited again.

  Signora Marradi set down her cup. “Do you have a picture? Of the little girl?”

  Nina nodded. “I do. One moment, please.” She rummaged through her purse to find her phone, then quickly pulled up a picture of Olivia and turned it toward Signora Marradi. “This is her just a few weeks ago before Christmas. She had just come in from riding her horse.”

  I craned my head to look with them. Olivia was standing outside the barn at the Long Island estate, looking a damn sight like her mother in riding clothes, smiling shyly at the camera while she held her helmet in one hand and the reins attached to a big black horse in another.

  “Damn, she’s getting big,” I murmured.

  “Ten now,” Nina said, mostly to me. “We celebrated her birthday late, when she was home for the holidays.”

  Signora Marradi studied the picture for a few minutes.

  “She looks like Giuseppe,” she admitted. “She has his eyes.” But then she pushed the phone back to Nina. “No. I don’t think so. Your daughter, she looks very nice. But she is not a part of my family. Tell her that her father is dead. But we do not need to know her. Or you.”

  Nina’s mouth dropped in pure disappointment. “But—”

  “He wanted to leave us for you,” Signora Marradi said curtly. “Just before he died. He had others, you see. I always ignored them because they did not matter. But you—you wrote him letters. I found them, you see. He said he told you to let him go, but just before he died, he wanted to go to New York. He must have wanted to find his new family.”

  Her anger was palpable despite the low tenor of her voice.

  Nina closed her eyes for a moment. “I never asked him to do that,” she almost whispered. “I wanted him to meet Olivia. But he didn’t know about her. I was—I was planning to tell him when I came. But he didn’t know about that plan either. I—my last letter was taken. It was thrown away.”

  The two women stared at each other, both torn with grief and anger over a man who had clearly never been good enough for either of them. I wondered if either of them could see it.

  “I think,” said Signora Marradi, “that you must go.”

  “But—” Nina tried.

  “No,” said the other woman. She shook her head, causing small wisps of gray and black hair to feather around her shadowed features. Suddenly, she looked quite tired. “You have done enough. Please leave.”

  Nina opened her mouth like she wanted to argue again. But there was nothing else to say. Several awkward seconds ticked by before I realized I needed to do something.

  “Come on, doll,” I murmured, holding out a hand to Nina, who was still paralyzed in her chair. “Let’s go.”

  This time, she allowed me to pull her up and take her to the door, leaving the numbed Signora Marradi staring at her espresso.

  “Thank you for the coffee,” I called before the door shut behind us.

  There was no reply.

  Nina walked as if in a trance as I guided her down the stairs, out of the courtyard, and to the sidewalk that would take us back to town.

  And it was there, finally, that she stopped again.

  “Well,” she said softly as she turned to me, eyes glistening. “I suppose that’s it, isn’t it? I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here.”

  I stroked her cheek softly, wiping a few stray tears with my thumb. “You thought you were doing the right thing, baby. You did the best you could.”

  “Which accomplished nothing,” she said bitterly, then pressed her face into her hands. “Oh God, what if that’s all I’m really capable of? Just…nothing?”

  “Ah, Ms. de Vries!”

  We turned to find Signora Marradi walking swiftly down the sidewalk while shoving her arms into a worn trench coat to guard from the cold that she was otherwise underdressed for.

  “Here,” she said crisply as she came to a stop and thrust a piece of paper at us like it was a weapon.

  Nina was upset enough that I took it for her.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  Nina wiped under her eyes. When she was finished, she wore a strange smile that made her look like a sad doll. An actual doll.

  “An address,” said Signora Marradi. “For Giuseppe’s olive farm near Siena. Do you know it?”

  She searched Nina’s face. The underlying question was clear too: had she known it with him?

  But my girl, to her credit, didn’t look away, despite the fact that her deep gray eyes still welled as recollections clearly washed over her. Instead she lifted her chin, looked straight into Signora Marradi’s eyes, and nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know it.”

  Signora Marradi didn’t look away either. Anger, then understanding flashed through her dark eyes as well.

  “The farm, we have to sell it,” she said. “My daughters, they are there now to prepare.”

  Nina started in obvious surprise. “Sell it? But I thought Peppe did that before…”

  She trailed off as Signora Marradi shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “He wanted to, but the girls were so upset, he kept it.”

  She shrugged, if to say, that was that. Then she glanced sadly back at Nina’s purse, as if she still saw the picture of Olivia laughing across the black screen on her phone.

  “I think they would like to know about their sister,” she admitted. “You should go there and tell them. Giuseppe is dead. I will not keep his secrets anymore.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nina

  Secrets.

  The word rang inside me like a gong as we drove out of Florence.

  “You’re very quiet,” Matthew said. “More than usual. What’s on your mind, doll?”

  He switched gears and sped forward as traffic disappeared on the highway, away from the city. He hadn’t said it, but I rather thought he was enjoying the Ferrari more than he let on. Normally I might have enjoyed his obvious pleasure. Right now I barely noticed.

  “I was thinking about Giuseppe.” I turned to him, suddenly uncertain. “Do you really want to hear this?”

  Relief washed over me when Matthew simply shrugged. “I mean, I’m not surprised, given what we’re doing. And we all have our pasts, baby. You wouldn’t be you without yours.” He flashed a brilliant, slightly sharkish smile at me. “I want to know all of it. Even if it does make me want to punch a dead man.”

  I bit back a smile. His humor was perhaps a bit ghoulish, but I preferred joking to jealousy. So much better than the brutal possessiveness I’d endured from my husband.

  But Calvin had never really been a husband at all, had he? Maybe that was part of why
.

  “I was thinking of what his wife said,” I answered as the hills of Tuscany ebbed and flowed around us. “About his secrets. It made me wonder how many she had to keep.”

  “I think that probably depends on what they were. You, for one. But it doesn’t sound like you were much of an anomaly in his life.”

  “No,” I said shortly. “It doesn’t.”

  I felt like a fool. I shouldn’t have been angry, of course. A twenty-year-old girl getting involved with her forty-two-year-old married professor? It was beyond cliché. Tragic, really. Pathetic. Even more, perhaps, if he really had intended to leave his family for me, as his wife said.

  “But you know, everyone has secrets,” Matthew interrupted my thoughts. “Just because you have some doesn’t make you a liar.”

  “Doesn’t it?” I asked softly.

  He cast me a meaningful look before changing lanes to pass a truck. I kept my eyes firmly forward.

  “I don’t think so. I mean…” He shrugged. “I can’t pretend it didn’t sting that you didn’t tell me sooner about Olivia. Or about your involvement in Calvin’s business. But today I thought, why would you? What did I do to deserve that kind of honesty?”

  “Oh, Matthew, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “I’m not,” he said shortly. “I just think that’s an unfair assumption most people make. They think secrets are something that should be freely offered. But secrets are precious. They’re earned. That’s how you know someone really loves you, I think. They confide the things they wouldn’t have told anyone else.” His mouth, so beautiful and full, twisted into a sardonic half-smile. “I like to think that’s when you knew you loved me, Nina. You had to tell your honest-to-God truth. Otherwise, how do you know the person really loves you back?”