“Give me a little credit. Just open it before you say no.”
I turned to the garment bag, tempted to throw the damn thing out the window instead. I didn’t like this feeling. Like she was ashamed of me. Like I was some doll who needed to be fixed.
“Listen,” I started.
“Matthew, will you please put your ridiculous pride aside and listen for one moment?” Nina’s tone turned sharp.
I paused.
“Matthew?”
“I’m listening.”
There was a sigh. “Did it ever occur to you that I appreciate the way you fill out certain garments as much as you so openly do of me?”
I grimaced. “That’s nice of you to say.”
“Please. This is a gift. I’m not trying to hide you, nor am I trying to dress you up and make you something you’re not. Just open it. And if you don’t like it, I’ll donate it or something.”
“Donate it?” I asked. “You can’t just send it back?”
“Well, couture isn’t really something you can ‘send back,’ my love. Especially since I would prefer not to be banned from Ricardo’s atelier. I love Givenchy too much.”
“Couture?” Intrigued, I unzipped the bag and nearly dropped what was inside from shock alone.
“This is cut to fit you as well,” she said. “Kate already had your measurements, but I had her send one of your old suits that was bound for donation to Paris.”
I nearly choked. “To Paris?”
“Just look at it, my love. Please.”
So I did. And when I took the whole thing out of the bag, I had a hard time breathing for a moment. It was a simple tuxedo, so dark blue it was almost black, paired with a sleek white shirt and a matching white tie. The differences in the stitches, the lines, the fabric and any number of uncountable things between this and the clothes hanging in my closet were too many, too subtle to count. Platinum gold buttons instead of plastic, each engraved. But the sum was definitely more than the whole of its parts. This tux did make my collection look like house rags.
It was a piece of art. There was no other way to describe it.
“Okay. It’s legit. But, baby, this is too—”
“Stop,” she interrupted. “I already said I can’t send it back. So please do me a favor and just try it on. Hang up and FaceTime me, please.”
I signed, then I did as she asked.
“All right,” I said once she answered the call. “Here it is.”
She didn’t speak at first, although I definitely enjoy the way her gaze turned hungry as I backed away from where my phone was propped on the bureau and put on the clothes.
“Well?” I asked once I had everything on except for the tie. My shirt cuffs were still open too—I’d pick out a pair of cuff links later.
But when I turned to the mirror, I didn’t need her to answer. The damn thing fit like a glove. I looked like a million—no, a billion—dollars.
“I think…I think I need to see it in person,” she said breathlessly. “Matthew, it looks wonderful.”
I turned from side to side, peacocking left and right. “I think it looks all right,” I conceded.
“More than all right.”
I took off the jacket and hung it carefully before returning to talk to her. “I still don’t understand why you went through all this trouble. It’s not like I can even escort you properly tonight.”
“I did it because, oh, Matthew, it’s finally happening! I didn’t want to say until I knew for sure, but the lawyers called today and said not only did we win in probate court, but also that Calvin is finally willing to sign the papers this week. Tomorrow, in fact!”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Tomorrow, you’re going to be a free woman?”
“Yes!” she said. “So I want to celebrate tonight. A little, if you don’t mind.” She crowded the screen like an excited little girl, her face shining with eager happiness. It was contagious.
“I want to tell everyone,” she said. “We can make our announcement later this week, but tonight, Matthew, once we’re inside, we don’t have to hide anymore! It’s a closed event. No photographers. They’ll even collect cell phones inside the ballroom. We can dance all night if we want to, not just for one song…” She smiled sweetly to herself, clearly caught up in the same memory I’d had. “I wanted to celebrate. This is just one token of my gratitude to you. For all you give me. For how much you love me. Please say you’ll accept it.”
“Deal,” I said, unable to keep the stupid grin off my own face. I couldn’t lie. I’d do just about anything to make her happy. “Now what, duchess?”
“Now,” she said. “Will you please let that poor seamstress back into the house to do the final adjustments? She’s probably getting cold on your front porch.”
I blinked. “You mean the messenger?”
“Who is actually one of the seamstresses who brought the suit all the way from Paris, yes. Please go downstairs and let her do her job.” Nina preened prettily for the camera. “And then I want you to come straight here when you’re done, please. So I can show you in person just how handsome I think my fiancé looks.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nina
“My dress was designed by Jane Lee,” I said for what had to be the twentieth time since I’d exited the limo that had dropped me and Eric outside the event.
We were some of the earliest arrivals, being lower-profile guests and attracting less fanfare than some of the true celebrities the museum and Vogue had courted for this year’s event. As instructed, I was using Jane’s Korean name, which she was trying out as a potential designer label. Eric hadn’t looked particularly happy when she had informed us of her decision, but I understood. There would be enough remarks about her fledgling career being propped up by the de Vries name without actually using it in her brand.
“What about your jewelry?” asked the reporter, a sassy young girl in a sleek white column gown and questionable accessories.
“Oh, it’s my own,” I said, touching the small medallion of St. Anna I was actually wearing on a gold chain, just over my breastbone. “A gift from a friend in Rome.”
“Ooh, Rome!” cooed the girl.
Other than the diamond studs in my ears and the pounded metal cuff on my wrist, Matthew’s necklace was the only other piece I was wearing amid a crowd of Harry Winston wreaths and Bvlgari crowns. I had chosen to let the luster of the dress speak for itself, styling it with a sleek updo that matched the draped effect of Jane’s toga-styled design. It was the crystal beading that really made it special, each piece sewn individually throughout the gorgeous fabric Jane ordered. I had requested the family’s stylist do very little in the way of makeup—just a few brushes of white-glittering highlights over my cheekbones and on my chest that gleamed in the right lights, like I was a statue in Greece.
As I spoke, I looked over the reporter’s shoulder toward the top of the steps. Matthew was supposed to be meeting me inside after gaining access via the security entrance on the side of the building like last year. As much as I had wanted to walk the red carpet hand in hand with him, we both admitted it would be better to wait for our official debut. After all, the papers still weren’t signed.
“Thank you,” I told her, and decided that I was done speaking to the rest. Jane and Eric were busy on the other side of the steps chatting away with a reporter from the Village Voice, so I took the opportunity to make my escape and find the man I really wanted to see tonight.
The museum was lit up, just as magical as ever for the gala. Cora had really outdone herself this year, having wrapped the museum’s massive neoclassical colonnades completely with glittering lights and flowers, and actually reconstructing a ceiling-high Trojan horse out of white hydrangeas that towered in the main lobby.
I followed the trickle of people into the exhibit, glancing left and right. Where could he be?
“Looking for something?”
I jumped as his deep voice wrapped around me, then turned to fin
d Matthew standing next to an exhibit of gorgeous Roman paintings suspended over a water bath.
He looked positively regal in his new midnight blue tuxedo, which fit him even more perfectly than I’d imagined, managing to render his shoulders sleek and broad at the same time, tucking exquisitely at his trim waist, extending down through his long, muscular legs. In typical Matthew fashion, he had added a few twists of his own—a white silk pocket square in the front and antique sterling cuff links that looked to be engraved with his grandfather’s—and therefore Matthew’s—initials. He was breathtaking.
At the time I placed the order, right after we returned from Italy, I couldn’t really explain why I had felt such an urge to get it for him, particularly when we were forced to come to this event separately, covertly. But as he stood there, surrounded by the literal works of art, I knew exactly what it was. Matthew, just as much, or perhaps more than any of the rich museum benefactors, loved beauty. He took more pride in his appearance, in enjoying the good things in life where he could get them, than anyone else I knew. Yes, I had grown up with luxury my entire life, but I didn’t think I had truly started to appreciate what made certain things so fine, expensive or not, until I met Matthew.
And so I bought the tuxedo, because I could. Because I knew he would appreciate the craftsmanship, the perfection more than anyone. Because he genuinely deserved it more than most and I wanted him to have one thing of his own that he could call art. And because very soon, it might be the last chance I ever had to afford something like this for him, and I wanted him to feel like the work of art I knew him to be.
“Oh, Matthew, you look…” I genuinely couldn’t get the words out. “Matthew, you look incredible.”
He nodded his head, as if he were tipping an invisible fedora instead of his absurdly thick head of inky dark hair. “Thanks, doll. It was a little weird accepting it, but I have to admit, I don’t feel like as much of a stranger as I did last time.” He slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me close. “And you too, duchess. I mean, wow. You said Jane did a good job, but, Jesus and Mary, Nina. I can barely breathe looking at you.”
His eyes dropped to my lips, and I arched toward him as naturally as breathing.
“We shouldn’t, right?” he murmured.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re inside now. They collect everyone’s devices and so forth at the door.”
“Well, I mostly don’t want to mess up your makeup,” he said. “You really do look like a goddess tonight. Aphrodite herself. Or maybe Helen of Troy.”
“Then I suppose that makes you Paris,” I said coyly. “Fighting to steal another man’s wife, right?”
“The one killed in action? Nah. Tonight, I’m the guy that gets the girl. Happy endings for all.”
He touched his nose to mine, and then we both looked around at the guests filtering around us. Many were actors, musicians, and other people far more recognizable from the tabloids than I was. Their clothes were equally as fantastic. One well-known singer passed by in a completely sheer, skin-colored gown that put nearly every part of her anatomy on display. By her styling, it was clear that she was supposed to resemble a naked Greek statue. I couldn’t decide whether or not she was pulling it off.
“Well,” I said as she passed. “That’s one way to interpret the evening.”
Matthew hadn’t even taken a second look. “I don’t know, baby. She can do what she likes, but if she’s looking for attention, she sort of gave the game away, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d rather spend the evening wondering what a woman’s got on under her finery, you know?” He drifted a finger over my collarbone, tugging lightly on the silk twisted over my shoulder. “Makes it that much sweeter when I get to unwrap the package.”
His touch heated me to my core as I imagined just how Matthew might unwrap me.
“You need to stop looking at me like that, duchess,” he murmured, though the knowing smirk told me he was quite enjoying it.
“Then you need to stop making such suggestive comments.”
“Never.”
I leaned closer so that our noses were only a hair’s breadth apart. “Promise?”
Matthew’s eyes swept closed, then opened again with a new intensity. “With every bone in my body.”
We stared, caught in each other’s thrall for several long seconds. It occurred to me then that this might truly never disappear. Matthew and I had known each other for well over a year now. True, we had never come to that place where the mundane, everyday facts of life threatened to overtake passion. But there was a spark between us that wouldn’t ever really fade, no matter how many events we attended, how many mornings we were blessed to wake up together. The ember it came from was too hot. A fire everlasting.
“Come on, doll,” Matthew said as he pulled at his collar, looking as though it were physically painful not to kiss me. “You promised me a dance or ten.”
“Um, all right,” I said. “But I need to use the powder room first. I’ll meet you at our table?”
“Sounds good. I’ll get us some drinks.”
Matthew took off, blending perfectly into a crowd of couture and some of the most avant-garde fashion in the world. I sighed, and once I had lost sight of him, turned the corner to find the bathroom. But when I reemerged, I ran directly into the last person I wanted to see tonight. Or ever.
My husband.
“Whoa!” Calvin neighed like he was actually the horse he sounded like he was directing, steadying himself by grabbing and nearly knocking over one of the posts demarcating where guests could and could not go.
“Calvin? What are you doing here?”
I hadn’t seen him this close for so long, and he looked quite different. He hadn’t lost weight exactly, but everything about him seemed to have sagged in the last several months so that his tuxedo billowed a bit, as though it had been tailored for another body. His skin, always with a sheen of sweat, now looked pallid and blotchy, the red tip of his nose having spread to other parts. His eyes also had the same glaze as the nights when he would turn to me in a bourbon-soaked rage.
I shied toward the wall. “You need to go. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh, princess. Is that what you think?” he said. “Live somewhere else and you can just tell me what to do? I have some things to say to you. And I’m not leaving until you listen.”
I scowled, but glanced nervously at the other guests, who were looking at us curiously.
“Please,” I asked, trying for a bit more courtesy and ignoring the pounding of my heart. Every single part of me was screaming run. “I promise. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Ha. I’ve heard that before,” Calvin sneered.
I looked around for a security guard or one of the personnel, but then my phone buzzed with a text.
Matthew: You coming? I’m about to go in.
I swallowed. Oh, dear. What would Matthew do if he saw Calvin? What would Calvin do if he saw Matthew? Hastily, I tucked the phone back into my clutch, but not before Calvin grabbed my arm and turned me back to face him.
“Who was that?”
I wriggled my hand out of his sweaty grasp. “Don’t touch me.”
“Was that him? I saw the name. Marcus or Matthew or something like that. Are you seeing someone?!”
His voice was erratic, wavering over the words. He sounded desperate and looked even worse.
“Keep it down,” I pleaded. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Calvin, but you need to go. Now.”
“I came because we need to talk!” Calvin snapped. “Without the damn lawyers. Just you and me.”
“What makes you think I would ever want to be in a room with you alone?” I shouldn’t have argued back, but suddenly I couldn’t help it. “Honestly. The restraining order might have expired, but my distaste for you has not. I don’t know why you decided to come here tonight, but it was a mistake. We are all but finished with each other. It’s over.”
Before he could say another word, I turned on my heel and made my escape down the hall. I needed to find Matthew and warn him. And then we needed to leave. Immediately.
“Nina! Nina, come back here!” Calvin shouted.
I ignored him, looking for the entrance to the ballroom. The hall was filling up, and so thankfully I was able to slip between other guests and avoid the attendant collecting everyone’s phones. At the far end, I spotted a familiar girl holding a clipboard and a walkie-talkie and quickly crossed the room.
“Angela?” I said, tapping her on the shoulder. “You’re Cora’s assistant, aren’t you?”
She turned. “Um, yes, Ms. de Vries, right?”
I nodded. Good, she knew me. “Yes. I just wanted to ask why my husband is here. Calvin Gardner. I did not request an invite for him.” I glanced over my shoulder. No Calvin. I lowered my voice. “We are estranged, you see.”
The girl colored. “Oh—I—oh, no, that’s my fault. P-please don’t mention it to Cora. She would be so furious. She expects us to know these sorts of things.”
I softened, but only just. “Can I ask how, exactly, he got a ticket to the most exclusive party in the world without Cora’s okay?”
“He, um, called earlier this week, asking for his ticket to be sent to him directly because he was away on business,” said the girl. “I didn’t think you would mind considering he was your husband and all. I’m so sorry, Ms. de Vries. I just assumed he was your plus-one!”
I gritted my teeth. Stupid girl. For once, I actually wanted someone to know my sordid tabloid history, and she was oblivious.
“Okay,” I said, thinking fast as I caught Calvin shoving his way through the crowd, eyes on me and murder all over his face. If he saw Matthew, that would be it. “You can make it up to me. There’s a man in the ballroom in a blue Givenchy tuxedo. He has black hair, green eyes, a few inches taller than me, and his name is Matthew. Look for a young Cary Grant.”
“Who?”
I sighed impatiently. “He’s very, very handsome, all right?”
The Honest Affair (Rose Gold Book 3) Page 28