More Than Words

by Jill Santopolo

  Nina opened her father’s desk drawer and found the usual office supplies. Pens, pencils, Post-it notes, paper clips. She opened the drawer a bit farther and found a coupon she’d made him one Father’s Day, good for a Yankee game of his choosing. Even though Nina had tried, she could never really get into baseball. Her father loved it, though, so she went with him once in a while. Though sometimes he just took TJ and Tim and left Nina and Caro to spend the day together. Once Caro had signed them up for a self-defense class, where Nina learned what to do if anyone ever tried to kidnap her. Poke them in the eyes. Knee them in the groin, if it was a man. Scream as loud as she could. Another time they’d climbed the rock wall in Chelsea Piers. “Women have to be tough,” Caro had told her. Nina hadn’t understood what she’d meant then. But she’d been figuring it out.

  Her cell phone’s vibration pulled Nina back into reality. It was her father’s lawyer. “Miss Gregory?” he said, when she picked up the phone.

  “Nina, please,” she responded.

  “Nina,” he repeated. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you sooner. But that company you asked my secretary about—Manxome Consulting.”

  “Oh!” Nina said. “Yes. I’d love to get in touch with them. Did you find contact information?”

  He cleared his throat. “Nina,” he said again. “That was your father’s company. I set it up for him years ago.”

  Understanding struck her almost immediately.

  Nina swallowed hard. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m—I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait,” the lawyer said.

  “I’ll call you back,” Nina told him, her heart pounding hard in her chest. “I’m sorry.”

  She’d taken forensic accounting. She knew what it meant when the chairman of the board created a company and billed his own corporation for services. He was increasing their compensation package illegally. This was embezzlement.

  She picked up her father’s phone and pressed the button that said Melissa. “Can you get me Irv?” she asked.

  The phone rang out, and the CFO picked up. “Do you have access to the canceled checks from payments we made six or ten years ago?” Nina asked after she said hello.

  “I do,” Irv told her.

  “And each check needs to be signed by two members of the executive team?”

  “The big ones, yeah,” he told her.

  Nina looked down; her knee was bouncing. She tried to still it. “Could you tell me who signed the checks to Manxome Consulting? They worked for us from 2008 to 2011.”

  Irv had been in the business long enough to know he shouldn’t ask questions, just answer them. “Of course,” he said. “Let me just type in a few . . . here we go. I’m scrolling. Your father and TJ Calder signed all of those checks.”

  “Thank you,” Nina said. “I appreciate the help.”

  “Any time,” Irv responded before he hung up the phone.

  Nina sat, dumbfounded. She thought for a moment she might be sick. Her world was turning upside down again. She was like Alice, through the looking glass. Her father and TJ had embezzled from the Gregory Corporation. There wasn’t any other explanation. Literally none.

  She wished that she could call her father and ask what the hell was going on. Why he’d risked the hotel’s reputation, his freedom, their family name. The one he had built and grown and was so proud of.

  How much more could come at her? How much more could she handle? She pressed the button marked Melissa again.

  “Yes, Miss Gregory?” Melissa answered.

  “Can you ask TJ Calder to come here, please? Tell him I need to speak with him?”

  She had no idea what she was going to say, no idea what she was going to do. But without her father here, TJ was the only person left to talk to.

  66

  The look on TJ’s face when Nina told him she’d found out who owned Manxome Consulting was almost exactly the same as the look on Tim’s when she’d told him she didn’t think he should be the CEO of the Gregory Corporation.

  “Uncle TJ,” Nina said, trying to keep her anger in check, “help me understand. What were you two thinking?”

  TJ stood up and began to pace in front of the bank of windows, his body alternately blocking buildings and light, causing a slight disco effect in the office. “It was 2008,” he said. “The market was bad. Bookings were down. Your father had just invested a ton of money in the renovations of both gyms and the aquatics centers and he had a cash flow problem. His stock portfolio had dipped so far down that he didn’t want to sell, and if he sold any of his stake in the corporation, he’d lose his majority share. He’d asked for an increase in his compensation package, but the board voted against it. Rightly so, honestly.”

  Nina had never known about this. “Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked, distracted for a moment from the main question.

  TJ shrugged. “I think he wanted you to be proud of him,” he said. “He was ashamed to admit that he’d gotten himself into this situation. It even took him a while to tell me.”

  “Did anyone else know?” Nina asked, taking in what TJ had just said. Did her father adjust his behavior for her the same way she did for him? Didn’t he know she’d be proud of him no matter what?

  TJ shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “And your father wanted to keep it that way. He didn’t want to sell the houses—the real estate market had tanked, too. His only other option was declaring bankruptcy. But the public humiliation, the way people would talk, the way they’d look at the hotels . . .”

  “My dad couldn’t stand the idea of that,” Nina said, slowly.

  “Exactly,” TJ said. “That’s when he came to me with the plan. He needed a second signature on the checks.”

  Her father’s pride had led to this. And she’d benefited from his crime. Her father had taken nearly three million dollars from the corporation. She wondered how many dinners and dresses and car rides and who knows what else that money had bought her. She felt a throbbing in her temples.

  “No one else ever found out?” Nina asked.

  TJ sat down. “Not that I know of,” he said. “Once the stock market started making money again, we stopped. Your father actually lowered his salary after that. I think he was trying to make amends, pay the money back in better times. And he told me to legally disband Manxome Consulting earlier this year, when the cancer came back.”

  Nina couldn’t believe what was unfolding. She heard Jane in her mind and realized that if something came out about this, even after the election, being with her could be a problem for Rafael. It could taint him as a politician, dating someone whose family was involved in an embezzlement scandal. Embezzlement. The word made her skin crawl.

  “Maybe I should talk to Ned about selling my shares,” Nina said out loud. “Let this be someone else’s problem.”

  TJ shrugged. “You could,” he said.

  “Does Aunt Caro know?” Nina asked.

  TJ shook his head. “I never told her.” He cleared his throat. “Tim doesn’t either, of course. I’d appreciate if you didn’t—”

  Nina closed her eyes briefly. “I won’t,” she said. Out the window she could see the top few floors of The Gregory on the Park, and the lights from Los Tortolitos on the roof. It was why her father chose this office space, this office, so he could see his hotel while he worked. She couldn’t rage at her father, punish him for his decisions, but TJ was still here. “I think you need to step down,” she said, serious, controlled. “You can retire. We can figure out a way to make it work for the company, but I can’t have someone running this corporation who makes decisions like those.”

  TJ looked down. Nina tried to feel bad, but anger crowded out her sympathy. She resented that she’d been put in this position. Even if she sold the company, she needed to know that it would be taken care of. That she’d be leaving it in good ha
nds. It was her name on there. And she didn’t want to let the employees down either, people who were counting on the Gregory hotels for their livelihood.

  She waited for TJ’s anger, for his own resentment to bubble to the surface. But instead TJ said, “You’re right.” And he looked almost relieved. Nina had given him a way out. “I’ll announce my retirement this week. And tie up loose ends this month. You know Tim wants to—”

  “I know,” Nina said, cutting him off.

  TJ looked at her and then got up from the table. “I should get back to my office,” he said. “I have a call in five minutes. I’m . . . I’m really sorry, Sweetheart.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Nina stood, staring at the door, wondering what to do now. She looked up at the small sketch of Caravaggio’s Narcissus hanging above the door frame. If her father needed money, he could have sold that. Or any of the pieces in the house in the Hamptons. But her grandmother had never sold any of the art in her collection after she’d bought it, and he hadn’t either. And he wouldn’t, because it would have shown financial weakness, Nina realized now.

  She wondered whether he’d bought Narcissus years ago to remind himself to keep his vanity in check.

  Clearly it hadn’t worked.

  67

  When Gene dropped her off in the country that night, Nina took in a lungful of chilly air. After the day she’d had, being out of the city felt good. She needed time to process, to breathe, to decide what to say to Rafael. She knew she had to tell him about her father’s crime—she wouldn’t be like her dad, keeping secrets from people she cared about. But she was afraid of what that would mean. Maybe he would turn around and leave. Maybe this thing between them would be over before it really began. But even knowing a difficult conversation was ahead, the idea of seeing him again, being close to him, thrilled her.

  Nina walked into the house and flicked on the light. There were some olives in the refrigerator. The remains of the bottle of wine she and Tim had started. She couldn’t help but think about how she’d agreed to marry him the last time she was here. How she’d found her mother’s letter. She’d been a different person than she was now.

  As she walked up the stairs with her overnight bag, Nina decided that it was time for her to take over the master bedroom. Partly because the house was hers now, and partly because she didn’t want to have to think about how she and Tim had had sex in her bedroom. Didn’t want to think about Tim at all, if she could help it. She already felt terrible about what happened between them. Ashamed. And guilty. But it also felt right.

  Had Tim said anything to his parents yet? Had TJ said anything to Caro? She wondered if either of them would call her. Or if they’d go from family to employees to nothing at all.

  Nina started unpacking her bag into the dresser and closet in her parents’ old room, moving her mom’s clothing to one side and taking over the other herself. There weren’t many of her father’s things there. As she put away her socks, she heard the doorbell ring.

  When she got downstairs, Rafael was smiling at her through the window.

  Nina opened the door and he stepped inside.

  “Nice house,” he said, looking around. He put a duffel bag down on the floor. For the first time since she’d met him, Rafael looked unsure of himself. Nervous, almost.

  “Thanks,” Nina said, nervous herself, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on the lips.

  He embraced her, then pulled back and looked at her for a beat, tipping her chin up with his fingers. “What’s wrong?”

  She leaned against him, pulling strength from his arms, which were now wrapped around her. “Remember how I told you I found out some things about my dad? Some surprises?” she said, her head nestled against his shoulder blade.

  “Mm-hm,” he said, “like this house.”

  “Right.” Nina breathed the musk and spice of Rafael’s cologne. “Well, I found out one more secret today. At the office.”

  She felt his body tense, as if he were physically steeling himself for the news.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Nina pulled away. Sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. “I don’t think it’ll come out. But if it does . . .” She was staring at the torn cuticle on her thumb. She couldn’t face him. “My father embezzled money from the Gregory Corporation. And TJ—the CEO who had a hand in it, Tim’s dad, actually—is retiring. I told him he had to.”

  Rafael took a deep breath. Nina looked away from her cuticle. “Whoa,” he said, shaking his head, sitting down beside her. “What was your father thinking?”

  “Pride,” she said. “He was saving his pride.”

  “That’s crazy,” Rafael said, still shaking his head.

  Nina bit her lip. “He started to pay it back, kind of, but that doesn’t change anything.” She took in a breath, knew she had to face this. “If it ever gets out,” she said, “I could be a liability. Mac would say you shouldn’t date me. Ever.” Every muscle in Nina’s body was coiled tight, waiting for his response.

  He didn’t hesitate. Rafael leaned in and kissed her. “My political ambitions don’t trump my happiness,” he said. “I was happy being a lawyer. I could be happy doing a number of different things. But I’d never be happy knowing I was the kind of man who abandoned a woman because of something her father did. What your father did doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

  Nina slid closer to him and pressed her lips to his neck. “I think you might be the best person I have ever met,” she said.

  “If I am, it’s because you bring out the best in me,” he said into her hair.

  Then Nina took his hand and led him up the stairs.

  68

  When they stepped inside the master bedroom, the bed so obviously the centerpiece of the space, Rafael said, “You know, we don’t have to sleep together tonight.”

  Nina tilted her head up and kissed him again. This time, the kiss was soft, a thank-you and an invitation all at once. “We can do whatever feels right,” she said. “We don’t have to worry about how things will look up here—there’s no one but us.” Nina was floored by this man. This man who could accept all of her, who could forgive the baggage that she brought. Would reinvent his dreams for her.

  “How freeing,” Rafael said, stepping farther into the room.

  “I know,” she answered, running her fingers along the top of the dresser. “I understand now why my mom liked it here so much. It’s like a secret hideaway.”

  “This was your house when you were a kid,” Rafael said, picking up the photograph of Nina as a newborn asleep on her mother’s chest.

  “Sort of,” Nina told him. “It was my mom’s—my dad bought it for her. We stopped coming after she died.”

  Rafael came up behind Nina and ran his hand down her arms, his fingers fluttering against her skin.

  She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes.

  “Se te están pegando las pestañas,” he said, tucking her short hair behind her ears. It was just long enough to stay put.

  Nina smiled. She hadn’t heard anyone use that phrase in years. Literally, your eyelashes are sticking together. Her mom used to say that when Nina was young, trying to stay awake past her bedtime, fighting sleep even though she was about to pass out. Hearing it, she realized how tired she was. “I’m exhausted,” she said, stifling a yawn.

  “I’m pretty beat, too,” he answered, resting his chin on the top of her head. “It’s late. Maybe we should turn in for the night.”

  Nina let the feeling of closeness, of intimacy, melt through her. She imagined what it would feel like to be wrapped in his arms, under the covers. Then she stepped away from him and turned her head. “Would you mind unzipping me?” she asked.

  Nina felt his warm fingers graze her neck as he grabbed hold of the zipper pull.

  She wasn’t sure if she should take he
r dress off in front of him, but then Rafael walked across the room, hung his suit jacket on the back of the rocking chair, and started unbuttoning his shirt. She could see the azabache dangling from the back of his collar. In response, Nina slid her arms out of her dress and let it fall to the floor, slipping off her heels as she stepped out of the pool of patterned satin. She was wearing nothing but a nude bra and white lace underwear.

  “So that’s what you look like,” Rafael said, taking off his pants.

  When he was free of them, standing in front of Nina in a pair of gray boxer briefs, she echoed his words. “So that’s what you look like.”

  Nina could feel a heat thrumming deep inside her, a heightened awareness of Rafael sharing her space, breathing her air. After what she’d told him, after what he’d said . . .

  “Bedtime?” she asked, climbing under the covers in only her underwear.

  “Bedtime,” Rafael answered, climbing in next to her.

  Nina turned out the light, so grateful to be with him, so glad that her day was ending like this. The room was inky black—there was no ambient light to filter through the windows. It took a while for Nina to be able to see the outline of Rafael’s profile next to her. Soon his long eyelashes came into focus, his sharp nose. She reached out, tracing his body from his shoulder down to his hip.

  Rafael responded by running his fingers down her torso, too.

  Nina rolled herself sideways, so she was facing Rafael.

  “This feels like a big deal,” she said, confessions coming easier in the darkness.

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” he told her. “I feel like I’m about to lose my virginity all over again.”