“Better? You wanna walk me through that one, sweetheart?”
She didn’t answer as our gazes finally locked. This wasn’t stolen glances across the coffee table. We were in the middle of Central Park on a cold, dreary night. The trees swallowed the sounds of the city. Right now, it was just us here on this bridge.
“I—” I took off my hat, put it back on. Then did it again. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe, all right?”
Nina tipped her head. “Matthew. Really.”
“Okay. Okay. But what the fuck did you think I was going to do? Months, Nina. I’ve been looking for you for months.”
“I told you not to do that.”
Her tone was bitter. But not as much as mine.
“I don’t remember that part. I remember telling you I’d walk you down after a shower, but when I got out, you had fuckin’ disappear—”
“You couldn’t have possibly believed I would stay,” she cut in. “I said one—”
“And just when I’m thinking about giving up, the fuckin’ door opens in some random person’s apartment—”
“Jane and Eric are not random, and—”
“And like the Mother Mary herself just answered every one of my damn prayers, you walk in out of nowhere, so—”
“I was there for my own reas—”
“The hell if I was just going to let you walk out again without a word. I have some questions, Nina, and I’m not leaving until you fuckin’ answer them!”
By the time we had finished cutting off each other’s sentences, both of us were seething—me in a more obvious, chest-thumping way with my favorite hat now crumpled in my hands, Nina with that ice queen glare of hers.
She crossed her arms. “You have questions. Like what, pray tell, Mr. Zola?”
I hated the crisp formality. It reminded me of a judge on her last case of the day. Or the headmistress at the parish school where I had lasted exactly two years before being kicked out. The only time I ever wanted to hear Nina address me that way was on her knees before I taught her some fuckin’ respect. Right before she begged for more…discipline.
“Like…like…” I was gesturing wildly by this point. Fuckin’ Christ, the woman flustered me with just a name.
As she folded her arms again, the light from a streetlamp caught one of the facets of her diamond.
“Like that,” I said, pointing at it.
She looked down at the stone, then back up at me. “That’s an engagement ring. And a wedding ring.”
“I know that.”
“I told you I was married.”
“I know that too.”
“I fail to hear a question, Matthew.”
I stomped my foot. Like a fuckin’ child, I stomped my foot right there on the bridge. I already knew Nina could make me crazy, but I didn’t realize she could be like this. Full of stubbornness. Intransigence. Using her ability to reduce a man to rubble out of spite.
Okay, so she was part of one of the oldest, richest families in New York. Okay, so she was suddenly back in my life after months. I was a lawyer in the greatest city in the world. I went in front of judges, reporters, jury members every damn day. I wasn’t going to let one spoiled little girl get the best of me.
And this time, I wasn’t going to take it easy on her.
“Your name,” I said. “What’s your name?”
She rolled her eyes, looking for a moment like I imagined she must have at about sixteen. All pretention and privilege. No fuckin’ respect.
“You know my name.”
“I know your first name, Nina. But that night in the bar, you told me point blank you weren’t a de Vries. Ms. Astor, is it?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I—okay, yes. Fine. My surname is not de Vries. But I told you that because it’s the truth.”
“Is it?”
“It is.”
“You gave me a fake name.”
“I did not.”
“You did,” I snapped. “I’m an investigative prosecutor for the Brooklyn DA, Nina. I didn’t lie to you about that. Or anything else, for that matter. First thing I did Monday morning was run your name through the system. Again. And again. Nothing. Astor isn’t real, is it?”
“It’s my father’s name!” she finally broke. “And if you recall, we don’t exactly have the best relationship. I didn’t lie about that either.”
“My father is gone too,” Nina said at last.
“I’m sorry to hear that. When did he pass?”
“Oh, he’s not dead. He simply left the country when I was a little girl. He lives in London now, I believe. My mother was never particularly parental, so I was largely raised by my grandmother too, as it happens.”
Her voice was low, almost as if it was the first time she had ever admitted any of this. In just a few words, Nina established that she and I had more in common than I thought. Fucked-up childhoods.
Absent parents. What had she gone through since? Had she wondered through the years if there was anything else she could have done? Had she chased her father’s memory as I’d chased mine, with as much hate as desire for his approval?
And yet, as questions flurried, only one lingered: who in their right mind could leave a woman like this?
How the fuck could he?
I’d probably never meet Nina’s father. But if I did, I knew I’d hate him.
“So, what?” I said. “People don’t just abandon their parents’ names because they skip town.”
“If you must know, when he left, I requested to have my name legally changed to de Vries because I was so angry. My mother never changed hers, and I wanted to be a part of the family who actually raised me. It was a girl’s naive quest for belonging. And, as it happens, an absolute waste, considering I wasn’t allowed to keep it when I married.”
I remembered the story about her dad now. I could easily imagine Nina, a beautiful girl of sixteen or so demanding her birthright, even if it was just in the form of a name.
The grandmother too. The great Celeste de Vries. The matriarch of New York who had ruled this city with a diamond-encrusted fist until her death last fall.
By the time she was done, Nina had turned away in a huff, facing east toward the side of the city where she belonged. She clutched at her coat, pulling it tight.
“So?” I asked, forcing myself back to the here and now. “What is it?”
Nina turned back with a frown. “What’s what?”
“Your name. Your real name.”
“Oh. It’s…Gardner.”
Was it my imagination, or did she sound almost reluctant to admit it? Like she wished she didn’t have to say it? Like she wished it didn’t exist?
But it did. It was the same name Eric had used before she’d walked in. The one I’d been turning in my head over and over again for the last hour. I knew what it was. I just needed to hear her say it.
Nina stared at the ground like the black pavement might reveal something else important. When she looked up again, her eyes shone with frustration. “My husband’s name is Gardner. So, yes. I was a bit misleading. But considering you and I barely knew each other, I hardly thought the complications surrounding my surname were any of your business.”
“Misleading? I asked you point blank that night if you were part of the de Vries family. You said no.”
I didn’t know why I was so angry. Actually, that wasn’t true. When I really thought about it, I knew exactly why.
Like so many people who grew up in this city, I understood the con of New York. Everyone had an angle. Everyone had a story. I knew you couldn’t always trust people to tell you the truth because I didn’t always do it either.
How many times had I given women wrong numbers when I didn’t want them to call? Made up excuses so I wouldn’t have to see them again? I sugarcoated the worst parts of my character, brushed off my excesses like they were nothing. And I told these stories, lived these falsehoods because everyone in this city did. Putting on an act was as nat
ural to New Yorkers as catching a cab.
But for one night, with one woman, I’d dropped it all. At that bar, in that restaurant, in that hotel room—Zola disappeared. Mattie was gone. All the things I’d ever said and done ceased to exist.
With her, I was only Matthew. The Americanized name given for my grandfather, per old Italian custom. I’d split open my chest, my heart, everything I was for this beautiful woman I had only just met, for one critical reason:
I believed she had done it too.
“I said I wasn’t a de Vries,” Nina cut back in a voice that shook. “And I’m not. Or have you forgotten the rest of that conversation too?”
“So you’re an heiress,” I said, again trying not to be too impressed. It seemed like a word out of one of my sister’s crappy romance novels, not a real thing.
“That’s just it,” Nina said acerbically. “I’m not an heiress anymore.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “Especially if you were the one there, taking care of her. I’d be pissed off too.”
“Yes, well. I wasn’t happy about it at first, it’s true. But it was Grandmother’s choice.”
Nina’s voice shook then, just like it was shaking now. Her emotion made her tremble, like a string that had just been plucked. I took a step forward so there was less than a foot between us.
“Baby, I didn’t forget a second of the night I spent with you.”
Nina shivered even more in the brisk night air, but her face was flushed. Her lips parted, and for a moment, I considered stealing a kiss. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, and by the way her eyes kept drifting down to my mouth, I was pretty sure she wanted it too. It would have been so easy…
But.
I was no gentleman. Not then. Not now. Maybe not ever. But even standing here in the middle of Central Park, piss mad at her and in no mood for generosity, something about Nina still made me want to be better.
So I stepped back again and checked my watch. “Seven o’clock. What do you say, dinner?”
Did she look slightly disappointed by the new distance?
“Dinner? Oh, no. I have to get home.”
“And home is…”
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Relax, doll. You know I can find it out on my own if I want to, right?”
Now she was practically squinting.
“Nina,” I said. “You’re not walking through the park at night by yourself, no matter how much you want to get away from me. But you better face it, we’ll be seeing a bit more of each other if we have a shot in hell of helping Jane and Eric. So you might as well answer my questions now instead of later.”
Her heart-shaped mouth opened and closed a few times before pressing into a tight line. She didn’t like being pushed into a corner, that much was obvious. But like her reaction to the name princess, this only made me want to do it more.
“Fine,” she gritted out. “You may walk me to the traverse for a taxi. But only if you promise to keep things purely professional, Matthew. That night…”
She was looking for something I’d never be able to give as the price of her company. So I did the only thing I could think of. I lied through my teeth.
“Never happened.” I held out my hands in surrender.
Nina didn’t look convinced, but after a moment her shoulders relaxed. With a bit of amusement, she gestured toward my hat. “You look like…I don’t know. A film noir character in that hat. Like you’re expecting a femme fatale to enter your life.”
I tipped the brim at her. “Who says she hasn’t already?”
Nina was silent.
“It’s a classic,” I said, trying to make her more comfortable. “Every man looks better in a good hat.”
She tilted her head, but there wasn’t a trace of derision in those sparkling silvers. “Some certainly do,” she said softly.
I held out an elbow for her to take so we could continue across the park. “Come on, doll. You called me a gentleman once. Let me see you home.”
Chapter Six
My grandfather used to say that when he met my grandmother, it was love at first sight across the train platform. Nonna was in the opposite car, on her way downtown for a catering gig. He was going home after a Yankees game. They were both seventeen. It was 1957.
Before the doors closed, Nonno jumped out of his car and caught the door of hers. He jammed himself into the car, grabbed the strap above her, and rode with her all the way to Brooklyn, a full two hours in the opposite direction from Belmont. Then he waited all night until she finished serving canapes at a wedding so he could see her home, back to the apartment off Arthur Avenue that happened to be less than four blocks from his own.
Less than a year later, they were married. And for more than fifty years, he never stopped seeing her home.
“Why?” I asked him, time and time again. As a kid, a teenager, even a young man, I couldn’t fathom running across the platform for something as ridiculous as a girl, much less riding hours out of your way and then sitting around for more than four hours while she worked. New York was fifty-two percent female. Pretty girls were a dime a dozen. But the trains running on time? That was priceless.
Because, he’d say, each and every time, a lilt of Italian left over from his childhood in Naples coloring his speech just so. That’s what you do when you meet the love of your life, Matthew. You treat her like a lady, not a broad. You protect her. You keep her safe. You see her home.
Nina and I made our way toward the Seventy-Ninth Street Traverse, staying on the main lit path while I kept her hand securely in the crook of my elbow. I scanned the trees while we walked—I wasn’t kidding before about the potential for crime. How many times had my office prosecuted shootings in Prospect Park or similar spots? Places that seemed G-rated during the day could be death traps in this city at night. I could handle myself, but her? In those shoes? No fuckin’ way.
In spite of the possibility of threats around us, neither Nina nor I were walking very fast. In fact, we both seemed to be dragging our feet. A lot.
“So, who’s the bum?” I asked after a bit.
I was going for light-hearted, but I couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of my voice. Nina’s left hand was clutching my arm, the diamond on her ring finger so big it was practically a flashlight.
Maybe a part of me had hoped she was lying that morning. Maybe a part of me had hoped they were on the rocks even now. Separated, maybe. That our night together was so life-changing and earth-shattering that she had gone straight to the courthouse and filed for divorce.
God knows if she had stayed, I probably would have begged her.
Nina cast a sideways look at me. “I’m—you know, I’m not sure I want to tell you.”
I sighed. Getting any of this story out of her was going to be like pulling teeth.
“It was just a joke,” I said. “Really, though. I want to know. Who’s the lucky guy who snags you for life?”
She snorted lightly. It was an adorable quirk of hers I remembered from before—a distinctly unladylike snort when she thought something was funny, but forced herself to stifle a bigger laugh.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just…well, you talk as if we just got engaged. But actually, Calvin and I have been married for quite a while.”
“Calvin? That’s his name?”
The investigator in me was already taking notes.
Calvin Gardner.
Spouse to Nina Astor/de Vries.
Grade A motherfucker.
Okay, the last part was just an assumption. But I was already itching to get back to my office and run the bastard’s name through the system. Find out every dirty secret he had. Everyone had a few.
Now it was my turn to shake my head. I needed to let this go. For her sake. And mine.
“And how did you lovebirds meet?” I prodded, again trying and failing to sound playful. So much for letting it go.
Nina cast another skeptical
look. “Do you honestly want to know this?”
“Sure, doll. Of course I do. I just want to know if you’re happy.”
It wasn’t until I said it that I realized it was true. Because the woman I met two months ago had been so desperately unhappy, she was practically tearing apart at the seams. Women who were happy with their husbands didn’t seek out trouble on a Friday night. They didn’t take off their rings in a bar. They didn’t come looking for me.
I remembered her face that night. The way her eyes, large and soulful, had been slightly red-rimmed from crying. The way she had quivered at my touch as something foreign, almost frightening, before it became something she relished.
“Do you know how long it’s been,” she wondered as she watched our fingers slowly, slowly entwine with each other, “since someone held my hand?”
That ache in my chest throbbed again. Her voice was so sad, so fuckin’ tragic. I would have done just about anything to see her smile. I wanted to hear that shy laugh. Just one more time.
But the truth? I realized then that I’d take her tears too. I’d take anything this beautiful woman had to offer me tonight. Anything at all.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” I asked.
I brought her hand to my knee so I could cradle it between both of my palms. Nina emitted a soft sigh, but she didn’t pull it away.
“Go on, doll. I got all the time in the world.”
I still didn’t know why she had been upset that night. Had it been this Calvin? What had he done to her? Because he had fucked up somehow. That much I knew for sure. But as much as I wanted Nina’s marriage to be so terrible she’d come running back to me all over again, I found something else to be true.
I’d probably do just about anything to make Nina happy.
Even if it wasn’t with me.
“Of course I’m happy.”
The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1) Page 6