I scowled. It was three o’clock on a Friday. Derek and his partner were finishing a stakeout in The Hole, which really needed to come up with some evidence if we had any chance of getting an indictment in time for Carson’s arrest in four weeks.
On top of that, Nina’s last text, a neat little brush-off if I ever saw one, had been echoing in my mind nonstop. And I couldn’t figure out why.
It wasn’t like I’d never had a female friend. Maybe not one I imagined naked half the time, but I kept that under control. Maybe a flirty text here and there, but the few times we’d hung out since meeting in Eric and Jane’s apartment had been purely platonic. A walk in the park after I visited her and Jane at the Met. Nothing preplanned. We meandered around Sheep Meadow, and Nina slipped off her heels on the grass to walk barefoot before calling her car home. The second time, we grabbed coffee too. That time, she wore flat shoes, so we made it all the way around the reservoir.
As for the thoughts that went through my head every time I saw her (and, sure, usually a few more times a night, often in the shower)? They were between me and my priest. So what was so bad about a plate of pasta and some table wine, I ask you? It was as innocent as it got, especially since I had Frankie and Sofia around to suck all the romance out of the room anyway.
Usually she brushed me off with a bit more pizazz. I’d heard the “I have plans” thing before, but it usually came with a phone call later. She’d giggle at my dumb jokes, and I’d make more of them until neither of us could think of a reason to stay on the line.
It had been two days since my last invitation, and I hadn’t heard from her at all. Truth be told, I was getting used to talking to Nina de Vries (I still couldn’t think of her as Gardner) almost every day.
“I’m fine,” I said again. “Can I get back to work now?”
“I guess. If you don’t care that there’s a Nina Astor down by security.”
I frowned. “A who?” I glanced at my phone, sitting on the desk. No messages. “Did you say Nina Astor?”
Tiana’s eyebrow tugged up. “That’s right.”
“She didn’t want to be put through?”
Tiana shrugged. “She just asked me to tell you she’s waiting. Stop giving your booty calls this number, Zola. It’s getting embarrassing.”
“She’s not a booty—”
But before I could finish my retort, Tiana had ducked out with a flash of her palm at me. I didn’t have to hear her say “Bye, Felicia” to know she was thinking it.
“Christ,” I muttered even as I grabbed my jacket, hat, and the motion to walk over to the clerk’s office. “I’ll be back in an hour,” I said to Tiana on my way out. “If Derek comes, have him wait.”
I half expected the call to be a prank. But instead, true to Tiana’s word, I found Nina pacing outside the building under the canopy that protected the courtyard next to my building’s security office. On the busy, if fairly unremarkable street, Nina looked out of place.
Downtown Brooklyn was brass tacks. Nondescript concrete buildings, utilitarian benches. You had to get out of this part of the borough to find its tree-lined charm. In the middle of the neighborhood’s unflinching practicality, Nina looked as ever like she had walked out of a fashion magazine in a conservative white dress and off-white cashmere coat.
One thing, however, was different.
Instead of a glossy, nondescript pink that matched the rest of her relatively colorless aesthetic, her lips. They were red.
“Do you ever wear red?” I found myself asking, despite the fact that I’d never see her in it, even if she did. “Like this?”
Nina just watched the progress of the rosebud as it traveled down her side, over one leg, to flirt with the delicate curve of her ankle. She cleared her throat. “Well, no. Not really.”
“Not even lipstick? Maybe your nails?”
“Grandmother always thought it garish. Unfitting for someone like me.”
“Someone like you?” I drew the flower over the hook of her heel.
Nina shrugged. “Someone of my ‘station,’ she would have said.”
“She probably knew you’d attract a trail of lovers. Like the pied piper, except with color instead of song.”
As I trailed the rose back up her other leg, I found myself wondering what Nina would look like with a bright red mouth, puckered with want. Scarlet fingernails digging into my skin. A crimson silk negligee, begging to be torn off.
I swallowed and yanked at my collar. Was she trying to kill me here? Did she remember that bit of conversation, just before I’d made her entire body flush from want under mine?
Nina turned then and caught me looking at her. My thoughts must have shown plainly, because that flush reappeared.
Yeah. She definitely knew what she was doing.
“Fancy seeing you in this neck of the woods,” I said as I leaned in to kiss her cheek. Roses. Always roses. “This is a hell of a surprise, doll.”
Nina accepted my kisses shyly. I stepped back before I embarrassed myself.
“I—I was just in the neighborhood,” she stammered as she looked me over. She thought she was being covert, but her gaze practically seared over my navy Tom Ford. When she returned to my face, “Another Kate find?” she wondered.
I smiled. We’d talked about my sister before, but I hadn’t realized Nina knew her by name now. Thank you, Katie. I owed her a nice dinner out just for Nina’s reaction alone.
“That’s right. You remembered?”
She nodded. “She has very good taste.”
“She’s just the dealer, sweetheart. I’m the one who picks them out.”
When Nina didn’t reply, I cocked my head. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I told you, I was just in the neighborhood, and—”
“You just happened to be in Brooklyn? I thought this was a flyover state on your way to the Hamptons.”
Nina shoved my chest playfully. “It is not! I’ve been to Peter Luger’s at least five times, I’ll have you know.”
“Bah. Williamsburg is practically the Village these days. It doesn’t count.”
The jokes died down, and for a moment, we loitered awkwardly on the sidewalk.
I checked my watch. “I have a little time. You want to walk around?”
Nina looked at her feet. “Um…”
“Shoes. Right. Did you bring your car?”
She shook her head. I frowned. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen Nina without the big black Escalade following her like a shadow.
I turned to the street and raised my hand. There weren’t always a lot of cabs in Brooklyn, but I could usually find a few downtown. Luckily, there was a line at the hotel next door, so we were able to get off pretty quickly.
“Fort Greene Park,” I told the driver. I winked at Nina. “Just a stroll, I promise.”
Less than ten blocks later, we entered one of my favorite parks in the area, a small, but tree-filled thatch of green where I sometimes spent my lunch breaks on sunny days like today. Spring was popping in New York. There was still a chill in the air, but the sky was blue, and the trees were almost all abloom.
Nina had been quiet on the short cab ride. Something was up. I couldn’t have told you why. After all, I still didn’t know her that well. I couldn’t read her body language intuitively—yet—but some part of me knew there was somehow more to this visit than just “happened-to-be-here.”
“If you want to know the truth,” she said as we passed under some chestnuts. “I felt terrible about your invitation. To dinner.”
My brows knit together. “What?”
The sunlight glinted off her gold hair. “Friday? Well, today, I suppose? Remember, you sent me the picture of spaghetti and invited me over…” She shook her head. “Perhaps I’m overreacting.”
She came as an apology. For my invitation. I wasn’t going to lie. I was kind of pissed about it at the time. But now…
“No, doll, you misunderstand,” I said. “I’m just surprised that you came
here because of a text.”
“I didn’t come here for a text.” She stopped under a big maple to look at me. “I don’t like texting. I think if you really mean to say something to someone, you should say it to their face.”
“And what, exactly, did you want to say to my face?”
Nina took a deep breath. “I—well, that I’m sorry. I brushed you off for reasons that—well, it doesn’t matter why. But I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know.”
It was the last thing I expected. In all my life, growing up around stubborn New Yorkers who were as likely to spit on you as ignore you, I wasn’t sure I had ever met anyone this willing to say they were sorry. Because she meant it. Because apparently I was important enough to warrant it.
It was so small, but suddenly the gesture almost felt like too much.
“It’s nothing,” I said as kindly as I could. But it was everything. She couldn’t know that, but it was.
Nina turned toward a playground that was full of children, ringed by caretakers and strollers. In this neighborhood, that meant a few nannies, but mostly stay-at-home moms and preschool attendants. Some kids wore neon pinnies over their clothes, marking them as a part of one program or another. Their raucous shouts filled the air. Some were happy, some were sad. But it was a hive of all types of energy.
“Livy would like that.” She pointed toward the children.
“A playground? Yeah, most kids do. Sofia would yank my arm off if she were here.”
A smile played over Nina’s lips, followed by another shadow. “I meant the monkey bars. But now she’s grown mostly out of them. I think.”
We started to walk again, but the uncertainty of Nina’s final words kept echoing with every step. I think. How could you say that about your own kid?
“You miss her,” I said.
Nina continued watching the kids until we were past them. “Well, yes. She’s my daughter.”
“I mean, right now especially. You’re missing her right now.”
She took careful steps. I wondered if she was trying to avoid scuffing her shoes. They were pretty—delicate suede things so light green they were almost colorless.
Almost.
When she looked back at me, her eyes weren’t wet or anything, but pain still sparked there. “I—well, yes. I suppose I am. But what mother wouldn’t miss her daughter, Matthew?”
“Mine,” I said frankly.
Nina winced regretfully. “I—yes, I remember something about her. When we—met—you said she wasn’t around much.”
I could have teased her about the way she stumbled over the word “met,” but chose not to. As much as I liked hinting about that night, it usually only made Nina uncomfortable. And I sensed now wasn’t the time for that.
“Ah, yeah. You could say that. She up and left when my youngest sister was two.”
Nina’s eyes widened. “Two?”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“And you were…”
“Fourteen.” I shrugged. “That’s when we moved in with my grandparents. Me and five bratty little sisters.”
“I see,” Nina murmured. “We have that in common too.”
“You’re talking about your dad?”
She had told me once before about her father. The man, Something Astor, who had left when she was small. The one who still lived in London and whose lights I’d love to punch out for making his daughter grow up like I had. Without a father.
“My mother too.” Her mouth quirked sadly. “There is more than one way to be absent.”
I nodded, thinking of my own father, who was a lousy drunk even when he was alive. “Don’t I know it.”
“And so you were there to help…with five sisters?”
“I couldn’t let my grandparents have all the fun, you know.”
Nina raised a hand to her mouth in shock. I was about to tell her it was all right, that it was long past and I was over it. But before I could, something else caught my eye.
“What’s this?” I picked up her wrist. There was a ring of bruising around the delicate skin, mostly turned yellow, but a few darker spots remained underneath a diamond-encrusted watch that, to be honest, was a little tacky compared to the rest of her minimalist style.
“Oh, lord.” Nina jerked her hand away. “It’s—it’s nothing.”
I tipped my hat back. “Nothing?”
“Yes, nothing.”
Every internal alarm bell I had was going off like fuckin’ sirens.
“That’s what my mother used to say after my father left cuts on her cheek,” I said. “Shit, I’d use it myself sometimes when he gave it to me instead.”
“Matthew!”
“No one believed us then either.” I pulled her hand back to look more closely. “Nina, these look like fingerprints. Who the fuck did this to you?” A thought occurred to me, one that made me feel suddenly murderous. “Was this Calvin?”
For a half-second, I almost wished it was. Not because I would ever want anyone to do something like this to her, but because it would mean I wasn’t crazy. That the suspicions I had about the guy weren’t just because I was stupid jealous, but because vilifying Nina de Vries’s husband somehow made me the good guy here. That there was something about this marriage that was off, and I was supposed to be pulling it apart.
Nina, however, cast me a long, dry look as she took her hand back and shoved it resolutely into her pocket. “Matthew, honestly. You can’t be serious.”
“My office has its own separate bureau for domestic violence, sweetheart. We see shit like this all the time.”
“Do you really think that people like me end up in court cases undertaken by your office?”
I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t like what she was implying. I didn’t like it at all. “We see all types, Mrs. Gardner. All fuckin’ types.”
She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue back with me. And I half wanted her to. I liked Nina pretty much any way I could get her, but she was especially fun to rile up. I got the feeling she didn’t let herself do it too much. And you know what? Sometimes it’s good for a person to get a little mad. You can’t bottle everything up forever. Otherwise the glass breaks. And everyone gets hit by the shards.
“My horse did it,” she said finally.
“Your horse.” I shook my head. “I’ve heard some tall ones in my times, doll, but that about tops them. What are you going to tell me next? The sky is actually falling? Is the emperor wearing clothes?”
“It’s true!”
She chuckled as she shoved a hand against my chest again. I fought the urge to trap it there, both so I could keep her close and also to examine those marks a bit more. She was laughing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was some elaborate ruse to throw me off the scent.
“If you can tell me where you keep a horse in New York City other than Central Park, I’ll call you the Queen of England for the rest of your life, baby.”
But she pulled her hand back and examined her wrist in the open. “Not here, silly. Long Island. I went to our estate in the Hamptons last weekend. Too cold for the beach, of course, but the horses were happy to see me. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of wrapping the reins around my wrist. Petrosinella was stung by a bee and threw me—the leather bruised my wrist.”
I examined her, waiting for more. Most lies were easy to spot—they were either too detailed or not enough.
But Nina didn’t continue. She let the story sit while we walked a bit more.
Fine, I thought as we stopped for a pretzel. Maybe she was telling the truth.
It wasn’t until I had eaten a solid half of the warm bread that one particular detail occurred to me. “Wait a second. You named your horse ‘Parsley’?”
She hid a smile. “And here I thought your family was from Naples. Don’t you know the most famous story from there?”
I blinked, frowning. Something about that was familiar…finally, it hit me. “Oh! That’s the original Rapunzel, isn’t it?”
&
nbsp; Nina grinned. I swear to God, it was brighter than the springtime sun.
“Very good.” She tipped her face up toward the rays and basked in the glow. “It’s my favorite fairy tale. When I was in college, I wrote a paper on it. There are so many other variations than just the Grimms’ version. But I really liked the original from Naples. At the end, after the prince helps her down from the tower, she uses these three enchanted nuts to attack the ogress as they escape.” She smiled dreamily. “She doesn’t just need the man to rescue her, you see. They work as a team. He helps her, and she helps him right back.”
“You are kind of like Rapunzel. Gorgeous. Blonde. Stuck up in your tower.”
Her face darkened, though I meant it as a joke. “I—I’m not—”
“Jokes, doll.” I frowned at her wrist. “You’re here, aren’t you? So you’re not totally stuck.”
She rubbed a thumb over the diamond on her ring finger. “Sometimes I do wonder…”
A few children shouted from the playground behind us. Nina glanced back at them.
“I never wanted my daughter to feel that way,” she admitted quietly—maybe to the point where she didn’t intend for me to hear her.
“Is that why you sent her away?”
She looked up. “What?”
I tore off some of the pretzel and held it out to her. “Is that why you sent Olivia to Boston? To get her out of the tower?”
Nina examined the bit of bread for a long moment. I was tempted to feed it to her directly, but I sensed that this was one of those moments where she would prefer to do things herself.
“Maybe,” she said finally as she took the bread. “Maybe not.”
We continued to walk.
“Why, then?” I asked. “If you miss her so much, why send her away? There are loads of good private schools in New York. And it’s not like you can’t afford them.”
Nina winced, like the mention of her family’s money caused her pain. We didn’t talk about it much, but it was a fact. She came from everything. Me, not so much.
The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1) Page 13