And immediately regretted it.
Me: I could meet you somewhere, though.
Three dots appeared almost immediately, and I stared at them before they disappeared. Nothing. I scared her off. Maybe she was rethinking things too. Like the fact that we probably weren’t nearly as discreet about our attraction as we thought we were. Like the fact that she, a regular on New York’s society pages, probably shouldn’t be seen with a sleaze ball like me.
Smart girl.
“Who’s that?” Derek pulled me out of my stupor. “Your latest victim?”
“What?” I looked up from my phone.
“You still getting calls from those chicks uptown?”
I grimaced. I never should have told Derek about Caitlyn. She still called from time to time, much to my embarrassment and irritation while Tiana gave me long looks and told her I was in court. But after running into Nina, I had to admit I’d lost my taste for that particular set. Or maybe just everyone. I hadn’t been to Envy in almost a month. I hadn’t been laid in even longer.
“Nah,” I said. “This one’s just a friend.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I heard that one before. Ha. ‘Just a friend.’ Whatever’s clever.”
I sighed. I hadn’t actually talked to anyone about the fact that my new “friend” was someone I still couldn’t stop imagining naked. It didn’t help that I knew exactly what to imagine, right down to the diamond-shaped birthmark on her inner thigh and the exact hue of her nipples. I stared at the sky while I polished off the rest of my beer. This was the same debate I’d been having with myself for weeks.
Nina was a married heiress and mother to boot. I was an off-color cop with a penchant for self-sabotage via seduction. Together, we were the definition of wrong.
And yet, like I told the priest damn near every Sunday, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything about us was right. Whether or not we were supposed to be lovers, I was certain that Nina and I were supposed to be in each other’s lives.
Which was why, when I received her response, I already knew my fate that night was sealed.
Doll: I’d love to. Just tell me where.
“New plans, tonight, Derek. You and Frankie are officially having your first date.” I stood and gave him my best older-brother stare. “Don’t fuck with my sister, and we’ll be good. I need to get to the gym and get out of here.”
“What?” Derek recoiled. “Zo, come on. You can’t do this to me. I didn’t mean right fuckin’ now!”
“Sorry, brother.” I shoved my chair back. “Look, we won’t be able to get the search warrant until you actually observe Roscoe with an illicit substance. Go back tomorrow and tail the asshole. Get it on record, and we’ll write the affidavit. As for Frankie…you’re on your own. Carpe diem.”
“But—but—”
I stopped at the door. “Word to the wise: help with the dishes. Household chores are the way to Frankie’s heart.”
And with that, I left Derek sitting on the porch to contemplate exactly just which chores might help him snag my sister. But before I went upstairs, I sent one final message to the lady uptown:
Me: Your wish is my command. Envy at 7.
Chapter Thirteen
This time, I was the late one. After working off as much sexual frustration as I could and then spending way too much time choosing shoes to go with my Varvatos pants, I found myself striding down Orchard Street with a distinct sense of déjà vu. I
’d have been lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. Nina and I were on every street corner of this neighborhood, stamped on concrete curbs and blurry streetlights. Over there, I could see the first time I’d touched her skin. That was where I kissed her and managed to cop a feel the first time. And then, of course, just a few blocks down, was the Grace.
Ironic, really. We met in a bar named after one of the seven deadly sins, and then committed the worst of all of them in a hotel named for salvation.
Sin. It was a funny thing. I still couldn’t come to terms with the fact that what we had done together was wrong, no matter how many times Nina, the priest, or even I said it was.
I felt like God Himself when I was inside her. So maybe it was that pride, no matter what Nonno said, that would get me in the end.
“Hey, Jamie,” I greeted my best friend as I approached the bar.
Jamie Quinn and I had grown up just a few blocks from each other in Belmont, and now he owned Envy, my favorite bar and the place where Nina and I met.
“Zo. Been a minute, man.” He slapped me on the back. “Good to see you.”
“You too, Jay. Listen, I’m meeting someone, but I’ll have a—”
“She’s over there,” Jamie interrupted, pointing toward a booth in the lounge’s far corner.
I followed his finger to where Nina was sipping on a champagne cocktail and staring at her left hand. She turned it back and forth, letting the facets of the diamond catch in the light. She looked like she wanted to rip it off her finger. Or maybe that was just my wishful thinking.
“It’s that same broad you went home with in January, right?”
I turned back. “How in the fuck do you remember that?”
Jamie shrugged. “You’d remember too if you’d watched me trip all over my tongue for two hours straight. I know bad when I see it, Zo. And you got it bad.”
I frowned. That night, sure. But Jamie was talking in present tense.
“It was a one-night thing,” I said. “She’s just a friend.”
He glanced back at Nina, whose ring gleamed under the lamp above her table. “A married friend now?”
“Happens to be,” I grumbled. “Not that it matters.”
Jamie sighed. And for once, I saw no trace of the humor that usually accompanied his friendly jibes.
“Look,” he said. “I’ve never said anything because you always had things under control. You had your fun, and it was funny, really, to hear stories about you shimmying down fire escapes in Armani vests or whatever. But you never looked at any of those bored housewives the way you’re looking at her right now.”
I snapped my gaze back at him. “Like what?”
Jamie looked at me like I was stupid. And I don’t know. Maybe I was.
“Zo, come on,” he said quietly. “Don’t make me say it.”
But it was too late. Already, I was two steps away from the booth, drawn to her ice-white flame like a moth in the dark. The trick, I told myself then, was to stay just far enough away that I wouldn’t get burned.
“Hey, doll.”
Nina looked up from her drink in brief surprise, but her face warmed immediately with a smile, and her hands dropped as she stood to greet me.
“Sorry I’m late, beautiful,” I said as she leaned in to kiss my cheek. I slipped a hand around her waist—just for a second. The faint scent of roses floated around us.
When I let her go, Nina’s cheeks were the color of petals.
“You’re not late,” she said. “I was early enough for a cocktail.” She pursed her lips and exhaled while holding back a grin. “It seems to have gone to my head a bit.”
The effect only brought out two small dimples on either side of her mouth, painted red again once more. I found myself wanting to tickle her just to see them deepen.
“We should get some dinner, then,” I said. “I was thinking Tribeca—”
“What about another walk?” Nina interrupted. She looked down at her feet. “I came prepared.”
She had eschewed her typical heels for another pair of flat black shoes with pointed toes.
“Oh.”
I couldn’t hide my disappointment. At all. They were nice, sure. But they weren’t really her.
“Ballet flats,” Nina informed me. “Terribly practical, I’m afraid. I didn’t have time to change after spending my day at the museum with Jane.”
As I drew my gaze up the rest of her, my disappointment faded. In a white shirt wrapped around her waist, a fitted Burberry jacket, and sleek black pan
ts that stopped just above her ankles, Nina made comfort look damn good. Like she’d walked right off the set of Roman Holiday. And what did that make me in my vest and tie? Gregory Peck?
“Well, well, well,” I murmured. “Hello, Audrey.”
“Hepburn?” Nina looked down at her clothes again, like she was sizing herself up. “If you say so.”
“I do. Come on, doll. Let’s put those walking shoes to good use.”
Once again, I was taken back to the night we met as we meandered around the Lower East Side—not hand in hand, though every few steps or so, our fingers would brush against each other, and neither of us made a move to step apart. We passed the Grace, however, and Nina overtly turned her head, like the hotel didn’t exist. I considered making a joke about expensive penthouses and unforgettable nights, but decided against it. Much as I liked teasing Nina, I didn’t want to embarrass her completely. She still hadn’t forgiven herself for that night. Maybe she never would.
“So what were you and Calvin up to last night?” I asked as we hooked a left to walk north on Clinton. I stopped in front of a pretzel cart closing up for the night and purchased two—one for me, and one for me to eat in about thirty minutes, after Nina took three bites and ignored the rest.
Nina’s mouth quirked to one side. She knew our pattern just as well as I did. Food had become this pleasant give-and-take with us—as in, I’d do my best to stuff her full of things she never ate otherwise, she’d fight me, then give in. But only for a moment.
“You do realize I have to fit into a custom Valentino this month, not to mention my gala dress,” she said as she gingerly accepted the pretzel between two buffed fingers.
“Oh yeah?” I asked. I didn’t even have to feign interest. “Big date?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “My husband will be accompanying me this time, if that’s what you’re asking. He won’t like it, but he’ll do it.”
“Gala? Benefit?” Honestly, I was just throwing out words that seemed close. “Were you doing something like that last night too?”
Nina cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“When I asked you to dinner. You said you had plans.”
For some reason, when she said she had “plans,” I always assumed it was her husband. Otherwise, she usually said who it was with. Lunch with Jane. Meeting with one of her many charity groups. Dinner with her mother.
Calvin was the only one Nina never talked about, which was fine, since I didn’t like hearing about him. But some things inevitably came up. Things that weren’t on the whistle-clean background check I ran on him a month ago.
Based on our conversations, I had a whole list of random personal traits about Calvin fucking Gardner I would have much rather forgotten, all of which made me hate his guts even more.
I knew, for instance, that his favorite vegetable was broccoli, but it had to be cooked to death for him to eat it. You know, like a toddler.
I knew that he had a nose for poker, but only five card draw. Like an eighth grader.
I knew he worked and traveled constantly, which meant he left his wife, the most beautiful woman in the fuckin’ world, alone. Except for when either he or her horse were leaving bruises around her wrist from time to time. Like an asshole.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, he was home this week until this morning.” She offered a lopsided smile. “He’s in Paris right now, though. And then Rome, I believe.”
“And he didn’t think to take you with him?”
I didn’t mean to snap, but really, the idea of being in cities as gorgeous as Paris and Rome without your wife when she was this woman was fuckin’ absurd. I’d give just about anything for a chance at that. My chest tightened as I realized I’d never get it.
“Matthew.”
I hung my head. “Sorry. Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get to go.”
She shrugged. “Oh, I’ve been. Several times. Didn’t I tell you that I studied abroad in Florence?”
I jerked. “You did?”
She nodded with a quiet smile. “Just before I had Liv, yeah. During my second year at Wellesley.”
I examined her for a moment. “So you speak Italian?”
Her smile broadened a bit. “A little. What I picked up while I was there. It’s a very beautiful city.” She shoved her hands into her coat. Was I mistaken, or was she a little reticent to talk about Florence? Most people loved to gab about the places they had been, especially rich kids who studied abroad. But Nina didn’t offer hardly anything.
“Have you been?” she wondered.
“To Italy? Oh, sure. Once when I was a teenager—my grandfather took me to visit his family in Naples. And then later I was stationed in Sicily for a bit before Iraq.”
“You were in the Marines, right?”
“Yep. Semper fi and all that.”
Nina looked like she wanted to ask me more, but the roar of Houston took over the conversation while we crossed into the East Village. We walked another few blocks, and I was just starting to think again about where we might go for dinner when she spoke.
“How did you end up in the military? Was it just because of your grandfather?”
I swallowed. I didn’t talk a lot about my time in the Marines. Not because I wasn’t proud of it. I was. I was proud that right after the city of my birth was attacked that morning in September, I was one of the first to line up to fight the bastards. I finished school and went straight into officer training school.
But what came after…things that happened when I was actually there…well, there wasn’t a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who served active combat and didn’t have some regrets.
I shook my head. She wasn’t asking about that.
“It was something to do with him,” I admitted. “He told me to be better. To make him proud. But at the time, I had no fuckin’ clue how to do that. I was at SUNY getting some shitty degree in Communications that qualified me for pretty much nothing. I had no plans.” I shrugged. “Then 9-11 happened. I saw a direction. I took it.”
“How long did you serve?”
“Just four years after I graduated,” I said. “Not as long as some, that’s for sure. But I still managed to get a few promotions.”
Nina blinked, looking appropriately impressed. “So you’re…”
“Captain Zola, at your service.”
I gave a mock salute. Was that another blush that stole its way across her cheeks? Nina’s lashes fluttered.
To be honest, it sort of took me off guard. I had plenty of lines at my disposal when it came to women, but my military service wasn’t one I often used. I understood its effect. Plenty of women had the hots for servicemen. I grew up in New York. The girls in my neighborhood would go crazy every time Fleet Week rolled around.
But for whatever reason, it never felt…well…honorable to use it like that. And so it wasn’t something I really talked about with the long series of one-night stands I tended to follow. Most of the women I had been with didn’t even know I had served. Because I wasn’t interested in being some girl’s officer and a gentleman. Especially since I wasn’t a fuckin’ gentleman. Not even close.
So I had forgotten the look some women could get when they discovered that part of my past. And I really hadn’t anticipated seeing it on Nina’s face.
I liked it.
I liked it a lot.
“Are you still a captain?” she asked. “Do people still call you ‘Captain Zola’?”
“The rank is permanent.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I eyed her. “Technically, I’m a reservist.” Another thing I didn’t talk about much.
At that, her silver eyes grew into full moons of panic. “What? But there—there’s still a war on. You could be called up. Matthew, you could be killed!”
Was it fucked up that I almost wanted to languish in her worry for a bit? Maybe even pretend a little that there was a legitimate chance I could be called up again for active duty? Just to see a woman like Nina fall
all over herself at the thought of me in harm’s way?
Yes. Yes, it was.
“Relax, baby,” I said gently, hating and loving her obvious terror at the same time. “It’s not exactly 1941. No one’s been drafted since Vietnam. Drones do half the work of the infantry now anyway, and I’m thirty-six, which in military terms politely means ‘old as fuck.’”
Immediately, she relaxed. “Oh, good.” She tipped her head almost dreamily. “I bet you look handsome in your uniform, though.”
I shrugged, still a little uncomfortable. “Some thought so.”
“Did you have a girl back then?”
I could feel the shadow cover my face—the same one that always cropped up anytime anyone mentioned Sherry. How in the fuck did this conversation get here? “I—yeah. I did.”
“Who was she?”
I gave her a look. “You jealous, doll?”
She narrowed her eyes. Fuck, who was I kidding? I wanted her to be jealous. Maybe that’s why I let her ask me about the only person who had ever managed to rip out my heart.
“Yeah,” I said. “I had a girlfriend, Sherry. We knew each other in high school. Grew up together, even though we didn’t get together until college. Actually, it didn’t really happen until I’d made the decision to leave.”
“You enlisted and found a girlfriend?”
I snorted. “Don’t be so surprised. It happens more than you might think.”
“Everyone loves a man in uniform,” Nina murmured.
“Do you?”
“I think the man makes the clothes, Matthew, not the other way around.”
We stared at each other for a long time, and then, in a molasses-slow movement that seemed to last for hours, Nina drew her white-gold gaze slowly down my body, taking in each little quirk and peccadillo of the clothes I happened to be wearing. I had eschewed a tie and jacket tonight, but still wore a pair of gray fitted pants and a vest over a white shirt. I straightened, fighting the urge to stand at attention, as if I were under inspection once again.
The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1) Page 15