“She likes over-excited little boys who could double as baby rottweilers?” I joked.
But Nina’s face had shuttered. “I think so,” she replied quietly.
Her lack of surety broke my heart a little. Of course. How could she really know? I didn’t have kids, but I couldn’t imagine living hours from mine while they grew up at a boarding school.
Perhaps I’m not a good mother, she’d said.
I didn’t believe that. Not for a second.
But before I could say anything more, Lea’s voice broke through the hallway. “Mattie, is that you? I thought you weren’t coming up here until tomorrow.” She waddled into view under the weight of her pregnant belly, then stopped when she caught sight of Nina standing next to me. “I didn’t realize we had company.”
“Nina, this is my sister, Lea Scarrone,” I said. “She’s the mother of the herd of cattle upstairs.”
“Hey, they’re your nephews,” Lea said as she accepted my kiss to her cheek. “It’s nice to meet you, Nina. I’m sorry if my boys were less than perfect gentlemen, like this one.”
She and Nina shared smiles, but not before my sister’s sharp gaze caught the diamond on Nina’s finger. Yeah, I had a mile of questions ahead of me. No doubt about it.
I set a hand on Lea’s stomach. “Any news yet?”
My sister’s eyes glowed. “Well, you just missed the reveal, but I think Marie got a video. Nonna cried.”
“So it’s a girl?”
Lea nodded. “Four’s the charm, apparently. Mike’s disappointed, but I finally get my princess.”
“He around? I’ll pour him a congratulatory drink.”
Lea shook her head. “He had to go back to the garage and finish a job for Mr. Alvarez. But we also announced her name. Guadalupe.”
My mouth fell open in shock. That was our maternal grandmother’s name. The Puerto Rican one we had met maybe twice in our lives. “Are you serious?”
Lea shrugged. “It’s tradition. Frankie already took Nonna’s name for Sofia, and I didn’t want to have two.”
“Yeah, but Mom’s family—”
“It’s already decided,” Lea cut me off shortly. She glanced back at Nina’s hand. “Do you have kids, Nina?”
Nina’s mouth opened. She clearly wasn’t used to my sister’s frank, curt energy. “Oh, um, yes. I have one. A daughter.” She glanced at Lea’s belly. “Congratulations.”
Was that envy I saw?
“Well, it’s another mouth to feed, and it will be all I can do to make sure the boys don’t treat her like a football. But I am excited to get some cute baby clothes for once.” Lea turned back in the direction of the kitchen. “Come on, there’s still some cannelloni on the stove if you’re hungry.”
I started to follow her, but realized quickly that Nina was frozen in the foyer.
“Hey,” I said. “You all right?”
She looked up. Fear crisscrossed her face. It was funny—in those pants, with that shirt, she actually looked a lot like a picture of Nonna when she was maybe seventeen or eighteen. All she was missing was a kerchief on her head and a big pair of hoops.
She shook her head, and a lock of hair fell in front of her face. I couldn’t help it. I tucked it behind her ear.
“Matthew, maybe I shouldn’t—”
“Stop,” I interrupted, then took a deep breath. “Listen, I didn’t bring you here to make trouble. You said you wanted some Italian food, and this is the best there is. And on top of that…I don’t know, doll. I can’t shake the feeling like you could use a little family in your life right now. Am I crazy?”
The tension in her face smoothed out a little as I spoke, eventually softening into full recognition.
“Am I that transparent?” she wondered. “That desperate?”
I stroked her cheek, enjoying the feel of her skin under my fingertips. I wanted to kiss her again—shit, I always wanted to kiss her.
“Not at all,” I said. “People just aren’t supposed to be alone. Not all the time. Everyone needs a tribe, baby. You can borrow mine for a while.”
“What if—what if they don’t like me?”
It was adorable, really. That she could possibly be nervous about something like that. Her eyes, so wide and gray, the color of storm clouds shifting in the wind, blinked up at me. The mask I had seen her wear so many times had dropped, and the vulnerability underneath was painfully endearing.
Her mouth opened, dewy and pink, still stained with the remnants of her red gloss. I swallowed hard.
“Not”—I cleared my throat—“not possible.”
I shouldn’t have been looking at her this way. I was sidelined. For good. For weeks, I’d been doing my best to separate the night she let me have everything from the rest of my life where I could only take scraps. But right now, compartmentalization was impossible. Right here, in my grandmother’s foyer, all I could think about was what Nina would taste like if I stole just one kiss.
I might have been a prosecutor, but when it came to Nina de Vries, I was no better than a common thief.
Except…somehow…she made me want to be better. It was so damn confusing. How could one person make you want to sin and reform all at the same time?
With some regret, I dropped my hand and stepped back. Nina seemed to wilt, but then stood up straight.
“Besides,” I said. “We’re just friends, right?”
The look on her face said she thought that was about as believable as I did.
But I had to believe it. Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to see her again. And that, I wouldn’t accept.
Nina seemed to have the same inclination.
“Friends,” she repeated. “Okay.”
“Well, then.” I held out my hand. It was innocent enough. Wasn’t it? “Let’s go, friend. Come into the henhouse and meet my family.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Ahhhhhhhh.” I stretched my arms above my head and beat my fists lightly on the wall behind me. “Nonna, that was amazing. I am so damn full.”
“Zio, that’s a swear.”
Beside me, Nina chuckled. It wasn’t the first time that night I’d been cornered by my niece or one of my nephews. It was ten thirty at night, and Sofia was still pinging my ass, even half asleep in her mother’s lap.
After getting used to Nina’s presence, my family had relaxed into their normal chattiness. Frankie and Sofia arrived soon after we did—they sometimes stayed the night on Saturdays to make going to Mass easier the next morning. Apparently Derek had stayed for dinner, but hadn’t lingered. Meanwhile, the boys were upstairs watching a movie while the rest of us sat around the big dinner table, listening to Sinatra and the chime of the grandfather clock in the hall.
“Seriously, Sof? Why you gotta do me like that?” I pulled a dollar bill from my wallet and handed it to Frankie, who tucked it in her purse for the jar at home.
“I think she likes watching you more than anything else,” Nina murmured with a smile.
I winked. Her cheeks reddened even more—which had already been accomplished with food and wine. And maybe, I thought, a bit of amusement with my crazy family.
“It really was so delicious, Signora Zola,” she said to my grandmother, who was sitting at the head of the table, looking as satisfied as ever while she nursed her stovetop espresso and watched the kids. She looked the same as ever—a sturdy five foot three in a blue tracksuit topped with a helmet of jet-black hair. Gold and diamond earrings that I recognized as her forty-fifth anniversary gift from Nonno dangled from her ears.
Nonna smiled like a satisfied cat. “Good, good. You want more? I can get you more.”
“No, grazie, Signora Zola,” Nina replied quickly. “I’m so full. The third serving really did me in.”
I smiled to myself. Nina never had a thing to worry about. When she said she spent a semester in Florence, I knew she would charm the pants off my grandmother. The second Nonna heard Italian float out of my dinner guest’s mouth, she was already plann
ing our wedding, ring or no ring.
Nonna nodded as she drew her shrewd gaze over Nina for the umpteenth time. Taking her measurements, no doubt. “Okay, no problem. I will send some home with you too.”
“I’m never going to fit into that dress now, you know,” Nina whispered. She patted her stomach, which looked as trim as ever to me. “It’ll have to be let out by two inches. The designer will kill me.”
I chuckled. “Wear a bed sheet, then, Roman style. You’d look just as pretty.”
Nina’s face flushed again. “You’re a completely shameless flirt, do you know that?”
I winked, and her blush deepened. She could chide me all she wanted, but the truth was, I’d flirt until my dying breath if it kept her cheeks that color pink. I opened my mouth to tell her just that when the front door creaked open and more footsteps sounded in the foyer.
“Oh my God!” screeched a high-pitched female voice. “The train took forever, and the game ran late!”
Lea rolled her eyes. “Baby’s here.”
“Baby?” Nina asked. “I thought all the children were here.”
“My youngest sister,” I clarified. “Joni is the baby. Although, if Lea knows what’s good for her, she won’t say that within earshot.”
Lea just shook her head as she sat back so Kate could clear her dishes. “It’s nothing she doesn’t already know.”
“Let me help with that,” Nina said, standing up to join her along with Marie, though Lea and I stayed at the table while Frankie rocked a nearly asleep Sofia next to Nonna, who was strictly banned from the kitchen after dinner.
“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod. I need food!”
Joni entered the living room with the force of a hurricane, decked out in old man sneakers, jeans about three times too big for her, a jacket that barely made it to her navel, and the biggest earrings I had ever seen. I frowned. Seriously, I didn’t understand the trends these days. Maybe it made me ancient, but I legitimately did not get how people her age wanted to look homeless most of the time.
“Mattie, put that frown away,” murmured Frankie as she swished the wine in her glass.
“Are those acid wash jeans?” I muttered. “She looks like an extra on WWF.”
“She looks cute and on point for a twenty-four-year-old,” Kate returned as she came to get more dishes.
“Whatever.” I stood to wrap my youngest sister in a bear hug. “How’s school, Jo?”
“Good, good. So good.”
Joni brushed off my question in a way that told me she was probably just passing her classes at Bronx Community College. We had barely convinced her to enroll a couple of years ago, and even that was a stretch. She still wasn’t finished with her associate’s. I tried not to nag, but it was hard not to get paternal with Joni, considering how many nights I literally rocked her to sleep. She wasn’t even a year old when our dad died. Two when she lost her mother.
“Did Lea and Mike do the reveal?” she asked as she made the rounds to give everyone kisses. “Do I have a new niece on the way?”
“It’s a girl,” Lea said.
“Guadalupe.” Nonna offered the name, though not without a little irritation. I was pretty sure she wanted both her granddaughters to be named after her.
“Ahhhhhh!” Joni flew at Lea with another hug, and Lea’s curmudgeonly expression softened.
“You missed it. Of course.” Marie bustled around Joni without even so much as a look her way. She and Joni never got along. I was hoping we could save that part of the family dynamic for a night Nina wasn’t here.
No such luck.
“It’s not my fault the Yankees game ran over, Mar-mar,” Joni said, breaking away from Lea. “Just because I can actually get a date on Saturday night doesn’t mean you have to be such a brat about it.”
“Here it goes,” muttered Kate on the other side of the bar as she started scrubbing dishes.
“I am not a brat!” retorted Marie. “I just happen to prioritize our family time, unlike some people who still live at home with their elderly grandmother.”
“Who is elderly?” Nonna demanded. “No one here!” She tossed back the rest of her espresso as if to make the point.
“Hey, hey, hey.” I stepped between Joni and Marie, hands out. “Come on, kittens. Chill out. I was late too, Marie, and so were Frankie and Sof.”
“Yeah, but you guys had good reasons. And you’re not late every single week.”
“Hey!” Lea’s voice cut through the noise, and both Marie and Joni shut up. “Stop. MJ’s upstairs sleeping, and we have company.”
“What?” Joni asked. “Company who?”
“Her.” Nonna pointed to where Nina was reentering the dining room. “Matthew brought a girl.”
Once again, everyone turned to Nina, though Joni was the only one who hadn’t met her.
“Nonna,” I chided. “Nina is just a friend.”
“Oh!” Joni’s face was flush with recognition. “Oh my God! I mean, I know you! Well, I know of you. You’re Nina Gardner, aren’t you? Eric de Vries’s cousin!”
Nina reddened. “Oh, yes. That—that’s correct.”
“I’ve seen you on Page Six—oh my God, Kate, her clothes are to die for—you would love them.”
“Sorry about this,” I murmured to Nina.
She gave me a friendly shrug. “It happens.”
My brows rose. “It does?” Immediately, I felt like an idiot. I had seen the fifteen years’ worth of articles about her in Page Six. Given how lackadaisical most New Yorkers were about shit like this, it was easy to forget that Nina was actually pretty well-known around town.
Joni, however, just kept fawning. “I loved your dress at the Guggenheim re-opening,” she said as she flopped down into Kate’s seat and dragged Nina into the one next to her. “Did you get to meet the One Direction guys there too? Oh, look at this ring. Kate, did you see her jewelry? These earrings are amaze-balls!”
“They are really nice,” Kate chimed in from the kitchen until she caught my dirty look. “What? They are.”
“Mattie, you didn’t tell us you were dating a celebrity!”
Beside me, Nina pinked all over again, and not in a good way.
“We’re not dating,” I cut in before Nina got too freaked out. “Joni, Nina’s married. That’s what the rings mean, you goon. She and I are just friends.”
“Whatever,” Joni swatted me away. “Listen, are you really friends with Taylor Swift?”
With one helpless look my way, Nina was dragged into a long “Who do you know?” about a whole bunch of celebrities. I couldn’t lie. It gave me a warm feeling in my stomach, watching her be fawned over the way she deserved, even if it was just because she knew a couple of pop stars. The pleasure from the attention was written all over her face.
“I’ll fix you a plate, Jo,” Lea said as she lumbered up. “Mattie. You’ll help.”
I turned. “What?”
But I had seen that look on my sister’s face before. Frankie’s too. Looked like I wasn’t going to avoid the third degree tonight after all.
“Don’t start, Le,” I said as I joined her in the kitchen.
At the sink, Kate snorted. “Is that possible?”
I ignored her. “She’s just a friend.”
“Please,” Lea said as she pulled the cannelloni across the counter. “Like I want to get involved in your messy personal life. That’s Frankie’s job, not mine.” She nodded to where Frankie was watching Joni and Kate, Sofia dead weight in her arms. Frankie, however, didn’t look particularly happy about what she was seeing.
I gulped. Yeah, that third degree was coming, but probably not until she came home tomorrow night. After hours of praying for me in church. I’d have to promise to come back up every weekend for a month just to make it stop.
“You talked to Ma lately?” Lea asked casually as she spooned a few cannelloni onto Joni’s plate.
I stiffened and turned back. So that’s what she wanted. “Sure. Yeah. I said hi at Christmas.”
>
“Mattie, that was over three months ago.”
I frowned. “What do you want me to say? You know we aren’t exactly close.”
Okay, that was an understatement. Lea was the only one of the six of us who still kept in regular touch with our mother. And that was more out of obligation to her kids.
“You could check in with her a little more,” Lea said. “Not just leave it up to me.”
“She still shacked up with that banker in Stamford?” I asked.
Lea eyed me. She knew where this was going. “Yeah…”
“She ever planning on seeing her grandchildren more than once every two years?”
Lea put a hand on her hip. “I doubt you care, but she actually came into the city two weeks ago for Tommy’s birthday.”
“Too bad his birthday was in October.”
“She asked about you.”
I scowled. “Did she?”
“Yeah. A lot. I think she misses you, Mattie. Maybe it’s time to forgive and forget, huh?”
I fingered my wineglass, measuring the bottom of the goblet. Even looking at it, with this conversation going on, carved a pit in my stomach. Sometimes I wondered if we should be drinking at all, Italian or not. The Zola kids were the products of two fall-down drunks in a neighborhood full of light-weight alcoholics. Joni in particular had never shown much in the way of restraint with anything.
Fuck it. I wasn’t my father, who was probably burning in hell for neglect of his family. I wasn’t going to lose sleep over his wife, who abandoned hers while she was alive, including a baby girl, not six months after the car crash that killed their dad.
I tossed the rest of the wine back. “Nah, I’m good. Leaving us here was the best thing she did. I’m happy to let her keep it that way.”
I took the plate from Lea and started loading salad onto the side, one leaf at a time. My sister, however, just kept staring at me.
“Twenty-two years is a long time to hold a grudge, Mattie.”
“Well, thirty-six is even longer to have a drunk for a mother.”
The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1) Page 17