The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2)

by Nicole French

  “Moira did,” I confirmed as I accepted kisses from each of them. “Thank you for bringing her back with you. I hope it didn’t mean cutting your trip short.”

  Eric shrugged. “Not at all.”

  “She’s a good kid,” Jane agreed. “A little too quiet, though. Olivia, I expect some more mischief out of you at the beach, all right?”

  Olivia looked up at her and smiled shyly. “Auntie Jane, you’re silly.”

  “I’m just doing what needs to be done. Eric needs someone to teach him a lesson, and it can’t always be me.”

  “What beach?” I asked, momentarily sidetracked as we turned toward the exit, where each of us had cars waiting.

  “Mama, are we going to the party at the big house?” Olivia asked.

  “We decided to throw the white party again this year on Long Island after all,” Eric said. “Mostly because I have some new investors in town this weekend.”

  “I mean, is it really a party?” Jane asked. “I’d call it more of a backyard barbecue that you thrust on me last night.”

  Eric sighed. “Jane…”

  She offered us all a contrived grin that had Olivia hiding giggles all over again. “It’s going to be fun, see? Really, though, Nina, you guys should come. Your mom’s helping us host, and she’d probably love someone to teach me how to do this correctly.”

  I blinked. “Oh, well. I don’t know. We hadn’t—”

  “You should,” Jane said. “And by that, I mean, dear God, please. I won’t last through all the boring business talk without someone there to chat with.”

  “You should come,” Eric said. “Aunt Violet said she’d like to see Olivia anyway.”

  “Please, Mama…I want to show you what I learned this summer anyway, and I want to see our horses before I go back to school.”

  What could I say? Under normal circumstances, I would have determined whether or not Calvin was out of town before committing my time, particularly for an overnight trip. Only Calvin wasn’t traveling, and undoubtedly, he would want to come. But the idea of sharing a suite with him, right now in particular, seemed unbearable. Dangerous, even. It’s much harder to keep a secret behind just a few walls than behind an entire apartment building.

  “We’ll see,” I said. “We have to talk to Daddy and figure out his plans too.”

  We exited to the curb, where two large SUVs were waiting, complete with drivers and Eric and Jane’s security detail in front.

  “Jane?” I asked. “Would you like a lift uptown if Eric’s going to the office?”

  “Actually,” Jane said, “he’ll just drop me in Soho. I’m interning with Lake McHugh this fall so she can recommend me for FIT next year. Can you believe it? Good thing I went to law school so I could become an unpaid intern all over again.”

  “Hey, pretty girl. Stop.”

  Olivia and I watched in awe as Eric’s quiet phrase immediately shuttered Jane’s self-doubt. She beamed, refilled with sudden pride as Eric slung an arm around her waist and guided her toward their waiting vehicle.

  Envy hummed through me. But not just at their closeness, I realized. Also for their direction. Only a few months after they had both come out of one of the darkest episodes of either of their lives, neither Jane nor Eric seemed to be lost at all. Eric had dived even further into his role as chairman of De Vries Shipping, and Jane had embraced her love of fashion in order to create a new career for herself here in New York. It wasn’t that they didn’t have difficult moments or struggle with their trauma. It was that their knowledge of themselves helped them through. Right along with the way they so clearly advocated for each other too.

  What would it be like, I wondered as I rode in the back of the Escalade with Moira and Olivia, to have someone like that who would stick up for you in that way? What would it be like to have a partner so intent on protecting you from harm that he wouldn’t even let you do it to yourself?

  Just know that you have someone in your corner. That someone out there thinks you’re incredible like no one else. Know that, and remember it when you’re feeling down.

  Matthew’s words swept over me like a tidal wave. Where had he said that? On the street? In the hotel?

  I found it didn’t matter. Because as soon as the joy of them arrived, it disappeared just as quickly.

  Because he wasn’t mine.

  He couldn’t be.

  I had no direction in this life, and even more, I was so very alone in it still.

  And so, I focused on the little girl next to me, who had watched my cousin and his wife with an expression that told me their interaction was as much a mystery to her as it was to me.

  The reality dug a pit deep in my stomach.

  My darling girl deserved to know what that kind of love felt like. Maybe I could try to do that for her.

  For us both.

  I gave Moira the rest of the day off, and thirty minutes later, Olivia and I entered the apartment to the sounds of several unfamiliar voices. My darling girl had waited patiently by the lifts while I climbed the twenty flights of stairs. I often wondered why she never went in without me, but I was too charmed to inquire lest she stop.

  “What about Kate?” said a brusque male voice from the drawing room.

  “What about Kate?” came Calvin’s even brusquer reply. “She doesn’t know anything. It’s a moot point.”

  “Then all the better to put her on the stand,” said the other man, whom I now recognized as Merrick Reynolds, the primary attorney representing Calvin against Matthew’s office. “They’re grasping in the dark for evidence, Gardner. They’ll be desperate for anything they can rip apart. But you need some character witnesses, and she’s the best you’ve got.”

  Olivia shuffled with me toward the drawing room, where we found Calvin sitting with Merrick. The gruff older man nodded at both of us with a courteous, if steely glance. Calvin just scowled at me, then blinked indifferently at Olivia.

  “Oh, it’s you. Has it really been two months already?”

  Olivia shied behind me and nodded. “Hi, Daddy. Um, yes. More, actually.”

  Calvin frowned. “What did I say about calling me that?”

  Olivia’s cheeks reddened as she stared at the floor. “I—sorry. Father.”

  “That’s right. You’re too old for that Daddy crap. Listen, I have to finish some business, so do us a favor and go to your room until dinner, all right? God knows we’ve bought you enough things to entertain yourself with. They just sit there the rest of the damn year, so you might as well use them now.”

  Olivia’s jaw quivered, but she stuck it out nonetheless and turned to me.

  “I’ll come find you in a moment,” I told her quietly. “Would you like to play a game and tell me about your horses? Patricia will be here tomorrow.”

  Olivia’s face brightened—whether at the prospect of spending time with me or her nanny, I didn’t know.

  “Okay, Mama,” she said, then scampered off down the hall, her footsteps quickly swallowed by the large apartment.

  I turned in the direction of my suite but was called back almost immediately.

  “Nina, come over here. This concerns you.”

  Swallowing back my irritation, I returned to the table and took a seat beside Calvin, who clapped a paw on my knee and started massaging it vigorously.

  “I still don’t see why we can’t just put her on the stand. Look at her. She’d make me look great. She always has.”

  “No, no, no, you don’t want to do that,” said Merrick. “You waive spousal privilege, and suddenly the prosecution is all over every little thing you might have told her ever. Trust me. Keep her silent.”

  “What’s this about?” I asked quietly.

  “That greaseball from Brooklyn submitted a new list of witnesses this week,” Calvin said.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” said Merrick soothingly. “My main concern at this point is how they’re trying this already in the court of public opinion. There was a lot of press around the dea
th of John Carson and the arrest of Jude Letour. The fact that he confirmed you as an associate doesn’t look good. But if you’re only an investor in the property, you’re certainly less culpable.”

  I frowned. “Is that really all they have? His name on the property?”

  “And that grainy photograph of me and Letour outside the property. You remember, the one they used to arrest me the first time?” He chuckled, clearly more for Merrick’s benefit than for mine. “Talk about picking the worst time to do an inspection, eh, princess?” Then the hand on my knee tightened as his voice sharpened. “Why, what did you think they would have?”

  I opened my mouth, but found I had nothing to say. This was yet another reason Matthew had kept me purposefully in the dark, no doubt. Plausible deniability worked both ways.

  “Nothing,” I said demurely.

  “Well, Merr here agrees with me. It’s time to fight fire with fire.” Calvin’s gaze dropped to my left hand, on which I still wore my original engagement and wedding rings. And his gaze predictably turned to ash. “Where is your ring?”

  I looked down at the pear-shaped diamond that was somehow so much better than that new monstrosity he’d given me. “Oh, um. I’m having it resized. It was a little too small.”

  “Again?”

  I nodded. “They did a poor job the last time. Now it’s too small. And then, as you remember, the cleaners damaged the gold, so I needed to have that replaced.”

  None of these things were true. I had simply been drumming up as many excuses as possible to avoid wearing the eyesore.

  “Small, eh? Are we putting on a few extra pounds?” Calvin chortled at Merrick, who kept his face predictably blank.

  I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “I’ll pick it up next week.” I also added a mental reminder to drop it off in the first place.

  “Good. We’ll need a photoshoot, won’t we, with the new gem. A wedding planner is coming tomorrow. You’ll set it all up with her.”

  My head snapped up. “What?”

  “I asked Moira to find one. Thought it might be a nice surprise.” Calvin’s face darkened as he realized it wasn’t anything of the sort.

  In two and a half months, I had somehow managed to evade the question of vow renewal again and again. It wasn’t that difficult. For one, Calvin was often gone despite technically being restricted to just the city. It was clear to me that he was trying desperately to cover up whatever business he was doing that he didn’t want Matthew to discover, though I couldn’t have said for sure, given that he did most of it outside the apartment.

  I had honestly thought he’d forgotten about it. Apparently not.

  “A nice white wedding would certainly help things,” added Merrick unhelpfully. “Pretty wife all in white. Little girl. Make you look like a family man. There are all sorts of ways to manipulate the press.”

  “I—” I swallowed. I had no idea what to say to these two men who were examining me much as they might a mannequin in the displays at Bergdorf’s. “I really don’t know. Don’t you think it’s a bit…much?”

  Calvin looked between me and Merrick irritably. My insides shrank. I knew that look. That look was not good.

  Merrick stood and packed his briefcase quickly. “I should be going. Gardner, I’ll see you at my office tomorrow morning. We need to go over the rest of the files they sent today. There are a few things I think we can get thrown out if we play our cards right.”

  Calvin nodded, his beady eyes still firmly on me. “Tomorrow.”

  We waited tensely until Merrick left. Then I edged my thigh away from his sweaty touch.

  Wrong move.

  His chair screeched on the floor as he suddenly swept around and caged me against the table.

  “What did I say?” he demanded in a low, nasty voice tinged with vodka. “What do I always say? Don’t. Embarrass. Me.”

  “Calvin,” I said quietly. “Please. Olivia is here.”

  “Unless you’d like me to bring up your part in all of this. I’m sure that smarmy DA would love to learn how you and the great de Vries family provided the money that started this whole thing.”

  I swallowed. My chest prickled. It was a familiar threat.

  Truth: I didn’t exactly know what happened anymore in the houses and buildings purchased in part with the money I had given Calvin from my trust. Massage parlors, he had said once. Adult video stores, he had admitted another time. Nothing illegal. Technically. Perhaps some small-time gambling. But nothing like the first year, he swore up and down. Nothing like the things Carson and Letour had done without his knowledge. And the second he had seen it the night he was photographed, he had walked away.

  I wasn’t sure I believed that. I didn’t want to know. Because the other truth was this: If Calvin was locked up and I was too, by virtue of my involvement, Olivia would be alone. She would go to my mother because there was no way that Calvin would change our living will to give Eric and Jane guardianship. She would lose both her parents, not just one.

  I couldn’t do that to her, no matter what the cost.

  Calvin shoved me against the table hard enough the wood dug painfully into the small of my back.

  “I want this wedding, Nina,” he said. “Is that clear?”

  His beady eyes stared at me while a drop of sweat lingered over his left brow. My stomach clenched as I braced myself for the slap.

  “Is that clear?” he said again.

  I still couldn’t bring myself to say yes. I had walked down the aisle to this man once before, my stomach full of knots, a child inside me. The thought of doing it again, in front of everyone I knew? It made me want to vomit right here, all over the heirloom table and Aubusson rugs.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable blow. It was always worse when I said no. But instead of doing what he so clearly wanted, Calvin took another tack. He touched my chin with one thick finger—his gesture of tenderness.

  “Look, princess. I understand it’s a surprise. But I’ll be honest. The vows—they’re obviously not just for you. I know you wish they were, but they’re not.”

  Obviously, I thought. But I didn’t respond.

  “The truth is, we need some better PR, like Merrick said. I’m getting hammered in the damn press, Nina, and it’s only going to get worse once this fucking trial starts. The judge hasn’t even set a date. Did you know that oily wop actually filed for an extension of the—whatever the fuck this period is called—and the judge actually gave it to him? It’s all turned against me.”

  Resisting the urge to spit in his face at his denigration of Matthew, I only offered the term I knew. From him. “Discovery?”

  Jane and Eric had already walked me through it. After the indictment, the discovery began, wherein the evidence that was provided to the grand jury was released to Calvin’s legal team, and then both sides had more time to investigate each other and trade their evidence. It was a long process, and in a case like this, it could take months.

  “Yes,” Calvin snapped. He did not like being corrected. “Which means he thinks he’s going to find more. I don’t know what, yet, but I can’t wait. I need to be a family man. More than ever, I need to be seen as legitimate.” His hand slipped down and traced my collarbone, sending shivers of revulsion down my spine. “Think about it. A nice white wedding. Hell, we could even get you knocked up again. You could finally let me do what you’ve been avoiding for what, six months now?”

  My entire body recoiled at just the idea. Never again.

  “Keep your voice down!” I whispered fiercely, surprising even Calvin with my ferocity. “Olivia is here!”

  “Ah, yes, Olivia…”

  To my surprise, Calvin stood up completely and paced in front of me for a moment, steepling his fingers. “I almost didn’t recognize her, you know. She’s becoming a looker. And she does love her daddy, doesn’t she?”

  I straightened with a mother’s innate sense of protection. “Do not even think about using her for your PR cam
paign, Calvin. It’s not her job to save you.”

  Calvin blinked, no doubt whatsoever in his eyes. “Try me, princess. She means nothing to me. Never has.”

  I wanted to hit him. To take the open bottle of wine on the table and smash it over his shiny head and watch him fall to the ground for even suggesting what I thought he meant.

  Still, I hadn’t gotten through the last ten years without knowing how to acquiesce when I had to. How to say the things that needed to be said simply for survival. To buy myself—and my daughter—some time.

  “Okay,” I said. “I will think about it.”

  “When?”

  I stirred. “After this—this w-weekend, all right? I’m taking Olivia to Southampton to visit Mother. Get out of your hair. And when we get back, I’ll have an answer.”

  He could have said no. He could have slammed me against the table as he sometimes did when I stuttered like this.

  But instead, Calvin’s face spread into a wide, sweaty smile.

  Maybe at the thought of being alone. Or maybe because he knew he already had me.

  “All right, Mrs. Gardner. You have a deal. And when you get back, I expect a response. Do you understand?”

  His threat was explicit. If he was going down, he would bring me with him.

  “I’m not Eric and Jane,” I said quietly. “I’ve never liked a show. I’m not the type to be the center of attention. You have always known this about me.”

  “No, you’re just the type to tease,” he sneered.

  Violence flashed through his eyes, and I could see the idea of teaching me the price of my supposed coquetry cross his mind.

  “Sunday,” he said, then turned back to his vodka, like I wasn’t even there.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Do you think Grandma will be there?”