I turned away from the Escalade’s tinted window, through which I was watching as the smaller roads off Montauk Highway gradually gave way to the long, isolated entrance to my family’s estate. Over the ridge, tall grass waved merrily from the dunes, while the trees to the east masked deep green fields and the stable.
“Hello, darling, you woke,” I said to my daughter. “Don’t let her hear you call her that.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. Grandmamá.”
Olivia yawned and stretched her arms toward the ceiling, and I was struck again by how much she had grown over the last year, though she was still small for her age. Maybe that actually made the extra half inch or so look like even more.
“I expect she’ll be there,” I replied. “It is her house, after all. Or it will be eventually.”
Despite the fact that my grandmother’s will was still in probate and probably would be for another year (or longer, if Calvin successfully undermined it), Mother had moved right into the grand estate she’d inherited last November. Neither Eric, who paid the bills, nor the executor, who was technically in charge, seemed to mind, and Mother seemed content to morph into one of the eccentric old people who live year-round in their empty mansions, drinking too much gin and talking to the lawn ornaments.
“But it’s Uncle Eric and Aunt Jane’s party,” Olivia protested in that way small children argue for nothing.
I shrugged. “So it is. But it’s her house. She’ll be there.”
Although Eric had jokingly called it the “white party,” I already knew this would be a far cry from the family’s previous years of August decadence. I sincerely doubted Jane had any desire to host two hundred of Long Island’s wealthiest residents in front of a full orchestra, fireworks, and thousands of dollars of Cristal. Instead, Eric was determined to use the estate to impress new investors he was courting from Singapore and China, men apparently eager to experience the heights of rich American customs. I could have told them French catering, horseback riding, and a private firework show was probably the farthest thing from what most Americans experienced. But then again, what authority did I have on the matter?
Still, Eric was adamant about starting his own traditions.
“You’re a part of this family. Wouldn’t you rather spend time with the people who actually make our lives possible?” my cousin had asked when I’d questioned whether I should even be there. “Instead of wasting your time schmoozing with the same old stuck-up assholes?”
A year ago, I would have said no. A year ago, I would have stuck with the family tradition, with whatever our grandmother said we should do. Drank the right cocktails. Worn the right dress. Made polite, conversation with the right people. A year ago, I was focused on being a perfect member of the de Vries family, even if that was no longer my name. Now I was starting to understand why Eric had stayed away for so long. More than that, I envied him.
I rolled down my window a touch, welcoming the salty sea breeze into what had suddenly become a suffocating back seat.
“Mommy! Won’t that ruin your hair?”
I turned to Olivia. Poor girl. Never allowed to eat in front of the TV. Or wear a t-shirt to bed. Or roll the car window down. And yes, I probably had given my hair as a rationale for that in the past, if it wasn’t Calvin saying something similar.
So I just rolled it down farther, letting the wind catch pieces of carefully blown-out tresses. I smiled at Olivia. “We’re on vacation, aren’t we? Time to let our hair down.”
Slowly, my daughter began to smile back, a lovely thing that made her face glow between two blonde braids.
My heart twisted. I didn’t see that enough.
I reached back and pulled out the pins that kept my hair in place, then leaned toward the window to let it all whip into my face as it liked.
She giggled. “Yes, Mama. We’re on vacation.”
I turned to find her pulling out her own braids, and together we rode for a bit like dogs with our heads halfway out the window, loose locks flapping like flags in the wind.
After a bit, we rolled the windows back up—most of the way, but not quite all. I turned to Olivia as I pulled my hair back again.
“Nearly there now. What’s the first thing you’ll do?”
Olivia considered the question much longer than I would expect from most nine-year-olds. Was my daughter inordinately pensive, or was that only because I didn’t know children well enough to say?
An image came to mind of three young boys shooting up the stairs of Matthew’s grandmother’s house. The one he called Nonna, the sweet, familiar word for Grandma that allowed everyone in that house to acknowledge their shared heritage as well as their fondness for the woman. I remembered the look on her elegant, wrinkled face when Matthew leaned in to kiss her cheek like it was the most normal thing in the world. The way they clutched each other briefly. So much love in such a brief touch.
“What are you thinking about, Mommy?”
I blinked and straightened my face. “Oh, nothing. Just considering the question myself.”
“I’ve never seen you look like that about Long Island,” Olivia observed. Lord, if she was pensive, she was also shrewd. That I knew she had learned from the family.
“Have you decided?” I prodded, ignoring the question. I needed to be more careful with my expressions.
Olivia tipped her head from side to side. “I think first I’m going to say hello to Sunshine in the barn. Patricia said she and I could go shell-hunting on the beach when she gets here. Then I’m going to ask the cook if we can make chocolate cake. Then I’ll go swim—oh, look, there it is!”
Davis turned a corner, and suddenly, the grand compound came into view. We passed the closer outbuildings: the tennis courts, indoor pool, guest houses, and then the main house at the end of the circular drive where several vans were open to a catering crew busy setting up for the party the next day. There were also a few other luxury cars in the drive. The event wasn’t until tomorrow, but apparently some people had arrived early.
“I don’t know if the cook will have time for cake, Liv,” I said. “Something tells me she might be busy getting ready for tomorrow.”
Olivia’s face fell, but not for long, as Davis pulled to a stop and the front door opened to reveal Jane, emerging to greet us.
I had to give it to my new cousin-in-law. In only a year, she had adapted to the family’s ways remarkably fast and with unique panache. It wasn’t that she had completely assimilated to the neutral tones of luxury adopted by the ultra-rich. Honestly, I doubted Jane could truly fit in anywhere. Aside from the fact that she was a half-Korean woman in a family full of blonde-haired Scandinavians, she was also a former lawyer turned budding designer. She walked through life to her own particular beat, right down to the loud blue streak in her otherwise black-brown hair, the psychedelic-printed cover-up swathing her tall, thin body, and the red and black polka-dotted glasses she was wearing this afternoon. And that was just looks. With a host of strong opinions and a tendency to hold nothing back, Jane might have been the most honest, genuine person I had ever met in my life.
It was easy to see why Eric loved her. She was everything we were not. Everything we secretly wanted to be.
“Is that my niece I see in there?” she asked as soon as Livy opened the door. “About time you showed up!”
“Auntie Jane!”
I watched as my daughter, so normally reticent and careful, scrambled across the pebbled drive into Jane’s arms. She immediately swung her around and around, causing the multicolored silk of her caftan to float around them like feathers. She wasn’t really her aunt, of course, no more than Eric was her uncle. Second cousins, technically—one by marriage. But considering Eric was the closest thing I had to a brother (or had been, once), it was nice to know that Jane embraced the role as well.
My heart squeezed. Olivia hugged me too, of course. For a good long time after she had arrived home. And again last night before bed, long enough that Calvin had barked at her to go to her room. But not
with this kind of freedom. This kind of naked joy.
Perhaps with Jane, Livy knew no one would ask her to stop.
I wished more than anything else it could be me.
“I’m glad you two were able to make it,” Jane said as I approached, clutching my shoulder briefly as she kissed my cheek.
“Shall I bring these to your regular suite, ma’am?”
I turned to Davis, who was holding my weekender along with Olivia’s, then back to Jane. “Is that all right? Or have you given it to someone else? I know we were a little unclear about our plans.”
Jane just scoffed, one of her thin arms still draped around Olivia, who looked to be in seventh heaven. “We are just lucky guests this weekend. This is your place so much more than it would ever be ours.”
It wasn’t. Once I had thought it might be. Before Eric had come back. At first, Calvin thought I might inherit it from my mother, who had gotten the compound in Grandmother’s will, but then it became clear she only had rights to its use before it deferred back to Eric after her death, just like everything else. And it was Eric who paid the bills now that Grandmother had passed away. It was his name at the top of the checks that paid the maintenance fees. He who supplied the gardeners, the pool man, the household staff, the security guards.
So, yes. Perhaps for now the residence might have “belonged” to my mother. But ultimately, the keys were in Eric’s hand.
“It’s for all the family,” was all I could say. “I don’t want to impose on your plans, though…”
“Please,” Jane said, batting the idea away like a fly. “Go on, Davis. She and the munchkin here are taking their usual suite. Come on, you two.”
Something inside me relaxed. “Thank you, Jane.”
Jane looked behind me. “No…Calvin?”
Her voice strained slightly over my husband’s name. They had no physical proof, but Jane and Eric thought Calvin may have been the one who framed Eric in January for securities fraud. The case was dropped, but that was when my relationship with Calvin truly took a turn for the worse. When I had found the line at last I never thought he could cross.
It was also when I had run from my home right into a sea of passion and guilt. Drinking in a bar, in a part of New York I had never been to, a dark corner of the city where no one would find me…I had met Matthew. And for the first time in my life, I had really understood what it meant to fall in love.
I shook the thoughts away. No. I couldn’t go there this weekend, not after giving in to those desires so egregiously only months ago.
My stomach knotted at the thought of the man I never stopped craving and also at the memory of the truth: that had I not left the apartment that night, I might have prevented the worst. Eric in jail. Jane gone to Korea in search of her mother. Abducted, nearly killed. Her unborn child murdered as a result.
It’s in the past. When will they ever let it go?
My husband’s impatient, irritable voice again, announced at every slight, every absent invitation. Nothing had ever turned up explicitly about his involvement in Eric’s arrest. But there were hints. Little snide comments.
We’ll just make things a little harder, princess. He deserves it, after all those years away.
Don’t play so innocent. You and I both know what you’ve done.
No, I couldn’t go there. Never. I’d lose everything.
Jane’s black-painted fingernails snapped suddenly in front of my face. “Earth to Nina,” she said with a grin. “Man, you de Vrieses really know how to go to la-la land, do you know that?”
I swallowed. “Pardon?”
Jane smirked. “Eric does the same thing. Just zones out, lost in a vision like he’s Madame Esmerelda looking at her crystal ball. One day he’s going to get stuck there, and it’ll be off to the looney bin with him. I don’t care how cute his butt is.”
I blushed, though I couldn’t help smiling. Jane might be a little crass at times, but there was no doubt she was entertaining.
“Well, I’m not stuck now,” I told her. I checked my watch as we crossed the foyer. “Is my mother here?”
“Violet? Oh, sure, she and the ladies who lunch have set up shop by the pool. Pretty sure it’s gin o’clock over there. You want me to let her know you’re here? Get you a drink?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m sure she doesn’t want to be bothered.”
Jane’s mouth quirked, the way it always did when she noted our family’s odd reticence with each other. She and her mother had a loud, if often contentious relationship. Very different from my family’s icy, imperious distance.
“Livy said she wanted to see the horses first,” I said as we walked through the first parlor, which led directly to the outdoor pool and patio in the back of the house. “Where did she go?”
“Um, I don’t know if she’s going to have horses on her mind right this second.”
Jane pointed through the glass of the floor-to-ceiling french doors. Olivia was standing at the edge of the pool, arms outstretched for Eric.
“Uncle Eric, can I get in too?” she asked, her voice just audible through the glass.
Eric stood up in the water, where he’d been swimming laps, beyond which the Atlantic Ocean twinkled. Next to me, Jane swallowed visibly at the sight of her shirtless husband. I hid a smile. Objectively, Eric did keep himself in good shape, with the help of our family’s genetics. But what I really loved was the way Jane couldn’t hide her attraction and didn’t even bother trying. What was even more entertaining was the fact that he generally couldn’t be bothered to mask his feelings for her either—something our family was very good at doing.
“Fine by me, Liv,” Eric said. “Go ask your mom, all right?”
“See?” Jane asked as Olivia scampered back inside.
“Mommy?” she asked. “Can I go swimming with Uncle Eric?”
I nodded. “Of course. Davis took our bags upstairs. Your suit should be there.”
With another rare, bright grin, Olivia skipped back toward the grand staircase. I turned to Jane, who was still watching Eric. And he, I noticed, was now watching her back.
“Maybe you should get in too,” I teased gently.
Jane coughed. “What? Oh, ha. No. No. Maybe later…” She adjusted her glasses, then turned back to me, her skin visibly pinker. “You?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps. I was looking forward to seeing the horses myself, but I should probably stay here and keep an eye on Livy until the nanny arrives.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” Jane said with a friendly hand on my shoulder. “Go on, have a little fun. We’ve got her.”
She winked at me, and warmth pooled in my chest.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I really can wait for Patricia…”
“Are you kidding? Other than the helicopter ride, we’ve barely seen the munchkin since March, and I was such a mess. You go for a ride, and we’ll see you when you get back.”
Slowly, I nodded. It was strange. Having people offer to do me a favor without being paid. Or without wanting something in return. But I had come to realize that was simply how Jane was.
“All right. I’ll just get changed, then,” I said.
“Have fun!”
I made my way back through the parlor to follow my daughter upstairs. But when I rounded the corner into the foyer, I stopped again for a very different reason.
There he was. Standing in the middle of my family’s grand double staircase like he belonged there. Like it was made for his polished reserve, even for the occasional profanity that peppered his speech.
“Matthew?” I gasped.
He turned, and when he found me, his face broke into a bright smile, which was quickly replaced with horror.
“Hey, doll,” he croaked. “I—shit. You’re, um, you’re here.”
Chapter Fifteen
“What the hell are you doing here?”
As soon as the words escaped, I clapped a hand over my mouth, the metal of my wedding rings scraping my teeth. Re
minding me, as they always did, of how simply looking at this man made me a very bad person. Lord, if Grandmother could see me now, she would have been appalled. I sounded rude. Impatient. And most of all, very, very guilty.
But Matthew was here. Against all odds, he was on my family’s estate, in the middle of the marble-encrusted foyer, looking like he owned every square inch of it despite the fact that his actual net worth was a tiny fraction of ours. And his presence was, like always, making me feel more at ease than ever and completely out of my comfort zone.
For an instant, I saw all the times I had visited this house with the man I’d actually married. Every time Calvin made some absurd (and usually inaccurate) comment about an expensive piece of furniture or mixed up a modern artist with an older one. Stupid things. Shallow things. But things that a connoisseur of any kind would be able to discern, and anyone else wouldn’t bother to identify. Things that only revealed how much Calvin hungered for some notion of class that he had no idea was just a myth. But which also revealed how he would never belong here, no matter how much he tried.
And then there was Matthew. The kind of man who took the time to do things right, whatever they were. He didn’t have everything, and he knew it, but he took pride in what he did have. I knew, for example, that he had poured years of research, sweat, and labor into his small Brooklyn house. I also knew without asking that the white shirt he was wearing fit him perfectly not because he had paid an enormous amount of money for it, but because he had probably taken a bargain piece to the tailor he had known most of his adult life.
It was so unfair. Too late, much too late, I had met a man who seemed to fit into the corners of my life with the precision of a puzzle piece. It had nothing to do with class or background, as I’d always assumed, and everything to do with simple compatibility. It didn’t matter that Matthew and I were effectively from different worlds. Together, we made such perfect harmony.
And yet…we couldn’t work. We both knew that very well, even though we weren’t always successful at abiding by the facts.
Like right now.
The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2) Page 16
