I took a step back and checked the address nailed to the house, just in case I had lost my mind completely and knocked on the wrong door. No, 2251 E. Chestnut Drive. This was correct.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know any Kate. I am Nina Gardner, and I’m the actual owner of the house. Here, I can show you the deed.” I pulled out my phone, quickly swiping to a file storage app. “Are you the current tenant, or—”
“No, no, no, you come back later with Kate. We talk to her.”
“Glória! Menj el az ajtótól!”
The girl’s eyes widened, and she immediately scurried away from the door, leaving me with a clear view into the sitting room, where four or five women were congregated on sleeping mats and a few threadbare sofas. Before I could get a better look, the door was filled again, this time by a short, barrel-chested man in a worn blue polo shirt and faded jeans. His gray hair ringed an otherwise bald head, and in the middle of his flushed, frown-lined face was a nose the color of cherries.
“Who are you?” he barked in a similarly accented voice, though his wasn’t nearly as thick as the woman’s. “What do you want?”
I frowned. “Well, I was just telling that young woman that I’m the owner of this house. I wasn’t aware there were tenants in it right now. I’d like to see your lease, if you have it.”
“Owner? No, you’re not the owner.”
I sighed impatiently. “Actually, sir, I am. I’d also like to take a look around to assess the state of the house and property. It looks like it’s been neglected severely while I’ve been away—”
“You are not allowed to be here,” the man snapped. “Twenty-four hours’ notice. Massachusetts state law.”
He started to shut the door in my face, and against my better judgement, I pressed both hands against it to keep it from shutting entirely.
“Excuse me!” I demanded. “That law only applies to legal tenants, and as far as I know, this house hasn’t been rented at all.”
“You are Mrs. Gardner?” he asked.
I nodded, then whipped out my wallet and flashed my driver’s license at him. “My name is Nina de Vries Gardner, yes.”
He looked at the ID, then back at me. “You need to enter? Twenty-four hours. Now, go away.”
But just as the door was closing, the man stepped aside, revealing one of the girls on the couch. She looked at me with a wide-eyed look that could only mean one thing: Help.
“Who is in here?” I asked, pushing the door back open. “And may I ask how many people you have on the premises? The property is only zoned for five residents.”
I was making things up as I spoke. Anything to open the door. Anything to see a bit more, to help that poor girl or anyone else here who might need it.
“Lady,” said the man. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re going to want to leave. Now.” He pulled up his shirt and revealed the butt end of a revolver that had been wedged between a furry belly and his jeans.
I stepped back as though I’d actually been pushed. “Oh. Oh, yes. I—I suppose I should.”
“And tell Calvin we deal with him only, you got that? No more blondes. No more. You got that?”
Flustered, I nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
The door slammed shut, and somehow I made my way back to my car, shaken through to my bones. Somehow, I got back in to the driver’s seat, and though I knew I should leave immediately, I still took my time, checking my mirrors, readjusting the back of my seat. I looked a few times toward the house, feeling like someone was watching me through the tatty curtains, but nothing moved.
Who was the man, and how did he know my husband? Not to mention another blonde?
I pulled out my phone, drifting my thumb over the numbers 9-1-1. The blank, terrified looks of the women in that room stayed with me even when I shut my eyes. I knew that look. I had seen it in my own reflection too many times.
I also knew what came after. My cheeks tingled with the memory of those blows. My knees and elbows ached with the force of countless contact against walls, armoires, tables, chairs. If I called the police now and this man reported seeing me at the house, I didn’t even want to think about what Calvin’s response would be for my meddling.
Skylar’s mention of privacy and security echoed in the back of my mind. She had seemed to think it was a necessity in my current situation, and for the first time, I couldn’t help but agree. A part of me wanted desperately to take her up on her offer. It would be an elegant solution. But the reality too was that I was nowhere near close to being able to leave. Not now, anyway. I didn’t even have a place to live.
I dropped my phone back in my purse. Good lord. What was I going to do?
I considered all these questions as I drove around getting the last few things needed before Olivia went to school. By the time I had a car full of school supplies, weekend clothes, and anything else I could imagine she’d need, I had only come to one conclusion: until I managed to find a satisfactory home somewhere between Andover and Wellesley, I’d have to be content staying with the Sterlings. I was still pondering just what might be going on at the Newton house as I pulled the car to a stop in the Sterlings’ circular driveway and stopped the engine.
“Matthew! Noooooo!”
I sprang out of the car at the sound of the loud shriek and was greeted by the sight of Matthew in the center of a ring of children, which included Olivia and Jenny, plus a dimple-cheeked boy who looked maybe two, and a couple of older children I took to be Skylar’s half-siblings, Annabelle and Christoph. Matthew was holding Olivia with her arms around his waist while he twirled around and around, causing her feet to fly out behind her.
“Ahhhh!” she screamed with the kind of joy I had never heard from my daughter. Not in nine and a half years.
“Hold on, kiddo!” he cried as he whirled faster, until finally they were both out of breath.
He released her gently back to the ground, and almost immediately, he was tackled by her and the rest of the children, the smaller ones begging for their turns while the older two just seemed to enjoy the chorus of hugs and contact.
“Wait, wait, wait, you hooligans!” Matthew cried, grinning hard as he fought to free himself of all the tiny hands. “I need a break! Hold on, Liv, lemme say hi to your mom. Then the merry-go-round is back in service.”
“I’ll take his place!” the boy, Christoph, volunteered with a slight French accent and was almost immediately pounced on by the other kids while Matthew made his escape.
“Hey, doll,” he greeted me, still out of breath as he wiped his brow.
He was red-faced and gleaming with joy. I wanted nothing more than to kiss every part of him, and maybe lick the drips of sweat from his neck.
I shivered. Oh, no. I couldn’t go there. Not now.
“Having fun?” I asked.
“Sure am,” he said.
“What happened to the game?” I asked, checking my watch. It was nearly five o’clock. Good lord, where had the time gone?
“Ah, it was a shitshow, if you want to know the truth. Sox won, nine to zero.” He scowled adorably. “Pathetic. And now I owe Brandon a Benjamin, to top it off.”
I hid a smile. I couldn’t have cared less about baseball, but I enjoyed his passion. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You were gone a while. Get everything done?”
I turned back to the children, not wanting to dive into the nightmare I’d found. “For the time being.”
“So, moving in to your new digs this week, I take it.”
“Not likely.”
“What happened?”
I sighed. And then because I had to tell someone, I proceeded to fill him in on the house’s strange new denizens and the man with the gun. By the time I finished, Matthew was rubbing his jaw, forehead furrowed so deeply his brows were almost touching.
“Do you have to go back?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Tomorrow, I suppose. I’ll probably need to hire an attorney to serve the
eviction notice. I wouldn’t normally push right now, but the house is in such disrepair, and, well, it’s mine.”
“Of course it is, baby, of course,” Matthew murmured, rubbing a sympathetic hand on my shoulder.
I fought the urge to collapse into him and accept his comfort for real.
“Take Brandon and Skylar up on their offer,” he said. “Stay here while you figure it out.”
I looked up. “You knew about that?”
Matthew shrugged. “Brandon might have mentioned it at the game. Apparently, Skylar’s pretty keen on you, doll. Not that I blame her.”
There was a loud whoop as Annabelle and Christoph were now taking turns spinning Jenny and Olivia around in the grass.
I sighed. “I can’t think why. She barely knows me.”
A finger slid under my chin, and Matthew tipped my face gently toward his. “Because she knows the goods, baby. And you’re the goods.”
For a moment, I almost believed him. But then the finger dropped, and I turned away, back toward the kids who had all collapsed, aside from Luis, into the green blanket of grass.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “You all drop the kids off in the morning, right?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Right. We can dig around public records. Find out what’s going on with the people living there, contact the police if we need to. You don’t have to do this alone, Nina.”
We turned back to watch the kids again. There was something soothing about watching children simply be happy. Olivia in particular continued to shriek with unabated joy as she and Jenny whirled around together in some bastardized version of “Ring Around the Rosie.”
“You know,” Matthew said, breaking through my daze, “the first time I met her, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Do you remember that?”
Did I remember the moment where my brown-eyed, half-Italian daughter had looked straight into the eyes of a man carrying the same sort of blood between his veins? Did I remember the moment my heart stopped from wanting them to know each other more?
“Yes,” was all I said. “Yes, I remember.”
“Not just because she looks like you—stupid beautiful, of course—but because, I don’t know. There was something about her that just made me feel connected.” He shrugged. “Probably you. But I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. The three of us together. Maybe a couple more in the mix.”
I was silent as I watched the children, concentrating on staying perfectly still lest my face give away all my raging emotions.
“What about you?” Matthew asked quietly. “Did you ever think of it? You and me? Kids? A family together?”
I could feel his gaze on me, though I didn’t dare look at him. I thought of the house with its once-bright white paint. I thought of the backyard with the little stream and the deck with the rocking chair. I thought of Matthew in a large sitting room, wrestling with two children on the floor while I sat on a sofa, nursing our youngest.
“Many times,” I admitted just as quietly. “Every day since we met.”
And then, before he could say anything else, I turned to go inside and help Skylar with dinner. Because I knew no matter what, the look on his face would break my heart with longing. And I’d had quite enough of that for one day.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I’ll miss you, darling.”
My hands fluttered over Olivia once more, who stood patiently as I checked her over for the fourth time since I’d announced I was leaving. We’d driven as a caravan to Andover behind Brandon and Skylar’s large Yukon; Matthew and me in the car with Olivia. Skylar’s siblings were the ones who attended here, albeit as middle-grade students in a completely separate wing. The Sterlings had hustled their tribe in one direction, and Matthew had stayed in the car while I escorted Olivia through check-in at her own dormitory.
She was still dressed in her casual clothes, but her uniforms were neatly folded in the assigned wardrobe beside her bed, which we had dressed in the new bedding I purchased. While Matthew took the morning to teleconference with his office from the car, we had spent the last several hours decorating her room together with some new things and others taken out of her summer storage. Ironically, Olivia seemed to be more excited to rediscover her old stuffed animals and posters after a summer apart than at the prospect of hanging new posters on her walls.
Her roommate, a sweet girl named Veronica, giggled from her bed on the other side of their shared room, where she was reading some sort of comic book.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “My mom did the same thing. She’ll leave soon.”
“Not if I can help it,” I chided, suddenly overcome with the need to pull Olivia in for one more hug.
“Mom,” Olivia mock-complained, though the pink in her cheeks told me she wasn’t too upset.
Finally, I let her go. “Are you sure you have everything you need?”
She nodded. “Yes, and if I need anything, Ms. Hamlin’s room is just down the hall. She’s one of the nice dorm moms. We got lucky.”
“And you like your room? You two feel safe here?”
Veronica and Olivia both nodded.
“This room’s a lot nicer than last year,” Olivia said. “I like the view of the cherry trees. Plus, Ronnie and I are actually friends, not like me and Janet Horner.”
Veronica snorted. “Oh my gosh, ew! I feel so bad you had to room with her.”
While the girls gossiped a bit more about their classmates, I peered out at the aforementioned cherry trees, whose gnarled branches were currently swathed with green. I didn’t remember being this comfortable being alone at Olivia’s age, but then again, over the last few days it had become increasingly obvious that Olivia’s shyness had less to do with her innate personality and more with her surroundings. At Skylar’s house, and later here, she was confident and chatty. It was New York that made my little girl scared.
Just one more reason to make the changes we both needed.
“Okay, then,” I said reluctantly. “I suppose that’s everything.”
Olivia flopped down onto her bed with a grin. “Don’t worry, Mama. You’ll be okay.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Aren’t mothers the ones who are supposed to console their daughters, not the other way around?”
“Tell that to my mom,” Veronica said. “She cried for a whole hour.” She looked pointedly at Olivia. “You’re lucky you’re getting away with just a hug or two.”
For a moment, Olivia looked like she wouldn’t actually mind if I burst into tears. But then she tipped her long nose up in that steadfast de Vries manner.
I hugged her again.
“I’ll be here on Friday to take you back to the Sterlings’ house with Anna and Christoph,” I murmured into her hair. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and I’ll have found a house before then.”
“I like Brandon and Skylar’s house,” Olivia said. “I wouldn’t mind staying there more.”
“They do have a lot of children,” I agreed.
“Oh, it’s not that.”
I released her and looked down. “Then what is it? Skylar’s not a particularly good cook.”
She shrugged in a way that was strangely and distinctly European. “It feels like a home,” she said. And then, perhaps as an afterthought, “And maybe Matthew will come back.”
I opened my mouth, unsure of what to say. On the one hand, I loved that my daughter and Matthew seemed to have made such a genuine connection in such a short period of time. But on the other…
“Don’t worry, Mama. If Daddy asks, I won’t tell him about Matthew.”
My jaw dropped. “I’m sorry?”
“He wouldn’t like it.” Olivia’s eyes darted toward her roommate, then back to me. “Because of the trial, you know.”
My heart fell. My poor, poor girl, having to negotiate these power dynamics.
“So, you know?”
“That he’s one of the lawyers going after Daddy?” She nodded sadly. “Yeah, I overhead him men
tion it to Brandon. Plus, Daddy really didn’t seem to like him at Grandmamá’s house.”
“You don’t seem to be bothered much by it,” I observed.
Olivia was quiet for a minute. “Well…I don’t want anything bad to happen to Daddy. But…”
“But what?” I prompted.
Her little brow furrowed. “Sometimes I think it would be okay if we didn’t see him at all.”
I didn’t push her further. No children should be asked to condemn their parents, even if they don’t know they aren’t really their parents.
“Do you and your father talk a lot?” I wondered.
She shrugged. “Oh, no. He never calls me here. But I just thought you’d want to know I still wouldn’t say anything. Just in case.”
A pang of guilt knotted in my stomach. At the idea that Olivia felt as though she had to choose sides, but also at the fact that she didn’t know the truth. It wasn’t the first time I’d wondered what she would say if she knew who her real father was. But it was the first I’d really wanted to tell her for her own sake.
Instead, I gathered her close for one last hug. “I love you.” I kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you on Friday.”
“Bye, Mama. I…I love you too.”
Matthew was waiting in front of the car when I returned, leaning against the door. Despite being on vacation, today he was dressed for business in a sand-colored linen suit, straw fedora tipped to one side while he read something on his phone. “Just in case,” he said, though what case that might be, I didn’t know.
When I approached, he hastily stowed his phone in his pocket.
“Hey, doll,” he said as he removed his hat. “Everything go all right?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
He didn’t look convinced.
I pressed my lips together, suddenly trying not to cry. “It’s always difficult to say goodbye. I miss her when she’s gone.”
“Why not have her come home, then? There are good schools in New York too.”
“You know who my husband is, Matthew,” I said quietly, though the truth was, he really didn’t. Not like I did.
The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2) Page 31
