Nina laughed. “Who was she?”
“Brenda Caruso,” he said. “The summer after my senior year of high school. We both worked scooping ice cream at Coney Island the year the Brooklyn Cyclones started playing at MCU Park. We had sex under the boardwalk, like that song by the Drifters.”
A wave of jealousy washed through Nina. “Can we do that?” she asked.
“Well,” he said, “maybe not at Coney Island, but I’m sure we can find a quiet boardwalk somewhere. What about you? What was your first time like?”
“I’m boring,” she said. “It was my college boyfriend, Max. We met during freshman year and had sex in his dorm room while his roommate was away for the weekend. It was the first time for both of us. He pretended he wasn’t nervous, but we admitted to each other later how afraid we both were that it would be awful, that we would be awful, that we’d disappoint each other.”
Rafael shifted closer to her. She felt the mattress dip as he moved. “Is that what you meant before when you said this is a big deal? Are you worried we’ll disappoint each other?”
That was almost what she was worried about. “Maybe,” she said, moving toward him.
Rafael bent forward and kissed the top of her head. Nina closed her eyes.
He kissed each eyelid.
“I’m actually worried that I’ll disappoint you,” she whispered. “Or I’ll do something or want something that you . . . that you’ll think . . .”
He kissed her lips. “Never,” he answered.
He kissed her again, harder, and this time let his kiss slide down to her neck. Then his hand was in her hair as he ran his tongue along the length of her collarbone, his fingers trailing along the bottom of her jaw. She turned her head and caught one of them between her lips and he closed his eyes. “You are so damn sexy,” he said, opening them again, looking up at her.
Rafael slid his finger out of Nina’s mouth and she half smiled. “It’s nice to feel this kind of desire,” she told him.
“It is nice,” he said. “It’s been a long time since anyone wanted me like this.”
“That’s not true,” Nina said. “I wanted you. I just kept it quiet.”
“I’ve wanted you, too,” Rafael said as Nina moved her hand down his body. She could feel him getting harder against her fingers. She kissed him.
Rafael kissed her back just as insistently and reached under the covers, slipping his fingers inside her. She moaned, then licked her fingers before putting them back on his erection.
The two of them rocked against each other’s hands, the pleasure of it making them shiver. But Nina wanted more than hands.
“Can we?” she asked, rolling to her side, guiding him toward her under the covers.
Rafael nodded in response and Nina wrapped one leg around his hip while sliding onto him. “Oh,” they both breathed in unison.
It felt like they were made for each other. The shape of his body, the angle of his hips, the length of his torso—the way they each knew intuitively what the other person wanted, needed.
When she came, Nina’s body shook with a feeling so intense she didn’t know if she could call anything she’d experienced before an orgasm. Or maybe she needed to create a new word for this sensation—this feeling of pleasure so all-consuming that there wasn’t room for anything else.
After Rafael came a few moments later, he and Nina lay against each other on the bed.
“Remember that thing you were worried about?” he said, as he caught his breath.
“Mm-hm,” Nina answered.
“Truly no need to worry about that ever again,” he said. “There is no way you could ever be disappointing.”
And in spite of everything else that had happened—and whatever else was yet to come—Nina Gregory fell asleep with a smile on her face.
69
The next morning, despite how late they went to bed, Nina and Rafael woke up early.
She looked over at him in the bed next to her, his hair rumpled, his mouth curved into a grin. She had the overwhelming urge to kiss him, so she did.
“Well, that’s a nice start to the day,” he said, his voice gravelly from sleep.
She’d been worried it would feel strange to wake up next to someone who wasn’t Tim, but it didn’t. It felt natural. Like this was where she was supposed to be.
“I can drive you back,” Rafael said, his hands reaching out to caress her breasts.
Nina shook her head. “I’ll take the train,” she said, luxuriating in his fingers on her skin. “We’re being extra careful. Jane and Mac would have me drawn and quartered if someone spotted us together.”
Rafael slipped his hand to Nina’s waist under the covers. “I’d never let them,” he said. He pulled Nina closer and curved his body around hers. “I’m so glad you interviewed to be on my campaign staff, and even gladder you quit.”
“Same,” Nina told him, then she squinted at the clock. “I think we have some time before we need to head back to the city. We could go for a run, or—”
Rafael silenced her with a kiss. “Or we could do this,” he said.
Nina couldn’t help it, she blushed.
And Rafael kissed her cheeks where they’d turned pink.
70
As they were getting dressed, Rafael said, “At least we won’t have to stay hidden for too long. The election’s over in three and a half weeks.” He knotted his tie. “And then you’ll be dating either the mayor of New York City or a lawyer whose dream crashed and burned.” He looked at her. “Will you still want me if I lose?”
“No question,” she said, but as she pulled a navy camisole over her head, she wasn’t thinking about what would happen if he lost. She was thinking about what would happen if he won. Dating the mayor of New York City would mean living in an even brighter spotlight. Unconsciously, her body stiffened.
“What is it?” Rafael said.
“Nothing,” Nina told him, she wasn’t going to think about that. Not now. “We should finish getting dressed and head back to the city. I’ve got a new job now. I’ve gotta get up to speed.”
“Buena suerte,” he said, wishing her luck as she bent to slide her feet into her heels.
“Gracias,” she answered.
And when she stood up, he kissed her again.
* * *
• • •
Half an hour later, Rafael dropped Nina off at the train in Cold Spring, and she waved good-bye from the platform. “I already miss you!” she called through his open window as he drove away.
Even in the chilly air, her body was still vibrating with the heat of him, and her muscles were sore from what they’d done together. He’d made finding out about her dad’s embezzlement tolerable. He’d taken her out of that world, away from everything, and made her feel loved and understood and appreciated.
Her phone pinged. Nina looked down expecting Rafael. It was Tim.
I was thinking, the text said. This is all a huge mistake. I missed you last night. I miss thinking about the future we were going to have together. I know I said not to contact me, but can we talk again? I can accept the new Nina—or at least most of it.
Nina stared at the screen. She didn’t miss him, not in the way he missed her. She’d slept with another man and felt better than she had in longer than she could remember. There was no way she could respond that wouldn’t hurt him, so she told him the truth.
I’m sorry you missed me, she wrote back, just as the train pulled up to the platform. But I’ve been thinking, too, and I think this was the right choice. Then she added: Will you let me know when you’ve told your parents?
Tim didn’t respond.
She understood. She deserved his silence. She deserved worse. He’d thought she was his forever, and she’d let him believe that. She’d become a person he didn’t recognize. She just hoped he’d remember the good things
about her, too. That ten months of dating wouldn’t kill thirty-three years of friendship forever.
71
Back in the Gregory Corporation offices, without Rafael there to distract her, Nina felt the weight of her father’s actions again. But it was an odd sensation, because there was nothing she could do to fix it. Nothing she could come up with, at least. She’d contemplated paying the company back, but to do that, she’d have to admit to what her father and TJ did and that would hurt the corporation even more than her father had. So instead she decided to tackle a problem she could do something about: She’d look for candidates to interview for the CEO position. As she started sorting through her father’s ancient Rolodex, Melissa buzzed. “Caroline Calder wants to see you,” she said. “Are you available?”
“I am,” Nina answered, wondering if Tim had told his mother about them yet, if that was what Caro wanted to talk about.
When Caro opened the office door, her face gave nothing away. “Want to take a walk?” she asked. “I spoke to my husband this morning.”
Nina could see Caro’s fists clenched. She was upset, even if she wasn’t showing it.
“Sure,” Nina said, standing up. “Let’s go.”
The two women walked out of the office and took the elevator down to the ground floor.
“Central Park?” Nina asked, orienting her body north.
“As good a place to talk as any,” Caro answered.
They walked quickly, Nina waiting for Caro to speak. When they were two blocks from the office building, Caro finally said, “So it seems like your father and my husband made some unfortunate choices.” That was what this was about. Not Tim.
“That’s one way to put it,” Nina said, wondering what TJ had told her, whether he’d given her the whole story.
Caro turned, and Nina could see tears shimmering in her eyes. “God, they’re such idiots. It’s not just the illegality and the secrecy and the impropriety of it all. It’s the fact that their goddamn egos were more important than morals. More important than anything, really.”
So he’d told her everything.
Caro had put words to what Nina hadn’t quite figured out how to say. “Yes,” she said. “I know. And how do we get out of this mess? What do we do to fix it? Can we?”
“I don’t think we can,” Caro responded. “I think we don’t say anything. We’re the only ones who know.”
The women had reached the park and walked in through the Artists’ Gate, making a left on the park’s footpath. Nina thought about that, about keeping this secret her whole life. About asking Rafael to. She’d have to. They’d have to.
“You were right to tell TJ to retire,” Caro continued. “If anything comes out, TJ will take the fall. As he should. I told him as much. But hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Nina’s heart felt battered. So much had happened over the past six weeks. She thought about the person she was, the life she was living on primary day, and it seemed so foreign to her, like that woman was someone she’d once read a book about long ago. There was so much she wanted to say but she didn’t know how to express. At least not now. Maybe she’d call Leslie later. Leslie would help her figure all of this out.
“Are you taking the day off today?” Nina asked Caro, as the park drive turned north. “Want me to walk you home?”
“We can go in that general direction,” Caro answered. “But I think I might stay at the hotel tonight. This isn’t just about the company for me. I wish he’d said something. That he’d told me so I could’ve talked him out of it. That he trusted me.”
Nina should’ve realized that sooner. Honesty. Partnership. The two things Caro valued most had come crashing down around her. “You can stay at my dad’s place if you want,” Nina offered. “It’s empty.”
“Thank you,” Caro answered. “I’d prefer that. Fewer questions.” She shook her head. “When you’ve been married to someone for nearly forty years, you think you know him. I guess that’s not always true.”
Bikers and joggers were whizzing by, women with baby carriages—a couple of men pushing them, too. Nina often wondered what stories people had tucked inside them as they went about their day. No one would expect that she and Caro were having the conversation that they were. Anyone who saw them would probably assume they were mother and daughter, out for a stroll.
“While we’re talking about secrets,” Nina said, thinking about it for a split second before following her heart and asking. “Do you know what happened the day my mom died? I found a letter in the house upstate that my mom had written, talking about my father’s affair.”
Caro turned to Nina with a look of alarm on her face. “Oh, Nina. I’m so sorry you had to find that out.”
“So you knew,” Nina said.
“I did. Your father thought you’d never need to know. He felt terrible about it.”
Nina shrugged. “It’s the least of my problems at the moment.”
They walked by a playground, and the sound of children laughing floated toward them on the breeze.
“I don’t know how much you read,” Caro said, “but your father was having an affair with a British gallery owner he’d first met when he studied at Oxford. Veronica something. I can’t remember her last name. But she’d moved to New York after a divorce to open a gallery here.”
Nina could see her father being attracted to an Oxford-educated gallery owner. Like with her mother, he was interested in intelligence when it was paired with something slightly more bohemian. “Was he going to leave us for her?” Nina asked, feeling for a moment like the small child she once was.
Caro stopped walking and looked squarely at Nina. “He would never have left you, darling. Even if he and your mother divorced, he never would have left you. In spite of whatever flaws he may have had, your father loved you more than anything in his life. And from what he said to me afterward, he’d told Veronica as much when she suggested he get divorced, that they split their time between New York and London, that he build a Gregory Hotel there. He’d said no, but she stopped by with a Christmas present on her way home to England for the holidays anyway. And that changed everything.”
Caro started walking again, and Nina followed. “It changed everything,” Nina echoed.
She wondered what her life would’ve been like if her father hadn’t had that affair, or if Veronica hadn’t dropped the Christmas present off. What if Nina herself hadn’t put it under the tree. Or her mother hadn’t decided to go to the country that evening.
“Your father never saw her again after that,” Caro said. “He felt too guilty.”
Nina couldn’t imagine what that must’ve been like. The guilt he must’ve been carrying for decades. She’d felt a piece of it when she broke up with Tim. Whose mother she was talking to right now as if she were her own.
“If . . .” Nina started, not quite sure of where to go next. “If Tim and I stopped dating,” she said to Caro, “would you . . . would you still be . . .”
“Oh, darling,” Caro said, “of course. We’re family. Are you and Tim still going through a rough time? I’d hoped you’d worked things out after the fund-raiser. I remember when my sister passed away, everything TJ said and did was wrong. For months. If you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to—if it seems too strange. But if you do, I’d be happy to listen and offer any advice I can.”
“I broke up with him,” Nina said quietly. “Yesterday morning. He wants us to be the same as we always were, but . . . I’m different now.”
Caro stopped walking. Nina stopped, too, waiting for her to say something. Anything. Caro’s face was blank, until she looked at Nina’s open, pleading eyes. Then she gave her a rueful smile. “If you were my daughter, I’d say, ‘You need to go after what makes you happy.’”
Nina hugged Caro. And as the older woman’s arms tightened around her, Nina felt tears overflowing her eyes. Car
o had forgiven her. She loved her anyway. Through her tears, Nina let herself imagine that her father would have, too.
72
That Saturday morning, the third of the month, Nina put on one of her old black dresses, her grandmother’s pearls, and her mother’s diamond studs. I need your resolve, Mom, she thought as she slid her stockinged feet into a pair of black pumps.
When Caro had called last night to say that she was going to stay in 21-B for a while, the two women decided that the Gregory brunch the next day would be just them. Nina asked Gene to pick her up, and then get Caro, so they could enter together.
“Good morning, darling,” Caro said, as she got into the car, her eyes covered by a pair of large tortoiseshell sunglasses. She slipped them off once she got inside. Her makeup was impeccably done, as always, but that didn’t disguise the puffiness under her eyes or the raw spot on her lip beneath her lipstick. She must’ve been picking at it. Nina could never, in her life, recall Caro doing that.
“You don’t have to come today,” Nina said to her. “I can call Pris. I’m sure she’d be happy to have brunch with me.”
Caro gave her a sad smile. “Do I look that bad?” she asked.
“No one would know but me,” Nina said. “But if you want to go back and—”
“No,” Caro said. “I’ll be fine. And I’m not leaving you alone for this. I can’t stop thinking about your mother and what she would think of it all.”
The car stopped in front of the hotel, and Gene put it in park, exiting his door to open theirs.
“What would she have thought?” Nina asked.
Caro sighed, putting her sunglasses back on before getting out of the car. “I don’t think she would’ve been surprised.”
The brunch was just as bad as Nina had imagined it would be. From the moment she walked in, guests wanted to shake her hand, give their condolences, tell her a story about the hotel, or her dad.
But she was able to squash down her tangled emotions and keep her head up. In piercing her father’s myth, she’d found strength. In finding his flaws, she’d learned how to grow. With that knowledge, she was able to be the gracious hostess, the bereaved daughter, the role everyone expected her to play.
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