The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1)

by Nicole French

  “I saw motherhood, Matthew,” she said as her hand lay flat over her abdomen. “I saw love. Real love. For the first time in my life.”

  We were quiet for a long time, as if both of us were digesting her story, and not just me.

  “And the professor?” I wondered. “Does he know he has a daughter here in New York?”

  She looked grim. “I thought to tell him, later. The first few years of Calvin’s and my marriage were…well, I thought it was a mistake—”

  “It was.” I couldn’t help it. The idea of Nina married to anyone other than, well, me was a mistake.

  The thought surprised me. But also seemed…natural. Soothing, even.

  But the idea of her marrying a guy who, from what I could tell, was little better than a sexual predator made me feel fuckin’ violent.

  “Well, after one particular argument, I told Calvin that I planned to return to Florence and tell Giuseppe about Olivia. I thought perhaps he would help us in the event we were cut off. In the event Grandmother couldn’t forgive the scandal.”

  I wanted to crush the fucking bench under my hands. So close. She had been so close to freedom. “Then what happened?”

  She swallowed. “He—he died.”

  My head jerked up. “He what?”

  She pressed her fingertips into her brow, like she was trying to force the memories out. “Giuseppe died. Honestly, Matthew, I don’t know much. The university announced it to the students. He had a sudden heart attack. Died in his bed.”

  “And he was how old?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps forty-five? It was very unexpected.”

  “I’ll bet it was.”

  I couldn’t stand it. Every instinct I had was on alert. Right when she’s about to tell Olivia’s dad the truth and leave her bloodsucking husband, the Italian drops dead? It seemed…too convenient.

  But before I could press her about it, something else occurred to me. Something that arrested my imagination completely.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You said Florence? You were studying in Italy?”

  “Matthew, I told you that.”

  She had, but I’d forgotten the fact in the middle of all of this as my brain made another connection. “So your daughter…she’s half Italian?”

  Nina’s expression softened as she followed my train of thought. “Yes. I suppose she is.”

  I didn’t know why, but that detail gutted me. Italy is a big place, to be sure. And regionally, it’s pretty diverse. Different dialects. Different customs. Sicilians are pretty different from Venetians. Neapolitans from Romans.

  But for a kid growing up in the Bronx, in a neighborhood like Belmont, the larger connection to the country meant something more, maybe. Being Italian American meant having a community in a city full of people from elsewhere. It was bad enough that Nina had a daughter with another man. But that her daughter shared blood from the same place as the majority of my kin…

  I took her hand and played with her fingers. My thumb brushed over her rings. “I was in Italy around that time, you know. Stationed for a bit in Sicily. One liberty across the water…maybe it would have been me.”

  I shouldn’t have said it out loud. There was that sense again, more clearly than ever, that a woman, a life had been stolen from me.

  A daughter.

  Nina’s mouth pressed into a crooked smile. “In another life…”

  I exhaled through pursed lips. It was painful, this kind of hypothetical thinking. “Yeah. Another life. But, Nina…what about this one? What about your own?”

  Nina bent forward and pressed her face into her hands. When she sat up again, the moonlight cast her face in high relief, revealing streaked makeup and kiss-swollen lips.

  “Oh, Matthew, don’t you see? I don’t care anything about myself. But Olivia?” She pressed a hand to her heart. “She is all that matters. And if she ever learned the truth about what she is, it would break her.”

  “So you’ll lie to her instead?”

  Nina closed her eyes, as if she were in pain. “I’m already beyond repair, my love. But I won’t smash my daughter’s heart too.”

  We stared at each other for a long time. Slowly, I raised my hands and framed her face, examining its flaws, its curves and hues, its complete and utter perfection. The dusting of freckles over her nose. The slight arch of her dark blonde brows. She had a wrinkle just between them—likely it appeared only when she was upset, to match the divot in her bottom lip.

  “You’re a good mother, Nina,” I told her solemnly. “Your daughter’s lucky to have one who cares that much about her.”

  She didn’t say anything. But she didn’t look away, just let her big gray eyes shine with sadness and pride.

  Slowly, because I couldn’t help it, I leaned in to kiss her again.

  “Don’t.” Nina’s voice was a whisper. “Oh, please, don’t.”

  I considered ignoring her. She stared at my lips like they were the promised land. Every part of her was tensed. She wanted this just as badly as I did. Maybe more. Her mouth was wet and open, her breath coarse, almost feverish.

  But there was so much fear in her too. She was still, not even blinking as she waited for my response. A tiny flutter ticked away at her jaw. And if I watched very, very carefully, I could see her entire body vibrating like a guitar string that had just been plucked.

  “Nina,” I whispered as I pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

  She shivered. “Matthew.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

  She closed her eyes, her long lashes casting a shadow across her cheeks. “Yes, I do. Because I’m asking it of myself.”

  She wasn’t just scared. She was terrified. And that was never, ever something I wanted Nina to feel with me. So I fought against every instinct I had and dropped my hands. I stood up. And stepped away from her.

  “I know what it’s like to lose a father, even one who wasn’t particularly present. I will not do that to Olivia. Her happiness—Matthew, it’s more important than mine.” She touched my lips. “I’m so sorry, my love. But that’s all there is to it. I shouldn’t have asked you out tonight. You and I…we have to stay away from each other.”

  “All right,” I said, struggling to keep my tone even. My walls were cracking like a teenager’s voice. “I’ll stay away, Nina.”

  Her slim shoulders fell in relief, though she rose from her seat. She closed her eyes for exactly three seconds until I pulled the rose from my lapel and tucked it behind her ear.

  “Until you ask me not to,” I finished softly.

  Her eyes opened. “What?”

  “I’ll respect your wishes. Because I respect you, Nina. More than you could possibly know. So I won’t kiss you again. I won’t call. I won’t text. I’ll pretend I don’t exist in your life.” I inhaled deeply. “Until you ask me to.”

  Nina pulled the rose from her hair and studied it sadly. “Well, then it’s settled. Because I won’t. I can’t.”

  I touched her cheek, then dropped my hand. “We’ll see.”

  Intermission II

  April

  She would have walked the rest of the way home on her own, dark or not. But Matthew, despite his earnest promise not to touch her, refused to let her go alone.

  Always a gentleman. With a dark side, of course. One that caused him so much guilt, but oh, it was one that she adored.

  He couldn’t have known how close she was to pushing him back into the park. That as soon as she saw the lights of Fifth Avenue, she nearly grabbed his hand and begged him to run away with her. Hide for days. A cardboard box, under a concrete bridge. Out of sight, out of mind. Central Park was the only place where, even for a few scant feet, it was almost as if New York didn’t exist.

  But she couldn’t.

  That was her own cross to bear.

  He left her when the Met came into view, pressing one final kiss to her palm, then disappearing back into the trees like a ghost. He was a mess—bow tie half-undone
, dirty tracks on his dinner jacket, pieces of his glossy hair sticking up on both sides where she’d grabbed it. She was a mess, to the point where the doorman would almost certainly wonder if she’d been accosted on her way home. The custom Valentino she’d ordered back in January was utterly unrecognizable, and covering it with her dirty mink coat made no difference. Mud stained the hem and two dark spots from when she had sunk to her knees. One of the spaghetti-thin straps had broken, and the bust was stretched beyond repair.

  But as Nina made her way up the streets of the Upper East Side, she barely even noticed her disarray or the occasional horns that honked their awareness. Because walking away from him, even now, was taking every iota of strength she had. Every step became more labored. Her chest felt like someone was standing on it. Her heart like it might explode.

  That was the problem with meeting someone who made her feel more alive than she ever had in her life. When he left, it practically killed her. His absence was murder.

  Nina stumbled the last few blocks to her building on Ninety-Second and Lexington. She could have called her car, but she couldn’t have borne being shut up in the big black Escalade. Another cage. Another jail. Just like this life.

  Who was she kidding? Ever since Matthew had admitted to a habit of strolling through her neighborhood looking for her, she had found herself walking nearly everywhere. Poor George, the driver, barely had any work these days. She simply marched wherever she liked. Under an umbrella during a particularly nasty gale. Through the final, late March snow that covered the city just last week.

  Now early spring blooms were poking through the dripping remains of winter. Tomorrow, the blue sky would shine, and the sidewalks would be teeming with people. But not with him.

  No more.

  The thought ached, bone deep.

  “Evening, Mrs. Gardner. Are…oh, my, are you all right, ma’am?”

  Nina swallowed a snarl. Ten years she had used Gardner, but she’d never liked it. How long had she fought her family to take the name de Vries only to give it up for that? Mrs. Gardner. Like the wife of someone who should be tending her grandmother’s Long Island estate. The way Celeste addressed her staff without knowing the actual person’s name.

  No, she thought. Gardner was fine. No better or worse than Astor or de Vries or any others she could have ended up with. It was the man who put the sour taste in her mouth. And never more than in the last six months.

  “I’m fine, Carl,” Nina said to the weekend doorman as he escorted her to the back of the elevator bank. “I just had a bit of a tumble on my way home from the opera, that’s all. I’m in a poor mood.”

  She bit her lip. She wanted nothing more than to curl into herself and speak to no one. But the lack of pleasantries would cause suspicion. She couldn’t have that.

  So, she tried again. “How was your week?”

  “Not bad, not bad. Picked up some extra shifts down at the De Vries Shipping offices like you suggested. Sure will come in handy now that my mother’s in the nursing home.”

  Carl continued jabbering until they reached the service stairs at the far end of the lobby. He pulled open the door, but looked at the concrete stairwell doubtfully, then back at her ruined clothes.

  “Sure you don’t want to try the elevator today, Mrs. Gardner? Maybe just this once? Manuel can be here in a second.”

  Nina shook her head wearily, holding back a shudder. He really could not imagine what a horror that would be, particularly tonight.

  “No, thank you, Carl,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  When the door shut behind her, she slipped off her shoes and began the long climb up, up, up to the twentieth floor. She barely noticed the slight burn in her legs by the time she reached the top. She was used to it. She wished she wasn’t. Tonight, of all nights, she needed the burn to distract from the facts of her life. From her complete and utter disgrace.

  Instead, with every step, it felt like she was carrying an extra weight. Putting her tower on her shoulders instead of ascending it. If only her hair were long enough, like Rapunzel, to ask her dark prince to help her escape the ogre within.

  Tears welled as she stopped at her apartment door and slipped on her shoes again. Matthew’s face came to mind. The crestfallen expression when he had listened to her story. When she had told him of Olivia’s origin, and she could see, plain as day, the idea cross his face.

  She could have been his.

  How many times had she imagined it herself? A fool’s dream, of course. But one she could never shake.

  Her damaged heels echoed on the white marble flooring when she entered the apartment. The heavy door to the service stairs shut behind her, and every part of her wilted. She stared at the large bouquet of red roses in the foyer—flowers she had delivered weekly now instead of the usual bouquet of lilies. She approached the table and set the clipped bud from Matthew’s jacket in front of them. His flower was wilted and beaten—another reminder of the train wreck of their walk. But she couldn’t throw it away. Not yet.

  “You’re home early.”

  The sound of Calvin’s voice startled Nina out of her mourning. She shut her eyes, summoned the mask she had perfected her entire life, and turned.

  “Ah, yes. I wasn’t up for donors’ cocktails after. Why aren’t you in London?”

  Calvin shuffled down the hall from the bedrooms. He looked a bit worse for wear in nothing but a t-shirt strained over his overstuffed belly, silk boxers, and the paisley socks he loved from Bergdorf’s. Not for the first time, Nina noted how hard her husband tried to look wealthy. And that even after ten years of being married to her, the execution was always off, like a Halloween costume that wasn’t quite right.

  Is he good to you? Matthew had asked her once.

  And like a child, she’d cried.

  “They pushed the meeting to next week. I came home to have a damn rest. Good lord, Nina. What the hell happened? You look like a hobo—the doormen must be laughing their asses off right now.”

  There was no concern in Calvin’s voice. No questions about whether or not she was okay. Instead, he was more embarrassed for her appearance. Despite the fact that she was the one born and bred in the highest social circles of New York, Calvin was far more concerned with appearances. It was ironic, then, that he never quite got them right.

  Nina kicked off her shoes with a clatter and pulled off her coat to set on the foyer table.

  “I fell in the park,” she said flatly. “Twisted my ankle and rolled down a hill.”

  “And took your dress and coat with you,” Calvin remarked. “How much did that set us back?”

  He didn’t even wonder why she had been in the park at all. Matthew, of course, would have gone straight to that. Admonished her for being careless, for not protecting her own safety.

  It took more energy than normal for Nina not to roll her eyes. Though yes, the dress and shoes were all quite expensive, Calvin had never, not in ten years, adjusted to the fact that even that cost was negligible compared to her actual holdings.

  Calvin was a collector. Every month, he glowered at the balances on their bank statements like a dragon guarding its hoard. When Nina was passed over for Eric to inherit the de Vries family’s larger holdings, Calvin was furious. Not because he (or Nina) actually had any legitimate interest in running the company. No, it was because those numbers—the numbers that had always belonged to Nina as a result of her grandmother’s careful trust planning—would never truly belong to him. As she did not inherit, neither did he.

  The truth was, her husband had never been particularly talented at making his own money. Despite working at several different hedge funds, he had failed to rise to the levels of Soros, Shaw, or any of his other contemporaries. His real estate ventures collapsed time and time again. He simply didn’t have the touch. His fortune came from Nina’s family—a fact of which he was keenly aware and for which he never stopped resenting her. Particularly when he continually lost the small allowance he was granted from C
eleste de Vries’s estate.

  “It’s fine. I don’t really care for this dress anyway. I only wore it as a favor to the designer.”

  Lies, all lies.

  “Do you ever wear red?” Matthew asked as he traced a rosebud up and down her body. “Like this?”

  From that moment on, she’d never wanted to wear anything else. Although when she bought this dress, she never thought the man who requested she wear red would ever see it, she knew it was the only thing she could wear to the premiere. She had been in love the moment she saw the designs. Adored the woman she became when she put it on.

  Someone passionate. Someone alive.

  Nina picked up Matthew’s flower and started in the direction of her suite. There, if she were lucky, she could draw a bath and scatter these rose petals over the suds. Sink into her memories of his touch. Soak in it as her own private goodbye.

  “Well, it’s for the best,” Calvin said. “You look like a whore in that thing. If I had been here when you left, I would have made you change.”

  Nina paused on her walk, took a deep breath, then exhaled and kept going. These little possessive streaks in her husband came out from time to time. His most recent project must have done poorly this week. Perhaps that’s why his next trip was delayed.

  “Why in God’s name were you walking home in the first place?” Calvin snapped as he followed her, tension trailing with every step. “Wasn’t George there to drive you?”

  Now he asks. Matthew’s voice, snarling in her head. Selfish motherfucker. Why wasn’t he there, huh?

  “I felt like a walk,” Nina replied. “It was very stuffy in the hall.”

  She felt almost lost as she wandered into her private suite. It was as deluxe as the rest of the apartment, dressed with the same shades of cream, white, and beige. With yet another explosion of red—more roses atop the Majorelle sideboard.

  She drifted Matthew’s over her lips.

  “Roses again?” Calvin edged next to her, then plucked the flower from her grasp and wrinkled his nose. “When are you going to get over this obsession?”